Oi Everyone,
Since we haven't posted to the blog in a few days due to the NYE holiday and then the post party recovery, I wanted to send a post...
We have only seen a small part of Santa Catarina Island. It is a relatively large island that is about 70-80 kilometers long and 15-25 kilometers wide. Ozell thinks the island reminds him of the one on LOST, and it does bear some similarities if it was completely undeveloped. There are some smaller towns and residential areas sprinkled throughout the island. The southern tip is the least developed and has large tracts of just pristine jungle and beaches. The north end is the more densely developed area with towns that look like most other beach resorts with mid-rise towers and large tourist populations. We are in the middle of the island in a town called Lagoa da Conceicoa (Lake of the [Immaculate] Conception). That is the one interesting feature of this island there are two large fresh water lakes that sit in the middle. We are along the larger one which has two parts. The town is of medium size and within a 50 minute walk to the most popular young person beach called Praia Mole. A little up the coast is the one nude beach on the island. It is beautiful, but it is also very cruisy and hosts a lot of sexual couplings. These beaches are not developed except for a couple of small bars that dot the coastline and serve pretty cheap cold drinks and food. That was a pleasant surprise given the highly inflated prices most beach communities charge right along the coast. The landward side of the beaches have beautiful sand dunes which are covered in vegetation. The the jungle hills rise behind them.
We spent the first couple afternoons we were here at Praia Mole. There is a large gay area at one end of the beach with a bar and a couple of drink stands. They also pump out some decent music to keep the spirits lively. The sand is a very light beige- not white like north Florida and not dark brown and gritty like San Diego. It reminds me most of the sand at Cancun, Mexico. The ocean temp is still surprisingly chilly but bearable when the sun is out. We are just entering their summer so I expect it continues to warm throughout the next few months. I would guess it is around 68-70 degrees right now. The waves are pretty big and there is some good surfing to be had on this beach even though there are allegedly better surfing beaches on the island. I was in the water on NYE and did some bodysurfing which was very fun with some long rides.
Yesterday and today the weather has been cold and rainy which really sucks when you came here for the beaches. There are way too many beaches for us to see anyways, but now we are losing days where we could have traveled around the island and seen a few different ones. Yesterday, I don't think either of us minded that the weather was bad since we needed to recover from the party on NYE.
There is another Brazilian gay guy staying in our dormitory room at the hostel. We have befriended each other, and he is nice. He traveled here alone, but he has some other friends who are also down here in Floripa. He went to the beach with us during the day on NYE. He was also my connection to find some ecstasy for the NYE party. I wasn't intending on partaking of any party favors because I figured none would present themselves since I do not go out and look for them myself- especially in a foreign country. But when our friend said that he knew of someone selling them at the beach, I decided it would be fun to get a couple.
I like the beach because there is a mixture of really hot guys and plenty of average guys. Everyone always thinks the "grass is greener on the other side", but I have learned that is mostly just a false preconception. There was not any higher percentage of hot Brazilians on the beach as anywhere else in the world. And there were plenty who did not belong wearing their Speedos. This is not to diminish the exotic attractiveness of the hot ones. I do like the spectrum of skin tones and the dark faces and eyes, and even though Florianopolis is a vacation destination, it is still mainly just other Brazilians who visit here. We were some of the very few foreigners along the beach. It was nice not to be surrounded by other foreigners, but since the vast majority of the guys were Brazilian, then little English was spoken. When there is a high percentage of foreigners at any location, then English often becomes the default common language used.
UNFORTUNATELY, we have absolutely no pictures of Florianopolis or the beaches to post presently. Consider this a victim of being robbed so many times and of our camera just recently. Since we have only been to the beach on the nice days we have had here, we have not wanted the hassle of looking after a camera. We are either often in the water, in the dunes urinating, or walking through the crowd people watching. All of which is not conducive to having a brand new camera around. The little money we bring we actually keep in our bathing suits even if we are in the water. Unfortunately, this means that we have no pictures of this lovely island or the people so far. If we go to the beach tomorrow, then I may bring the camera with me because I do want some visual memories of this place.
