Make Time: Floripa - Southern Brazil

There is a sleepy/party town In southern Brazil called Florianopolis, which the locals call Floripa. You can be low key or a party person here and because of all my insane nights in Rio I'm going to be completely low key. Every time I have taken a bus from one town to another I've gone to the bus station a few days before to get my ticket. Not in Rio. I got up on my last day, Wednesday 3/5, had lunch with my closest new buddy Reka from Norway (dood is just as crazy as me), and then packed up and headed to the bus station. Got there around 1:15pm and went to the biggest bus company office and asked when the next bus to Floripa was. She says 2pm!! Wow. Only problem is that the only seats left are isle seats, which aren't great for sleeping, but I grab one and walk to the bus. Get on and it's not as nice as the buses in Argentina. Seats don't recline all the way and they aren't that wide. Oh well. Sitting next to a girl from London and her friends are in front of us, so we exchange some good stories and I pass out for a few hours. Unfortunately this bus ride is 18 hours, without movies and with an annoying two kids and their mother behind me. Kids are bitching most of the time or playing loud video games. It took all of my energy not to go off on them, but I was good and stayed low key. Finally get to Floripa, which is this tropical paradise town, and unlike all my other ventures I have no hostel. I walk into the downtown area and find a small cafe and use their wifi to find a hostel. The cafe owner tells me of a neighborhood called Campeche, which is very chill and good for me, so I book a hostel for one night cause its the only one that looks ok. So I get to the hostel and its in a pretty lame neighborhood and the beach is more than a mile away. I walk to go get my laundry done which is also about a mile away...on a busy highway. Not cool. Then I come back to the hostel and then walk on to the beach (pics below), which felt like almost 2 miles. Jumped in the water and my god I needed that. Perfect cool temperature and there is a beautiful isolated island just out across the waves. Get out of the water about a half hour later and head back to the hostel, where I make some pasta and then pass out early. Sleeping in a room with 4 other people wasn't so bad, but for some reason there were dogs barking for most of the night. I think every neighbor in that hood has a dog, and every dog barks at anything that walks bye. I was woken up about 5 times to dogs barking. No bueno. I get up around 9:30am to a very minimal breakfast, then meet some real nice girls from Australia, a hilarious guy from Dublin, and then I'm on my way to the other side of the island. There really wasn't much available for the next four nights, so I took a chance on a hostel that had no reviews. For me this is a huge risk, but the pics of Sunset Strip Eco Hostel looked amazing, and the neighborhood and beaches of Barra da Lagoa looker great as well, so I jumped a few buses and about 40 mins later I'm walking through a small path which opens up to a private beach. I've seen this beach in the hostel pics so I know I'm close, but WOW it looks even better in person. I took a pic from the front door of the hostel - overlooking the beach, and another from the rooftop which has amazing views of the beach and the ocean. Man I hit gold with this hostel. It feels like I'm in someone's personal lake house cabin, and they even have a full set of DVD's. I'm about to settle in and watch some Borat, but had to get this out for you to enjoy. I will take more pics tomorrow. So peaceful :)