It started somewhere across the mountains. The hills. Whatever—I didn’t study Brazil geography at school, quiz me on the French Alps instead.

Anyway, the four bars on my phone suddenly became three, two, one bar, and then the circle-slash replaced the “we’ve got you” symbol, which was very inconvenient because I was helping Feng navigate the road from Florianópolis to Palhoça—a short one-hour drive, sure, but we didn’t know the area at all.

Lovely mountains-hills, but they were blocking the signal.

Or maybe it was TIM. I had been with Vivo since we got a CPF and Brazilian SIM, but the night we arrived in Floripa, we signed up with TIM for a change.

“The host said we have to pick up the keys at her house, and she sent the address,” I told Feng. “It’s on the same street as our Airbnb, but… I’m not sure where.”

Yay, an adventure. We had signed up for it when booking a house in Palhoça between Christmas and New Year to check out the Enseada da Pinheira, i.e., a potentially great beach.

The thing is, the house didn’t have Wi-Fi. We knew that; the listing clearly said so. Feng couldn’t believe it, but I could—it’s rare in Brazil these days, but hey, maybe it was a new house or one of those summer houses nobody wanted to pay the bill for when it was cold, windy, and empty.

No worries, I had plenty of data (and some work to do). Hotspot magic, here we go.

I was a bit anxious about our four-day stay because beach houses tend to be a bit barebones. Like the one in Bombinhas that came without essentials—so no pillows. We were spoiled in Floripa; our first Airbnb had been awesome, so it made the switch even harder. But nothing beats exploring a new area.

We found the street.

Kind of.

It was unpaved.

We stopped in front of what we thought was the house, but apparently it wasn’t, according to someone who lived there—and they would know.

And we still had no service.

Very inconvenient to text the host with a friendly “Hi, we’re here!” or rather “Oi, a gente chegou!”.

“Fuck… I think the entire area is a dead zone…”

“We’re dead.”

“Yep.”

We eventually found the host and the house. She handed us the keys and told us to park inside. We promptly did, and in the meantime, she disappeared.

“Did she just drive away?” I asked Mark.

“Huh? I guess.”

“That’s… weird. I thought she was going to show us the house. Oh well, never mind.”

The outside looked new; the furniture and appliances inside, very much not. I discovered later that everybody around here is building houses as a side project. I had a fascinating chat with a guy painting the wall of his house later that day—he told me everything I didn’t need to know about this specific shade of blue.

We went to the beach—or rather walked on it—then sheltered in a bar when it started to rain and walked back to the house. Hard to find without a map in streets that all look the same.

“I think we saw this guy earlier…”

“The one sweeping the sidewalk? Wait, is he trying to clean up the flowers? He literally has five giant trees above his head, good luck!”

“Okay, this is the house.”

We took a rinse before stepping in—one of the showers was conveniently located outside.

I started to organize the kitchen. The microwave didn’t close all the way. The pans were burnt. The oven was black.

“I’m buying a frying pan,” Feng decided. “Okay, let’s go to the supermarket. Or let’s find one, anyway. Why is it all wet here?”

That was the fridge, still mostly empty except for a couple of drinks we had brought. It was leaking water.

I sighed and grabbed my phone to find the nearest supermarket.

Shit, no Internet, right.

“Guys… there’s a cockroach…”

“Where, Mark?”

“In the room.”

We looked at each other.

Fuck.

That’s the problem with ground-level houses in the middle of nowhere, the Brazilian wilderness.

The cockroach went to hide in a crack. Maybe it was just lost and smart enough to understand you don’t bother people when they are in the house.

We found the supermarket—better stocked than I had expected.

We found more cockroaches.

The fridge was definitely dying on us.

We found more bugs.

I cooked fish; Feng cooked chicken nuggets. It took forever because nothing worked in the kitchen.

Then we all sat outside at the giant table where your typical Brazilian family of 25—the house only had three beds, but this doesn’t deter Brazilians; they fit an amazing number of people per bed—sit to grill some meat. Except we had no coal, no meat, and zero ability to “fazer churrascos.”

“Okay… what if we left?” Feng wondered out loud. “I bet we can find another place in Floripa.”

“Would you leave?” I asked because maybe I was overreacting.

He shrugged. “No Internet… maybe no fridge soon…”

“Cockroaches,” I added. “And the beach isn’t that great. But how do we find another place? We have no Internet! Let me try again.”

A message did go through an hour ago, but this time, no luck.

“Let’s drive to the supermarket. I think I had one bar on my phone earlier when we were shopping.”

And so, at 11 p.m., Feng and I parked next to the supermarket, looking for available accommodation in civilized Florianopolis. Our backup plan, the former Mercure hotel, now converted into apartments, had one vacancy. I booked it and promptly canceled the next three days at the beach house.

I tried to contact the host, but she was in the same dead zone, so no reply.

“Good teamwork.”

“Now we just have to survive the night…”

Mark announced he had found a giant cockroach in our shoes.

The guys went to bed.

I discovered the ultimate “Final Destination” suicide shower where you get a shock every time you touch the control knob, wrapped in thick construction tape (apparently, not thick enough).

Then I started fighting against a giant cockroach that wouldn’t leave the room.

It didn’t survive.

Phew.

Let’s get the hell out of here, please!