There have been some organized "circuit" parties for the holidays while we have been here. We did not attend the first one which was held on December 30th because we wanted to go to the one on NYE. The NYE party was held at a events center/reception hall not too far from where we are staying. It is a converted large home with a very nice outdoor garden with a pool and wooded area. The party was mainly outdoors, but there was a large reception hall which housed the DJs and the main dance area. They had speakers outside by the pool too so you could hear the music outside without any problem. The grounds were beautifully manicured. I purposely used the word "were" because Ozell and I could not believe the amount of trash that had accumulated by the end of the party. Plus when you have that many people trampling and dancing on the grass, walking through the edges of the gardens, and doing their "thing" in the woods the place was destroyed. I don't fault the party goers nearly as much as the promoters who should have had at least one to two staff dedicated to just going around picking up the discarded cans, bottles, and cups. There were NO trash cans provided anywhere. The pool ultimately became one repository for the trash, and the stairs to different levels were full of bottles which made ascending or descending them a hazardous situation.
We got there around 11:15 pm because the gates were suppose to open at 11pm and we still needed one extra ticket. We also wanted to be there for midnight since we had no other place to be. The first DJ sucked. She played the "happy fag music" that Ozell and I both disdain. I wasn't even sure if I was going to take the ecstasy or not. I was yawning but I knew that would not be a problem if I did take the E so I wasn't too concerned. Ozell was also very tired since neither of us were able to grab a nap between coming back from the beach and getting ready for the party. Nearing 2am, I decided to go ahead and take a pill. It kicked in about a half hour later. It was a mild and pleasant high for E, and it did put me in a dancing mood. The second and headlining DJ was also better. Not the best, but he did play much less tracks that contained vocals (one of our biggest complaints about happy fag music), and the songs that did contain vocals included songs like Pink Floyd's "Another Brick in the Wall" and REM's "Losing My Religion" which are infinitely superior to Madonna or Rhianna remixes. For the next three hours I mainly hung around the main area and danced or mingled with the Brazilian we knew and his friends. Ozell found himself between the main area and the dark woods at the rear of the property. This area served a few different purposes. It provided a place for some people to cool off and get away from the music, allowed people to do their drugs in a more private setting (although there were plenty people ingesting/inhaling their drugs in the main area also), gave the men more urinating options since their were only 4 porta-podies provided for a crowd of at least 500, and then also served as the "dark area" where sexual activity was taking place. At the top of the wooded hill was a cleared area that also had a rickety wooden shed. While the setting was pretty cool and almost surreal in a porn setting sense, again I was left thinking what a huge liability this area was for the promoters. There were broken boards, holes in the flooring, and exposed nails and other dangerous items. There was no lighting, and it was an accident waiting to happen with a bunch of naked, drunk, and drugged up guys snaking their way through this dilapidated structure. But I guess no one was hurt.
We stayed until the sun came up a little past 6am. The party was still going strong. My E had worn off a while ago, but many people had now moved on to GHB and Ketamine. "Water" bottles with little water were being passed around freely, and people were openly snorting from their K bottles. Ozell and I were amazed at how trashed the place looked once the sun could provide enough light to see the grounds. The promoters had to have lost money and any security deposit they had put down. And again, it was their own fault and mostly avoidable. Ozell was exhausted, and I was tired even though I knew that I was not going to be able to sleep until later in the day so we decided to head home. We were able to easily catch a cab out at the main road and were back at the hostel by 7am. I got a shower and tried to rest before the rest of the hostel came back from their night. From what we heard, most of them had a horrible time with rain, wind, cold, and the police at a beach up north.
Well that is about it for now. The last two days have been shitty weather wise so we have been trying to plan our next steps in our journey. It looks like we are going to try to break up the bus trip to Icauzu Falls (14 plus hours) by spending a day or two in the city of Curitiba which is about a third of the way there. Ozell has also been working on arrangements for Rio for Carnival. We wanted to be in Salvador in the north for Carnival (because Rio is cliché and Salvador's Carnival is the largest in the world), but we cannot find accommodations except for some dormitory beds which are going for $100 US or more which is completely ridiculous. We thought we had a tip for Rio, but there seems to be some uncertainty about that. We very well may not be in a city that has a Carnival because Ozell and I are not willing to spend the kind of money it looks like it will require. Remember Carnival is a week long event and most places are requiring that you stay for the whole week. So at $100+ per person per night for a bed in a room with ten other people, we could each be dropping nearly $900 just for a place to rest our heads. And this is not including any of the other money that would be spent on food and drink or tickets during this time. We just cannot afford it. We will see.
Ciao for now. Hopefully we will have some pictures soon.
Sean
