September 15,

I did not fall asleep until late again, so not up until 0800. We readied; had our Javas; and made breakfast of scrambled eggs with sausage. We did a load of laundry. The day was partly cloudy, so we could explore. By 1030 we set out.

Jeff had planned a route down the west coast of the island. The first part was along roads we’d been driving on already. We came down to the actual city of Florianopolis. We are not actually staying in the city (even though, that is what we have been labeling our blog as). The city has a population of 537,000 people, lots of beach front and many tall buildings. We had programmed the way to drive us over the two bridges to and from the mainland to get some views. We missed a turn, which made us do it backwards, but we went across them both in the end. Brazil has some of the craziest road structures. I mean, they way they connect/merge different roads together; round-abouts with stop signs; and going to the far right lane – in which a new lane separates and comes about perpendicular to the road to turn left. It is all just crazy! Madness I say!! Anyway one of the bridges was a classic and very photo worthy.

Next we left south out of Florianopolis, and had to circle around the Aeroporto International de Florianopolis – Hercilio Luz. This is the airport we landed in 2 weeks ago. We then continued on, driving along the west coast of Santa Catarina Island. Now little communities seemed to be named after the individual beaches, but it just seems to be little town after little town. The road is a narrow one lane road each way. Along this road, local buses have a route. And these are full sized, big buses! Often a car is just parked – in the road, kind of pulled over, but still blocking at least a third of the road. Parking is just not readily available, but it is an inconvenience, especially for the bus drivers. I could not imagine.

Anyway, the town’s buildings have become cute post-card colors, and some with great tiled sides. It was a nice change. We saw a couple of colored churches- one white with orange trim, another a bright blue. The beaches are small – very narrow, but look inviting. The ocean here is protected and we can see arranged blue buoys lined up. So there is some kind of fish farming being done. The little town with the white church, had many restaurants, advertising Ostra. This translates as oysters, so this must be what they are farming. We had been thinking of stopping at one of these restaurants, as we wanted some fish. But as we arrived we decided we actually weren’t hungry enough and we are not oyster people.

We made it to the end of the road, which became a trail route to get to a lighthouse. We could not see the lighthouse and dared not chance it with my knee. We turned around and returned to the north of the island. We arrived back by 1430 and went to the grocery store which had the sushi shop inside, as we were finally hungry now. We checked out and went back to our place. The Sushi was great and we settled in. Supper was roasted broccoli,carrots, and onions with our aged parmesan cheese. It was a good day, but we both enjoyed the east coast drive the best!