The Magic Hostel in the Magic Island

So first off I apologize for the lack of posting, but in truth, I really haven't been going anywhere either, so it almost cancels out. I left the city of Rio but stayed in the state, arriving at a tranquil beach suburb known as Paraty. It's pretty much also known for its cachaca distilleries, producing the best yet least known ones in the country. But after a quick 4 days, I hopped on a bus to the Sao Paulo station - which if anything reflective of the massive financial capital of Brazil, proves that the entire city of Sao Paulo must be lovely and quite newly developed. However - instead of going to the Pantanal from there - I met some cool gap year kids and joined them for a trip down south to the magical island: Florianopolis.
As amazing as anyone may tell you it is, I assure you its even better. I have thus followed in the footsteps of the bartender at the hostel I am currently in by not leaving (Steve is a kiwi who came here 3 months ago and has yet to leave). This island takes only an hour to drive north to south and 20 minutes east to west, but has mountains, beaches, lagoons, sand dunes, and probably more. We get the sunset over a lagoon (as well as over the bay connecting it to the mainland), and would get the sunrise over the ocean should we wake up in time. Its got massive parties and chill bars, cheap eats and fancy restaurants. The south has farms and fisherman villages, the north has luxury suburbs and surf bum beaches. For 12 bucks a night I get a hostel that could go for 100 euros a night if it had private rooms and an elevator, and (if i ever splurged on this expensive of a meal) for 10 bucks I could get more fresh food than I'd know what to do with. Did I mention that the world surf championships are being held here starting Friday?
And this is just the physical island. The people are a whole different story. Every single woman on this island could be a model. Literally every single one. You can even tell that all of the moms, who are all still beautiful, used to be knock outs. Every single person who has been travelling here, every one, has come close to hurting his (or her) neck from staring at people. Even the British girls that I'm travelling with now were checking out the girls because they are amazed too. And going to a party sponsored by the fashion school - which put on a runway show - definitely did not help me want to leave here. Nor did meeting pro-kitesurf girls, or my friend having met a TV presenter, or just meeting people who invited us VIP into clubs.
As far as the Pantanal is concerned, I have no doubt that Ill make it there, but I just still have no reason to leave here yet. My guess is that the far north of Brazil will have to wait for another trip.

Stuck Back Where I Started...

So I´ve been gone a month and it´s been... awesome.  Very relaxed places, very interesting people, very non-chalant.  For almost the entire time, I am in no rush to go anywhere, no rush to do anything.  I have the freedom and ability to change my schedule whenever and as frequently as I want, and I´ve been doing just that.

Last Sunday, while being near Porto Seguro, after discussions with my kiwi friend, I decided to go to Vítoria.  No tourists go there as there is no tourism infrastructure.  There are no sites, no things to do really, other than hang out in a fairly large Brazilian city.  I knew that my Portguese isn´t good, which would have made this quite difficult, but the city is halfway to Rio and has South America´s largest chocolate factory: with free samples.  So after getting my hopes real high to do this, I bailed.  After a few more minutes of thinking and some more discussions about where to actually go, I decided on Bella Horizonte.  Bella is another fairly large city without much tourism, but it does have tourists roll through on their journeys to Ouro Preto (the gold rush town) as well as to some great hiking and trails nearby.  This decision, which also lasted 24 hours, actually took me to the bus station and to the vendor needed to buy a ticket, which, much to my despair, was not available.  Having had enough of Porto Seguro, and with no one else there, I jumped on a bus back to Rio because, quite frankly, I saw Swedes (with whom I had had a 5 minute conversation already) and needed to just be moving.

Flash forward a week, and the need to move is back.  Unlike last time here, there really isn´t much touristy stuff to do, and being in a hostel includes constant interactions with new and different people daily.  I´ve gone out a little more - including the street samba sensation of Lapa which is great - and relaxed a lot more than last time.  My brief stop over in Rio - I honestly thought this would be at most 24 hours - became a week so far, and I am either taking a bus tonight or [probably] tomorrow around noon to the Pantanal. Or so I think.

From that area, I might cross into Bolivia, or just go up north, or even down south.  It´s really too far ahead to actually know what I will be doing, or where I will be going (hence why I didn´t even buy a bus ticket at the bus station today).  With crystal clear water in the north, but probable dirty water falling from the sky to supplement it, and insane animal wildness in the Pantanal, but no idea what I´d do isolated over there, and the best surf in Brazil in the south, but not knowing how to surf (yet), it´s impossible to predict what ticket I might buy next.  But as great as being stuck (literally) in Rio has been, all that I know for sure is that I must get moving again.