Volvo Blues

Itajai/ Balneário Camboriú, SC
15th - 23rd April (Sunday-Sunday)


I woke up last Sunday morning at 5.30am to catch our flight to Navegantes Airport and found I had a burst blood vessel in my eye, thank you food poisoning. We had a beautiful sunrise as we drove through Botafogo and onto the motorway to the airport, the iPhone is great for taking good quality pics when you're flying past in a taxi.

                              

A connecting flight in Sao Paulo and an absolute rip off taxi (a trend) to our hotel and we're in the Volvo Ocean Race race village by lunch time. Itajai is famous for being one of the world's largest container shipping ports, but you really wouldn't notice. Down the coast, no more than 10 minutes away by taxi, is Praia Brava and Balneário Camboriú, two developed beaches aimed at the young and wealthy of Santa Catarina. From what I've been reading Santa Catarina drives Brazil's economic growth with above average GDP, per capita income, literacy and health levels and few favelas make it a safe region. As such, Itajai's two local beaches have an excellent nightlife and has earned a reputation to be 'the Ibiza of Brazil'. Camboriú is a ridiculous place, a mini Copacabana with high rise plush apartments all the way along the beach whose winter population of 80,000 grows close to a million over the summer months.

Poor boys only arrived on Wednesday!

Mast goes up after arriving by container on Thursday

We frequented the two every day. I was so sad to have missed Rio's famous Favela Funk parties so our Sunday night certainly made up for it when Anna's pals took us to a samba jam session. Two blocks away from the beach
(completely deserted area, yet to be developed) we pulled up to someone's backyard which was host to a reggae session the previous week. They had converted the garden and porch into a stage and bar complete with a pool table and plastic outdoor tables and chairs. Three lads with a triangle, drum and guitar brought the house down (literally) and I witnessed some serious grindin' and driftin'. Sweaty and not particularly attractive blokes with a serious dance repertoire managed to dance with every smokin hot girl in the room. Some sight, class. 


Every night that followed was equally awesome, most of which were free thanks to property developers in the area who wanted to play host (providing a band, dinner and drinks) and Volvo and Puma. To give you an idea of the clubs in Camboriú, Green Valley a local club is the world's second largest night club. We went to Warung Beach Club for a Puma night out (VIP section sweeeet) which is equally popular and only opens 6 times a year. House and dnb. How bad!

In-Port race was exciting to watch, even without the commentary!
Telefonica were leading and went to the wrong mark, ha.

Very wet though, but the free drink and food on Puma's pirate spectator boat helped.

The Volvo Leg 5 prize giving was amazing, an outdoor tiki style restaurant/bar was taken over and pimped out with lighting and drapery that would make you think you were in LA. I saw two people end up in the pool, a surprisingly low figure considering the entire place were acting like the cafeteria come jungle scene in Mean Girls (ie Colours 2011). It was like any sailing college party/ball. No one ate any food, caipirinhas were re-filled without anyone noticing, glasses were smashed, no sailor was left with a shirt with any buttons and the floor was super slippy with spilled drink so excellent dance offs were had. The only thing that tainted it was that I was already dying with the double whammy of alcohol and food poisoning from the previous night where a quiet night with a few more of Anna's pals from different teams turned into a night that no one can remember even finishing dinner, paying for dinner or leaving the restaurant. Some of the boys went to a strip club until 6am, Anna and I made it home before then but can't remember how. Many a tale from that one but none fit for the digital world, Google is an awful gossip. Caipirinhas to blame again.  

My new favourite..
thanks for the freebies

Departure Day

I imagine the come down after this week will be something like post-Varsity Blues. It's a very different world when the drinks are brought to you.