Florianópolis

We’re not off to a good start Florianópolis and I.

It starts already when I receive a message from the hostel saying they want to move me to another room without changing the price.

Then my Azul flight from Belo Horizonte is delayed, but the worst thing is ordering an Uber at midnight, cold and tired, and no driver wanting to accept my trip as I’m going to the centre of town. There’s even one driver who eventually accepts my request, after ten failed attempts, but after I confirm I’m going to the centre of town he immediately cancels it. I suspect it’s not far enough. Aka not as lucrative.

“What kind of tourist s#*%t hole is this?”, I think to my self.

The airport is too shiny and I thank god I’m not arriving during peak season. I suspect I would find it unbearable.

No point in fighting. I get myself into a regular taxi.

When I arrive to the hostel my room smells of newly painted walls and it brings me back to my very early 20s and hostels on Koh Samui and Koh Phangan. The loud music from the bar downstairs adds to my days on Thai islands and I think of crowded bars and tourists including myself drinking god knows what from a pink plastic bucket with 10 plastic straws in different colours.

But instead of 26 degrees and humid, it’s 1am and about 10 degrees and no heating in the room. Very soon it’s 3am in the morning and now it’s probably 6 degrees Celsius. The cold takes me back to Epuyén in Patagonia and my weeks spent in a cabin without any heating except for one radiator I used sparsely at night.

Compared to the cold in southern Argentina, I know I can do this.

I layer up in my running tights, pyjama shirt and North Face fleece I just bought a couple of weeks ago in São Paulo. It’s the best investment I’ve made during my whole trip in Brazil.

Eventually I fall asleep with a bad first impression of Florianópolis. Tomorrow I’ll give her, us, a second chance. I just need to get some sleep first.