Tuesday, March 3 – Buenos Aires

A return to Armenia today! The Armenian neighborhood in Buenos Aires, that is. Not a whole lot to write about unfortunately. Another leisurely day of roaming and hanging out in a park, reading and observing.

Today’s pictures were rather lame, I know. Sorry about that! It was another good day though!

Wednesday, March 4 – transit from Buenos Aires to Florianopolis, Brazil

Raise your hand if you’ve heard of Florianopolis. I know it was off my radar. But thanks to the suggestion of my friend, and native Brazilian, Fernando, that’s my destination today.

I was looking for something off the beaten path as I traveled in Brazil. Frankly, the crime associated with the typical destinations in this country is a turnoff (shocking, I know!). Florianopolis is considered safe by Brazilian standards, and has a population of around half a million, which puts it near the bottom of the 50 most populous cities in the country. And did I mention that it has 42 beaches!

Florianopolis (also know as Floripa) is located in southern Brazil and is a popular summer vacation spot for Argentinians, but fortunately for me most schools went back into session this week. Perfect time to be here!

I elected to take a taxi to the airport. Very un-cheap of me, I know! Basically, when I’m going to the airport I want to be confident I’ll get there in a timely manner. And to take the bus, like I did on arrival, would require the use of a taxi for part of the trip anyway (from the hotel to the central bus terminal). So, the ride ended up costing me about $25 (ugh!).

This is painful to say, but I ended up taking a taxi from Hercílio Luz International Airport in Florianopolis to my hotel. Twice in one day, come on!! Basically, there were no other viable options (although, I have since discovered Uber is in play here, so maybe I’ll try that when I depart). So there’s another $15 to one of my least favorite service industry groups (although, to be fair, the performance of both drivers I had today was commendable).

Thursday, March 5 – Florianopolis

Most of the beaches here are not within walking distance of my hotel, so today I decided to concentrate on exploring the city center (with its many examples of colonial architecture) on foot.