Florianopolis to Cambara do Sul Day 1

We had a slow morning, enjoying being in a nice, clean room before we packed up the car and continued our road trip south. Our destination today is Cambará do Sul. This is a longer drive, just over 5 hours. It was highway for most of the drive, and despite our efforts to avoid tolls, we had to go through a couple. With no cash, and an international debit card, we couldn't pay the toll. The lady at the tollbooth wrote a note on some receipt paper to pay the toll on our way back.

Once we reached Praia Grande, we stopped for some lunch. We ate pot noodles in the car while Allan looked up hot air balloons in the area because we saw so many signs. It would be cool to see the canyons from above. Unfortunately, his research yielded information that the balloons can't go over the canyons due to wind currents, and there won't be good enough weather on February 14 when we wanted to do it.

With only 40km left to go, but over an hour in time, we braced ourselves for the bumpy dirt road up to Cambará that we knew was coming. Even knowing it would be unpaved for part of the way, and Google's estimates, didn't prepare us for the road that lay ahead. Allan did great navigating the horrible road. It started off fine, it had portions that were partially paved, or had fine gravel and been flattened to the point it was just about to get asphalt out down. The start of the unpaved portion lulled us into a false sense of security as the very windy, steep, uphill road gave way to curves and bends and then no gravel at all. The road became dirt with large stones and potholes of varying size filled partially with water disguising the depth. Our tiny compact car was in no way equipped for this. Going about 10-20 km/h we bumped and chugged along the road for almost two hours to get the 36km to Cambará do Sul. Because it was so difficult and time consuming going over the rocks and bumps and holes, we took much longer than expected, and unfortunately the sun went down. Now, we were trying to get through all the obstacles, and we had to rely on a combination of headlights and full beams.

Allan's patience was, rightfully, thin and nerves a bit frayed by the time we finally pulled into the town and the parking lot of the tourist center. We couldn't relax yet, we had to quickly find a grocery store that was open before the rest of them closed in less than an hour. It's a small town, very little was open, and the grocery store that was open had minimal selection. Luckily we still had some hot water from lunch, so it was pot noodles again for dinner as well as some deli ham and crackers. Cambará is one of the highest places in Brazil, so it was cooler making sleeping in the car more manageable. After our meager meal, we got ourselves ready for bed.Read more