Mountain of shrimp anyone? Florianpolis, Brazil

Hostal Lagoa 5 minutes from the Lagoa de Concepcao bus platform.

Floripa (as it's commonly referred as), a small island about 20 hours south of Rio de Janeiro, is the quaint vacation destination of southern Brazil. We decided to stop off here because there are about 40 bus hours between Rio and Montevideo, Uruguay. After our recent marathons, we shouldn't be phased... but honestly, I'd rather sleep on a bed of nails than spend that much time on a bus again. We decided to stop off at the ever so talked about Floripa.

It was really just a quick 2 day leg stretch, but very peaceful and stomach-filling.

After a little aimless wandering (with our heavier than ever backpacks) we found our hostal and an all you can eat buffet. Perfect! Soon our backs and bellies were very happy.

We've learned during our travels that we are "Extreme Girls." Not meaning that we do extreme things (remember my surprise when Lori suggested a horse back riding tour), but better said: we do things in extremes. Allow me to explain. We panic when we realize we haven't eaten fruit in a few days and wolf down a pound of grapes each. Bad idea. We don't have a lot of money so we don't eat for 12 hours stretches of time. Hungry, bad idea. We find a good party scene so we do it up for 2 weeks straight. Sleepy, bad idea. We cook enough food for 5 people, we're only 2. Full, bad idea. We decide not to shower for 4 days. Smelly, bad idea. Things like this.

At the moment we were at extreme levels of weight in our backpacks and extreme levels of hunger (nearing the point when our personalities change.) After the all you can eat buffet, we were at the other extreme, extremely full to the point of possible sudden explosion. We unbuttoned our extremely tight pants and went for a not so extreme walk.

Floripa was quaint island with a lake, Lagoa de Concepcao, around the corner and other various rinky dink places. It was quiet. We had missed the Easter Weekend crowds by only a few days.

The next day we checked out the quiet, waveless beach on the otherside of the island, Barra de Lagoa. Continuing our extreme streak, we ordered Sequencia de Camarao (The Shrimp Sequence, whatever that is...) at a beachfront restaurant. Our waiter explained "Oh yeah! It's enough food for 2 people, don't worry!" So we splurged. To our surprise, not just two plates of shrimp appeared on our table, but 5 heaping plates of full bodied shrimp - heads, legs and all.

We beheaded, delegged and gobbled down as much greasy shrimp as we could handle... but really, they weren't all that good and all their eyeball corpses were just staring at us. We had to call it quits after an extreme shrimp eating frenzy. I still can't think about shrimp in the same way.

From there, on account of our extreme fullness, we made the extreme decision to walk back to our hostal from the beach. Once again, we unbuttoned our pants, said a prayer (being that the hike was slightly highway-like) and trudged 1 hour back to our hostal, cursing those greasy, leggy, eyebally shrimp the whole way.

The last noteworthy event, which wasn't really all that noteworthy, was our trip to the bus station. Ready to leave our hostal to check out bus times for the next day, I take one small step outside and note it's raining. Ñ¿*%Ç!!! Our raincoats are rolled up in the bottom of our bags which are crammed under our beds which is a pain in the butt to get to... blah blah blah. We turn around. Mission: Raincoat Retrevial.

Now, I don't want to seem ungrateful for a gift from my mom, but my raincoat is bright yellow (it's meant for biking or highway construction maybe?) and I feel ridiculous wearing it (hence the backpack location.) I'm hemming and hawwing to anyone who'll listen about my stinking raincoat. "I look so ridiculous! Why do they make them in such silly colors? I look like a duck, don't I look like a duck? Why don't they make them more normal looking? I look ridiculous. Seriously, do I look ridiculous?" This and that. Finally, we're all suited up and ready to weather the storm, which by now must be torrential considering all the time it took me to complain and joke and unbury the jacket. I step outside, with only my eyes exposed to Mothernature and... the sprinkler in the front lawn. What a knucklehead.

We brave the 20 sprinkler drops with our rubber lined bodies and then tumble over with laughter for the next hour about my idiotic confusion.

I think it's about time we get out of Brazil :)