Starting 2022 In Florianópolis On Packed Beaches And Rare Worriless Weekend

We started 2022 at the beach, and several hours later, we were back… well, at the beach. I mean, Florianópolis Centro is lovely but it was completely dead, the best part of Santa Catarina Island is the many, many beaches.

Praia do Campeche for January 1, then—it’s a very, very long beach and one of the few easily accessible without a long drive or traffic jams. I had never seen it so busy, though, and this is an 11.5-kilometre-long beach. But hey, what do you expect on New Year’s Day when it’s hot and sunny?

On January 2, we drove all the way to Praia do Matadeiro, Feng’s favourite spot. This is a smaller beach but it’s very picturesque because it’s surrounded by jungle-covered hills and big rocks. It takes some work to get there, though. First, it’s a long and twisty drive to the little town of Armação in the south of the island, then you have to walk across a river’s mouth and take a trail uphill. The reward is an unspoiled beach paradise… well, except on January 2, because it was packed as well.

Packed beaches are fun in Brazil, though. There’s enough room for all of us and it’s a great people-watching experience.

The not-so-fun part was the massive traffic jam back to Florianópolis. I got out of the car, walked on the side for about twenty minutes, stop by the supermarket to buy groceries, kept on walking for another twenty minutes and Feng was still stuck somewhere downhill. He picked me up in the next town.

The rain is coming and reality will catch up soon, it always does. But I felt free and mostly worriless last weekend and such moments are precious.

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