Florianopolis was our first experience of Brazilian beach culture and they do it well! Floripa as the locals call it is an island in Sao Paolo state and its full of Brazilians relaxing and partying, we were happy to join in after 2 months of hard travelling .

It was so hot that every afternoon at almost the same time there would be a huge tropical storm. However on the first day we didnt realise this and when it clouded over we decided to walk across a few of the beaches towards home. We were just at the end of the nudist beach when we realised our way home was blocked by the high tide and suddenly the skies opened and the thunder and lightning started and the only way home was back the 2km we had already walked (and bouldered and waded through streams). A drink was well deserved at the end of that and helped to take our mind off our sopping wet clothes. The next day we were ready for it and well positioned in the bar when the storm started, lucky as this time it went from 34 degrees to hail in about 2 minutes! When it finished the surfers were straight back into the sea for more and the bar erupted as two rainbows appeared out of the sea. Gorgeous!

The beaches were heavenly, Praia Mole has to be my favourite, a surf beach with a really young crowd and even a surf competition the day we were there. Not being a surf expert myself I can only guess that its pretty hard surf as the surfers seemed to be struggling with the waves that day. The beach bars were great there too and we spent two evenings happily supping Caiprinhas and Caiprioskas with the locals. They had great music, house the first night and a live reggae band the seond, and it was funny but as the night wore on our Portuguese seemed to improve in line with the drinks we had consumed, imagine that! The improvement was so good that we all became the best of friends and swapped email addresses and were invited to gigs in Guanabara in London, the best of friends!

We also visited Praia Joaquina which was more built up and very crowded and the gorgeous Praia Mocambique, which went on for 14km and had only a handful of people, really gorgeous. We allowed ourselves a bit of luxury too, we stayed in a fabulous pousada (basically a B&B) and had our own apartment and a gorgeous pool and everything and we pigged out on the heavenly local seafood which was amazing! All in all I could get used to this Brazilian beach culture!