Living out of a back pack is harder than you think. Its heavy, you have to pack, re pack and unpack. Sleep in hostels, travel on stinky, bumpy buses with little sleep, day in day out and walk for miles and miles everyday. ( I can tell you are feeling sorry for us!) So as you can imagine we needed a rest and somewhere to chill out for a few weeks. We had been told by a friend about a little island on the South East coast of Brazil called Florianopolis so we decided to head there.

There are many beautiful beaches and resorts in Florianopolis but having done our research we plumped for a little fishing village called Barra Da Lagoa. Beautiful beaches, lovely walks, a blue lagoon and fantastic wild life!

It took one long overnight journey from Foz and two more buses from the centre of Florinopolis to get to Barra as it is situated on a peninsula and the main road leading there has a calm lagoon on either side. We arrived and were nt disappointed. It was tropical and beautiful.

First impression was how Cornish it was with the Atlantic ocean, white sand beaches, surfing waves, rocks and pretty coves but it also had something that Cornwall can't guarantee...the sun!!!!

We found ourselves a nice little hostel and stayed for two days.

On the first day we chilled on the beach watching the kite surfers, standing up surfers and paddle surfers in the bay. The waves were rolling in but the beach itself is very shallow and I had read that there are no sharks or stingy things to harm you so nice and safe.

Ray feel asleep and I went for a walk. I discovered a little river leading into Barra from the sea which ran alongside the main beach.

As I sat for a while watching the sea birds I realised that one of them was a penguin!! All excited, I ran back to Ray and woke him. He said I was clearly insane and I needed to get some rest then he tried to go back to sleep but I managed to pursuade him to come and look and sure enough...there they were.. .big fat penguins, darting around the river chasing the fish. (Apology accepted Ray!)

They are such comical characters and although a common sight for the locals this was great for me. I had only ever seen sad little penguins in zoo's through the windows of tiny un-natural and unfeasibly blue tanks crammed in with another forty sad penguins. These were wild and happy and having a proper penguiny life as it should be.

The scenery and surroundings of the harbour are idyllic. Blue water, vibrant coloured flowers and pretty plants, banana trees and beautiful cruisers competing with ancient wooden fishing boats that really dont look seaworthy, chugging in and out of the harbour. The river is such a hive of industry. Alongside the penguins there were herons, white and grey, commorants and vultures...yep big fat ugly opportunist vultures wating for their moment to scavenge a dropped fish from the boats or from the fishermen on the quayside.

We walked over the rickety wooden bridge to the otherside of the bay where little houses and hostels disappear up the slopes behind the banana trees.

As we were walking we saw a sign that said 'apartamentos para alugar'. (apartments for rent). We followed the path into a pretty garden and found a little and very round Brazilian lady with a big smile and shiny cheeks but with our lack of Portuguese and her lack of English , asking if there were any vacant apartments was hysterically problematic. So after saying "obrigado" a thousand times (thats our one Portuguese word that we learnt..means thankyou!) we went back to the hostel, grabbed our laptop, went on Google translate and ran back.

"Do you have a free apartment for the next 7 days?"

"Sim!"

"Can we have one please?"

"Sim!"

"Hooray"

"Muito dinheiro linda para mim, então .. yay!"..

Result!! and off we ran to re pack our back packs for the last time for a week...or so we thought!!!!