Thanks to all those of you that have put up with the email problem from this blog. We have word from the guys at www.offexploring.com that the problem has been fixed and you shouldn't receive multiple emails anymore. Let's hope they're right. For those of you who enjoyed getting up to 10 emails from us…we're sorry that this will stop.

We wouldn't really say that we've been on holiday for the last eight months. We definitely haven't been working either. The best way to describe it is that travelling for this long actually becomes more of a lifestyle than a holiday. Because we've been moving around and spending about four days or so in each city, we've started living sporadically and nomadically. Each day has no particular plans but there may be something that you want to do or see: or we may just want to leave it for the next day. But even with this lifestyle, it's possible to arrive somewhere and feel like you're on holiday. This is how we felt in Florianopolis.

Florianopolis is a big island of beaches, lagoons, holiday homes, sunshine and beautiful people. The town continues onto mainland Brazil but this area seems reserved for people living and working in Florianopolis while the island side is for tourists and holiday makers. This isn't a small island either and it can easily take you four hours to get from the north to the south if there is traffic. You shouldn't really need to make this schlep, though, unless you really want to go somewhere for a specific reason. Each part of the island, the centre, the north and south, has beaches, restaurants, daylife and nightlife, so there really isn't any reason to leave if you don't want to.

We stayed in the centre of the island, as most gringo tourists do, and we realised immediately that we had arrived to chill as we walked into our hostel and saw people just lying around in hammocks and by the pool. Around us we had two different stretches of immaculate beaches and a lagoon. Admittedly, it could take half an hour to get to the beach but in holiday time, this is really no problem. We also had plenty of restaurants, shops and bars in our area and plenty of Brazilians who had also come to Floripa for their summer holiday. This is definitely a preferred holiday destination for locals and is comparable to something inbetween Cape Town and Plett or Umhlanga back in South Africa. The central area seemed more laid back than the upmarket north where the likes of Felipe Massa, Rubens Barichelo and countless other famous Brazilians and football stars have their holiday homes. We never made it to the south of the island and we didn't spend too much time in the north except for our first day when we ventured there for a crazy Vegas style pool party and Michel Telo concert at P12. Michel Telo is a Brazilian folk singer and has become one of the biggest names in music here with his song "Ai se eu te pego". You can't go anywhere in Brazil without hearing this song. We actually first heard it in Argentina and it followed us everywhere. So when we saw that we could go see it live at an awesome pool party, not even the sleepless night on the horrible 16 hour, semi-cama (which in Brazil is just a normal bus) bus ride into Florianopolis could stop us and we made our way to the party at P12 almost as we got into town. Some of us hadn't even showered...sis!

The fiesta, samba, music and Brazilian party in this town isn't a once off either. It runs the whole day and night throughout the town. It may be as simple as the music or a band at a restaurant while you eating lunch, or be while drinking caipirinhas at the beach (Praia Mole was great for this), or more expected at the countless live music bars, or going big at one of the swanky megaclubs like Pacha, Posh, P12 and Confraria, and wherever you find it, you'll see how the Brazilians love their music, dancing and fun. It seems ingrained in them and their lifestyle.

Florianopolis offered it all. Beaches, chill, food, relax, sun and fun, day and night. It was a real holiday and it was set in the beautiful surrounds of seas, hills, sand dunes and lagoons. It's hard to imagine somewhere better.

Trek on...Brett and Darren

P.S. Keep up to speed with where we've been staying and how we've been getting around in our blog posts from Johannesburg

Also check out our video channel on YouTube (cause we now technologicious like that):

http://www.youtube.com/user/MlunguTrek/videos?view=pl