So as an outsider visiting the beaches, I had the fear of the Brazilian Bikini instilled in me. I have to admit that it wasn’t so bad. I’m sure I stood out in my modest, bum covering two-piece, but I didn’t experience the parade of bikini bodies that I was expecting. Now this might not be the case in a place like Rio, but in Florianopolis the beach cover-up was quite popular. In addition, you get the feeling that when it comes to the beach, Brazilian women elude a type of confidence that I think many women could benefit from. I kept telling my husband that it would be so strange to me to grow up knowing that I had to wear a revealing swimsuit to fit in, but to them, it isn’t really revealing, it is normal (at least that is my perception). No one really stands out because they all wear them.
Okay, enough about bikinis. In addition, to many of those, we also saw some amazing beaches. We drove around a lot due to the cloudy weather. We stayed at Praia Brava and really liked the quiet atmosphere there. We took a drive and made our way past Lagoinha one afternoon, but didn’t get to see much of it. Our next stop was Ponta dos Canas. I wasn’t too impressed by the beach there, but there was this great fishing town feel. There were shrimp boats docked in the water and we watched some people coming in for the evening. We also ate quite a bit of this shrimp as we dined at Ocean House and looked out over the water. Two of my favorite combinations – great food and the beach.
We made a short stop at Ingleses and it felt like your typical tourist destination. It was nice to have all of the shopping and restaurants, but it definitely felt like the draw there were these things and not the beauty of the beach as in other areas. We drove past Joaquina. The area was packed with people and tour buses so we passed on stopping there.
We finally decided to settle at Praia Molé for an afternoon. This was probably our favorite area overall. The beach was large as were the waves. I find surfing so intriguing, probably because I don’t have the courage to do it myself. There is this thing with a fear of swimming in open waters. Especially open waters which inhabit sharks. However, I love watching it. The green space at Molé is amazing. There are no hotels around the beach, just beautiful, green hills and smooth picturesque rocks. There are a few beach bars there and since it was raining we basically chose our location by where we could get a seat. We ended up at the Tropical Bar and it was great. We snacked on stuffed crab and shrimp, drank Bohemia and watched the people on the beach who didn’t care about the rain. (Once again, my favorite combination of great food and a beach.) All of this while listening to an interesting mix of both pop rock in English and Samba.
Oh, I want to note something too. The beach bars need to sell t-shirts. The servers had on the coolest shirts with restaurant logos. We would have loved to have the shirts from Kioske do Pirata on Praia Brava and from both places on Praia Molé. There were gift shops attached to the restaurants, but they didn’t appear to sell shirts with their logos.
Well, I’m not sure if I’ll buy a fio dental as a souvenir anytime soon, but I will definitely be back on Brazil’s beaches. We are looking forward to making a closer stop next time, maybe some beaches in Paraná. At some point we’ll make the longer trek to Rio and Bahia.
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