Florionopolis, Brazil

So we arrive in Florionopolis at 1am in the morning. We made an impulse buy of a cheap flight to Florionopolis. We didn't have any hostels booked and didn't really do any research. This really is the best way to travel. After, figuring everything out at the airport we were able to find a very nice hostel close to Barra de Lagoa called Ancorra. The owner of the hostel was incredible. At 3am in the morning he made us a bunch of Kipirinas turned on the hot tub and let us enjoy the rest of the night. Now that's service!

The beaches in Florionopolis are amazing! We checked out Mole beach the next day which is a famous surfers beach. They get some pretty big waves there and some really good surfers. We even managed to captivate the beach goers with a new game we made up called coconut bowling. I'm sure the locals thinking, "What are these gringos doing now?"

That night we went to a favourite discoteque amongst the locals called El Devino. This place had amazing music and incredibly beautiful Brazilians. The catch is they give you a card and you are required to spend atleast 60 reals. It's a smart business idea but it doesn't work well if you get kicked out early. After Julio's three kipirinas at a time antics and him decorating the floors of El Devino we were kindly escorted out of the bar. Unfortunately that wasn't the end of the night. The taxi driver dropped us off in a favella instead of our hostel. Nice guy! So after wondering a round the favella for hours trying to figure out where we are {Not a good idea} we managed to make it back to the hostel. Good first night out, haha...

The next couple days we rented a car to check out the beaches around the island. Man, this island is absolutely incredible. I have not seen such sirene beaches in my life. The Southern part were the best. They were secluded tropical beaches with the green see through water. Man, I would love to live in a place like this. The scenery doesn't stop at the views and the beaches. Florionopolis is known as the meca for beautiful women. Naturally, we decided to extend our stay in Florionopolis.

We were able to hit dunes and do some sand boarding. Sand boarding isn't nearly as fast as snowboarding and it's much harder to turn. However it's pretty fun. It would be way more fun if they let us go down the steep slopes and take them off of jumps. I think those Brazilians need to try to snowboard for a little perspective. We also went out surfing in the huge Florionopolis waves. We borrowed surf boards that were way to small for us. The surf board sank two feet when I tried to sit up on it, haha. Sooooo, I wasn't able to stand up. Still it was good to try it out there and watch the awesome surfers there.

The last three days of our stay we decided to couchsurf with a student named Caren who studies at the local University. We were there during the University's frosh week so were able to enjoy some amazing concerts and street parties on campus. It was really cool to meet the local students and see what it's like to go to school in Brazil. We all pretended to be exchange students as well. This allowed us to use all the university's facilities for free. Maybe one day I'll try to become a real exchange student at this university. One could only dream...

The last night in Florionopolis we decided to make a return to El Devino. This was a great idea and a terrible idea. We all had an incredible night until the place closed. This time the bar waas charging a straight cover rather than giving you a minimum on your bar tab. The girl at the front failed to tell us that. So we were faced with huge bills that we didn't bring enough money for nor did we plan on paying. So after half an hour of hilarious broken Spanish/English arguments they took our Australian friend Matt into the back room. The bouncer head butted him and tried to steal his camera. It was a good thing the bouncer didn't know what he was doing. Matt grabbed his camera back and was forced to pay with credit card. It's amazing how such a well known bar can be run by criminals. Either way it was a memorable story.

Overall, Florionopolis was an amazing place! I could have stayed another week easily. I will definitely come back. It is still the most beautiful place I've been too. If you go to South America this is a most go. period.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

So I`m still recovering from Carnaval and I only get one day to see Rio de Janeiro. The reason for this is Julio and Cole have been in Rio for 9 days and the wanted to hit the road. Rio de Janeiro is an incredibly beautiful city but is the most dangerous city in Brazil if not South America. Getting mugged there is very common. In fact, during Carnaval two hostels got ransacked by men from a nearby favella. People woke up to men holding grenades and guns in their face and demanding them to give them all their stuff. Clothes, money, backpacks, passports...everything. One of the hostels was in Copacabana where I was supposed to stay in but I changed the flight. Perhaps this was a good decision to change the flight?

I stayed with a German couchsurfer who lived in the nicest area of Rio (Le Bon). This is where Brazilian celebrities live apparently. That night we went out for traditional Rio food and met up with Cole and Julio to exchange Carnaval stories.

The next day I was in frenzy tourist mode. I went to go see Christo which is the infamous Christ statue at the top of the mountain in Rio. It is thirteen stories high and really is magnificent. You can even hire a helicopter and fly right by the statue. Definitely not within my budget though. The views from Christo were incredible. You can most of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Not too bad. I then checked out an infamous beach in Rio called Ipanema. It was packed that day with beachgoers. I could see why my Brazilian friends told me people really take care of their bodies in Rio. Unfortunately, that is all I got to see. We had to catch a late plane out to Florionopolis. The rest of Rio will have to wait for another time...

Salvador, Brazil

The next day I flew to Salvador. Salvador is known for the more commercialized type of Carnaval where you have to buy tickets for the blocos parties. The tickets are called abadas which are tshirts that you wear to the party. In Salvador they play the axe and dance pagogy which is pretty trippy dance. I was staying with another friend of a friend Luter. Luter and Kevin were incredible and showed me around and made sure my stay was as good as possible. On top of that, they spoke perfect English. I don`t know where I get this incredible luck.

