Whale watching in Florianopolis
Trip Start
Aug 06, 2007
1
24
36
Trip End
Ongoing
Florianopolis,
Brazil
Sunday, September 16, 2007
So far it seems that no one speaks any english here - and with only patchy spanish and NO portugese - it is already a battle! After spanish was just starting to become a little more comprehendable - we´re thrown into confusion once again! Could be interesting!
This afternoon we walked down to the main beach - and got amongst some of the locals enjoying the afternoon sun and beers. People then began pointing and crowing on the beach (and because of our lack of portugese!) we finally realised that there were 4 big whales in the bay - as we took a seat and had a cold beverage - as one of the whales cruised slowly down the entire length of the beach infront of us! We felt very lucky to have been able to enjoy this - and I felt relieved to hear it is common at this time of year (I was scared they were going to strand themselves they were so shallow!).
Later - as Paul and I were cooking dinner at the Pousada - he called me to our room - in the dark he was creeping around and pointed out that there appeared to be someone breaking into the back unit of the property! The man was creeping very slowly up the stairs and took a long time to manage to get the front door open - it all seemed a bit dodgey according to Paul! Well......we convinced ourselves that we should go and tell the `mum`of the Pousada who was upstairs - we couldnt possibly stand by and watch a buglary.....so we attempted to explain the situation in english with actions - making complete twats of ourselves - while no one really understood what the hell these random kiwi`s were on about! I even got the poor old lady to log into the internet, get her glasses (a mission in itself) so I could use google translate to explain what we thought was going on........well....after 20 minutes of mutual frustration and her eventually calling her son down from up the road (oh god Hannah) - they explained that ít was "just the black moto driver that lives there".....so higly embarrased (ohhhhhh the moto driver had even picked us up this morning and he was such a nice old man!) we crept back downstairs to our dinner! I think all this was a perfect summary of our days frustration at our lack of portugese - we really must master another language!
We plan to spend a couple of days relaxing here (it is a pretty laid back beach place) - and planning our next move to Rio de Janeiro.....have already been getting top advice from Viv (who is from Rio originally) - so I`m excited to see what this city is all about!
