I am running behind on updating on my adventures again, because training has been intense and tiring, making it hard to find energy to formulate sentences of more than three words…alas, I shall try.

I was so excited to finish our last training session, pack our bags and catch the 5 hour bus from Porto Alegre to Praia do Rosa in the state of Santa Catarina.

We arrived after dark and drove on dirt roads to get to our pousada, where we would stay for the next 4 days.

The next morning we went on a mission to hire a car. Unfortunately our accommodation was about a 10 min drive from the beach, making a car a necessity.

We ended up going all the way to Garopaba to hire an old, shitty and very expensive car. Since Lachie doesn’t drive a manual, I was the designated driver. I have no idea why, but I was perhaps more nervous to drive that thing then competing in the final of world championships. Am I insane? Most likely… but the stick was on the other side, I couldn’t see a thing because I am way too short to be a full grown adult and quite bluntly, the drivers in Brazil scare the crap out of me.

Anyway… I drove, we survived and it was absolutely fine.

The next day we explored our surroundings. There was a beautiful lake only a 5 min walk away from our pousada, an amazing bakery, which literally did the best chocolate croissants I have ever eaten and some great little restaurants.

We also spend the day at Praia do Rosa – a secluded beach with great surf, lots of cafes, nearby lakes and green mountains. The water was freezing (like Melbourne), but it was so nice to relax, read a book and soak up some sunshine.

That night there was a massive storm, which was all fine in the safety of our room until we heard a massive bang and all electricity went out. The next morning we checked out the damage and it turned out that the main house was struck (about 5 metres away from us) and left a massive hole in the roof!

The weather didn’t improve a whole lot, so we decided to go hiking through the hills and between different beaches. We parked the car ON the beach, as you do, and happily took off on our adventure.

About 300m into the hike we were amongst the biggest cows and bulls I have ever seen. They seemed to be content grazing, but one of the bulls kept giving us the evil eye, so we stopped dead in our tracks. Being city kids we had no idea what to do. We just stood there for a good 10 minutes and finally decided it was ok to walk past the bull slowly. But that wasn’t a good idea. The bull followed us, so we quickly hid behind a tree. In the background, the other bulls started to slowly surround us.Then the bull decided to have some fun and chase us around the tree with it’s scary horns and beady eyes pointing right at us. Finally, it stopped and we had a stare off, and I think we won, because it decided that grass was more interesting then two gringos and went off to graze some more…

Safe to say we got out of there pretty quickly and found another hike, far away from any bulls.

The scenery was amazing, the beaches were empty, and I wish we had forever to stay there.

We spent the rest of our time exploring different beaches, sampling all the coffee and cakes and eating at some great restaurants. With our bodies and minds feeling a little better, we caught a bus back to Porto Alegre, had an amazing ‘all you can eat sushi’ dinner with Jhonny and headed back to Sao Paulo.

With our energies somewhat replenished, we checked into a little hotel in Ipiranga to train at Cicero Costa’s for a week (and Miyaos and Luiza Monteiro and Leandro Lo).