That night we went out to the Salvador Carnaval. We decided to do ``popcorn`` which is what Brazilians say for not getting a ticket and walking beside the trucks (blocos parties). Each truck has a singer or band that plays and the people with the abadas follow beside the giant trucks within security and a giant rope. People without abadas can follow outside of the rope. In my opinion this is pretty much the same but it is more dangerous to do this and apparently it`s easier to meet girls. In fact, my friend Luter got punched in the face by some random guy who was looking for a fight. This is a common thing in Salvador Carnaval. I was lucky to avoid all conflicts but I did see a lot of fights. If you do get into a fight the cops will beat you up and bring you to jail so this was a very good thing I avoided anything. Since it was very crowded I managed to lose Luter, Kevin and the rest of the guys every night, haha. Good thing Luter lived close to the grounds. The first morning was tough to find his place. In fact, a car of random girls stopped and offered to give me a ride while I was walking on the sidewalk but I wasn`t in the mood to get kidnapped in Brazil. Plus, I had two more nights of Carnaval to go.

So I was supposed to leave Salvador for Rio on the last day of Carnaval but I found out some of the biggest DJ`s (Armin Van Buuren, Pete Tong and David Guetta) in the world was playing in one of the blocos parties. This was a chance of a lifetime and there was no way I was going to miss it. Plus, I got to see if for free. Thank you popcorn! That was such an amazing night. We actually met 40 Israeli soldiers that came all the way there just for the show. Man do those guys know how to party. You could not beat that atmosphere though. I knew from the start it was going to be one of those nights that you talk about for years. It definitely was.

So three nights in Salvador, I partied past sunrise, had some incredible nights, had some interesting conversations with girls that didn`t speak English utilizing my Portuguese-Italian-Spanish-French vocabulary skills. It was pretty interesting. So which one do I think was better? Recife-Olinda was truly amazing and it really opened my eyes to what Carnaval really is but you can`t beat Salvador. Sorry Andre, Vao and Bruno. Salvador is just soooo epic. I don`t think I will ever experience a party larger than that. I don`t know if it`s possible. Oh, and word of advice, if you get someone`s number get her to right it on your hand. People will steal anything out of your pocket even phone numbers. Worse mistake ever!

Recife-Olinda, Brazil

So I fly into Brazil the a few days before Carnaval. The first thing I see, which is pretty fitting, is a huge group of Carnaval dancers in the airport. They were dancing around in their traditional costumes playing the music. Recife is separated into two parts, Old Recife and Olinda. Olinda is well-known in Brazil for Carnaval. Many Brazilians prefer Olinda because it has parties on the street called blocos parties and because every party, concert or event is free.

I stayed with a friend of my Brazilian friend in Recife. Some other friends showed me around the city and took me out for parties. I was amazed how hospitable they were. I had a place to stay, personal tour guides and great company all around. So in other words, I was a pretty lucky guy.

The first day my friend Vao showed me around Recife which is a beautiful city. It is known as the Venice of Brazil because of it`s atmosphere and scenic canals. She then showed me Olinda which is the infamous Carnaval town. It was cool to see the city before it explodes with millions of people on the street. That night we went to a giant party in the back of someones house. There were 500+ people with a giant stage. I can`t say I`ve been to anything like that in Canada. Towards the end of the night it started raining too and when it rains in Brazil, it pours. The nice thing though is that it is always warm, so even though everyone is completely soaked, no one really cared. You really can`t break that Brazilian spirit, haha.

The next day we checked out a popular Recife beach and I saw Football de Praia for the first time. You might have seen it on TV before but it`s volleyball but only with your feet. It is huge in Brazil and Brazilians are amazing at it. I also tried out a popular beach sport called paletta which I`m planning on importing to Victoria by the way. It is raquetball on the beach. You use have a wooden raquet a tennis ball sized ball that you hit to eachother. You pretty much try to keep it going with your opponent as long as possible. I played with this old guy who has been playing it for decades. Some Brazilians really take it seriously, haha. After that I went to my friend Andre`s English class to speak with the class so everyone could practice their English. I got to learn a lot of cool thing about Brazilian culture. We then went to Old Recife for a pre-carnaval party. During Carnaval Old Recife is completely decorated, it has many concerts and it pretty much the party of the night. That`s where you`ll the Penembooku music called frevo. Each region of Brazil has their own form of music and dance. For example, samba is only native to the Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro regions.

Friday was the beginning of Carnaval. The official start is at night so we decided to go to Penembooku`s most famous beach Porto Galineas. It was about an hour away and my friend was nice enough to drive me there and show me around. On the way I saw a lot of sugar cane harvest and coconut farms. The beach itself was amazing. It had the nice sand with the tropical see-through water. It was the first time I`ve ever seen a beach like that. And the surfers over there put the Tofino surfers to shame. That night I went to my first Carnaval party in Old Recife. It was completely packed. There were a bunch of blocos walking around playing music and people were walking along them dancing the frevo and getting pumped up for the beginning of Carnaval. You couldn`t help but absorb the amazing atmosphere. After a bit of an adventure I had the first Carnaval party under my belt.

The Saturday was the first street parties of Carnaval in Olinda. This is what Recife-Olinda is famous for. And oh man, I was not ready for that. Canadian girls, you have nothing to complain about Canadians guys being to forward in bars. All I can say is Pemberton or Merritt Mountain Music Festival doesn`t come anywhere close in terms of debauchery. Uncomparable...

So in Olinda the streets are packed with blocos parties walking around playing music, holding the giant mascot puppets followed by a mass of people dancing the frevo as well as `meeting` new people. The weather is blaring hot, there`s beer, water and sweat flying around. In two words, pure pandemonium. You don`t know Carnaval till you come to Brazil and experience it.

That night Andre and I went out to Old Recife to enjoy the night parties. That night there were many concerts around we enjoyed. My favourite one was Gogol Bordello. They are a Ukranian band that were playing to a Brazilian singer. You have to checfk them out on YouTube.com. They play an upbeat type of folk rock. It`s tough to explain but they were amazing. Towards the end of the night the skies opened up and we had another famous Brazilian rain party. No one cared though because the music was so good. What an incredible night that was!