We arrived by bus at the main rodavaria in Florianópolis, coming over the causeway on the main road into town. Along side are the remnants of the old bridge to the island of Catarina which acts as an old reminder of the past. The new Rodoviária dominates Florianópolis’ old port front and makes the first impressions of Florianópolis not that exciting. However, we had booked five nights on one of the remote beaches of Isla Catarinia at Pousada Mares do Santinho near a small surfing beach on the North of the Island. It is beaches like this that makes Florianópolis a great destination. We initially tried to find the Pousada by public transport, however, notwithstanding the complexities of the Florianópolis bus service and despite the best intentions, I could not work out what bus, or combination there of, to get to Praia Santinho. After chickening out and plumping for a taxi, it was apparent that even if we were fluent in Portuguese we’d have never found the Pousada without significant help.
We found the Pousada on Trip Adviser, and have to say that it was a great find. The manager of the Pousada was a very keen surfer, who made us feel relaxed and very welcome. It was a fantastic escape from the world in that the clientele was predominately Latin American, and we were the first Brits staying there for a long while. In all a completely fantastic find and for a Brit, being totally immersed into LatAm culture with very few fellow European tourists was great introduction to a different side of South America away from the monied tourists and the gringo trail.
The Praia do Santinho, the main beach, in the winter is a surfing paradise but in the summer it is very much a family resort, with almost as many Argentinians as Brazilians staying there. In particular it is a family resort with youngish families in the 25 to 40 year ranges enjoying the sand and surf. Also in South America, the beach wear is somewhat different to Europe, or at least the European beaches that we are familiar with. South American beach wear is very strict in that tops must be worn, but the bottoms are very skimpy. Also there is little difference across age groups, indeed the confidence of some of the South American women in all shapes and sizes, in their 30s and 40s wearing the standard South American beachwear is a very powerful statement.
The men on the other hand all fancy themselves as top footballers and wear long baggy shorts in complete contrast to the women.
The other very noticeable thing is the preponderance of tattoos, especially in the women. Having traveled though a number of Brazilian cities, tattoo shops were not that much in evidence, unlike the UK, yet pretty much everyone under the age of 40 had some some form of tattoo.
The beaches and surrounding development in Isla Catarina bare a very strong resemblance to Southern Spain back in the 1990s before the big construction boom, and rather like Spain, the Argentinians very much play the role of the Brits as the pioneer visitors complete with their own national idiosyncrasies that contrast with the Brazilians. Indeed almost half the visitors seemed to come from Argentina. A particular Argentinian ritual is how they take their mate down to the beach. In many cases there are a number of “Heath Robinson” type contraptions of how the Argentinians enjoy their mate on the beach and each family will have a number of personal mate mugs together with some most extraordinary themed flasks.
On the Sunday we went over to Praia do Inglesses, walking through the wonderful sand dunes between Santinho and Inglsesses and at the top end of Inglessses is an old fishing village. As it was Sunday the local churches marched their statues of the Virgin Mary and other Catholic Deities onto the beach, with fireworks being randomly let off for effect. These were placed in a number old old dinghies and then the statues were rowed out into the fishing boats. Not sure what this represented, but when surrounded by fireworks was a pretty spectacular event.
Date: 02/02/2018 to 07/02/2018