Category: South America 2023

We have had a wide variety of weather in our first week of the trip. In São Paulo is was very hot and very humid. Last night and this morning in Urubici it felt cold. We sat by a fire and read last night. Then we snuggled under a big comforter to sleep.

We have had grey skies, mist, and torrential downpours as well as beautiful blue skies with lots of sun.

Yesterday at the grocery store we bought a big mango and a big papaya and some pastries. We had them for breakfast this morning.

In order to get from our car to our chalet and back again we had to go over a very bouncy suspension bridge. We survived and started down the road this morning about 9:15.

Today as we drove further west we left the mountains behind and drove through rolling hills with fields of wheat and lots of grain storage facilities.

The town of Treze Tílias where we are tonight had a lot of Austrian immigrants. Here is our room tonight at Hospedaria Pattis.

For dinner we walked to a restaurant about half a mile from where we are staying, Chef Haus Restaurante e Pizzaria. On the way we saw lots of evidence that this town has an Austrian heritage. We even saw dirdls and lederhosen in a shop window. For dinner we had pizza.

We really liked Pausada Ilha Faceira where we stayed last night. It wasn’t raining when we got up this morning so we could enjoy this nice view towards the beach from our balcony.

After a great breakfast we hit the road and headed inland. For most of the day we weren’t on the main road so we saw a lot fewer trucks and much less traffic. This was the view from the high point on the road.

Tonight we are staying in a wonderful cabana out in the country overlooking a river.

We went shopping for dinner before we left Florianópolis.

After breakfast this morning we got a taxi to take us out to the rental car agency where we had a car booked. Unfortunately the taxi driver misunderstood where we were going and took us to an address near São Paulo’s other airport. Eventually we were able to make him understand where we wanted to go. He was apologetic and eventually we arrived at FOCO car rental.

Duke got a number and waited a bit then started the rental process. When they were about finished the agent realized that we had booked the car to return it at Foz do Iguazu. Duke made the reservation in May and as he soon learned they closed their Foz do Iguazu office in June.

Luckily their customer service was good and they wanted to make the situation right. The agent started trying to find an agency with an office in Foz do Iguazu that had a car available to rent. Eventually she found one, they drove us to the Movida rental car office and five hours after we left our hotel we were on the road out of São Paulo.

The drive was long and there was quite a bit of traffic but about 5pm we arrived at Pousada Coisa Mais Linda, on the coast, where we are tonight.

When we checked in the credit card machine wouldn’t take a credit card without a PIN. And the lady checking us in didn’t speak English or Spanish. Google Translate was helpful. Luckily we finally thought to try ApplePay and that worked.

After we unloaded it sure was nice to sit in the bar and enjoy our beers as we overlooked the water and unwound!

We had dinner at our hotel. We hadn’t eaten since breakfast at the hotel is São Paulo. Our fried casaba and fish was really good!