We arrived at the island of Florianopolis after a beautiful drive out of the mountains and along the coast but once we reached Floripa we were treated to rush hour traffic, we should have known Thursday before Easter weekend. Upon driving onto the island of Florianopolis we drove over a bridge and through the downtown metro area, lots of traffic but once we got close to the beach the road began to clear. The island was fairly built up in some areas but still rural in others like the lot next to our house that contained two cattle. We settled into our Airbnb house, the owners were so gracious and spoke English!! We poured a drink and let the kids jump in the pool before heading out to an all you can eat taco buffet for dinner. Buffets seem to be a thing in Brazil.
The next day we completed a writer’s workshop and Caroline published her first post… Animals of Patagonia. Maddy had some calls so we finished up our writing, ate lunch and headed to the beach called praia do Campache; A beach across from Ilha do Campeche. We were going to take a boat to the island and explore but we lost motivation and plopped down on the beach. We rented an umbrella and waited for the drink cart to make its way over to us. The waves were a bit rougher on the ocean side of the island and it was nearing high tide so the kids and I spent half the time building trenches to prevent waves from getting to our beach chairs. After everyone was tired of the beach we went home and grilled some meat on our Brazilian grill, this one had a deep pit to hold the fire, not sure if I am a fan.
On Saturday we planned to travel to the north of the island to an amazing beach but all three of the girls complained the whole morning about going to the beach and having fun… arrrgggghhh. We finally loaded up the car and traveled north along the eastern shore, the island is full of little beach towns, each slightly different. We arrived at Lagoinha do Norte which turned out to be a perfect beach for us, lots of sun, no direct waves, shallow beach, lots of food carts. We plunked down sun screened up and enjoyed the day. For lunch we had sausages from a food cart on a bun, the condiments were the best part, tomatoes, onions chimichurri sauce and needle thin potato chips. The girls made friends with our neighbor and they played in and out of the surf all day. We finally retreated home close to dinner time, everybody was tired but had an awesome day.
Travel-Trotter 