Water, Water, and Water Closets

We happen to be here in Florianopolis, Brazil at a perfect time for whale watching. The Southern Right Whale is something of a commuter, though with animals we say migration rather than commute. I wonder if it is because they are animals and not humans, or because they do it annually and we commute closer to daily. Either way, sometimes the whales are close enough that you can see them from shore. And one of the best places on this island to look for them is Morro das Pedras.

Morro das Pedras is many things, including an abduction by aliens point!

Yesterday, we had a little adventure and our first stop was Morro das Pedras. In Portuguese this translates as Hill of Stones. While it was a sunny and calm day, which are favorable conditions for seeing the whales near shore, it still had a lot of wave action going on. That isn't as positive an indicator. There could still be whales, but they are likely to be further out from the land.

Doing the wave

We brought our binoculars, and we looked and looked. Perhaps we even saw a whale, I think we did. But I can't swear to it. What we did see was an area far from shore where there were many birds circling. In addition, there was a whale watching boat near that location. With the naked eye, you couldn't make out much more. It was even difficult to see the boat. But with the binoculars, the boat and the birds could be seen. And we did see what appeared to be a dark object emerge from the water for a moment. Very likely, it was a whale. But we didn't see enough of the object to positively identify it. There was no distinctive whale tail. There was no distinctive whale fin. There was no distinctive outburst of water from a whale blowhole. The external evidence indicated whale, but the evidence coming up for the water was inconclusive.

I don't know where Davi is (other than being 1903 km from Morro das Pedras) but Marte at the bottom is the distance to Mars.

From Morro das Pedras, we walked to a nature preservation area around one of the lakes internal to the island. This one was called Lagoa do Peri. (The sign above tells me it was 1.2 km from where we started.) I mentioned in a previous post about my walk to Lagoa Pequena also called Lagoinha Pequena, the little lake or little lagoon. As you might guess, this one, Lagoa do Peri, was a lot bigger. And here we did see a whale! Well... You are thinking, "Erich, how did you see a whale in a lake." Okay, it wasn't in the lake, and it wasn't exactly a whale. See below.

Small for a whale

I do recognize this doesn't really count. If it did count, then we saw a monkey too.

Big for a monkey

We hiked a good amount around the lake. We saw a lot of birds. I was unable to get good pictures of the ones in the trees. I did manage to get some of the shorebirds though.

We saw this one hunting

There is a feather tuft on the back of its head

There were some interesting trees going for that sexy hourglass figure. I don't know what kinds of trees they were, but I assume this is part of their nature.

Is it a tree wearing a corset?

To completely change topics (though still related by water) I want to consider bathrooms. Alrica and I visit many places and live in different homes while we are in them. And we've had some lovely domiciles. But sometimes you don't quite know what you are going to get. Even pictures only tell you part of the story. To explain, I thought I would tell you some of the varied features of our bathroom here and in our last place in Lima.

Lagoa do Peri

Size of Shower: In both places, we had pretty small showers. This one is like a cubicle with a shower head. Lima wasn't much bigger. This can pose some challenges. For me, there is great difficulty in washing my feet. Or more specifically, in rinsing them. I can get the soap to the feet, but getting my feet into the spray is nearly impossible. There just isn't enough room to move my body out of the way. Alrica tells me that shaving her legs in this little box is even more difficult. Not being a leg shaver myself, I cannot verify that through personal experience. But I can imagine it. I'm sure she's right.

Water Temperature: In Lima, we had this crazy water heater. It was one that heats the water right when you need it. But it had this habit of running for a variable number of minutes, between maybe 2 and 10, and then shutting off. I believe that once in our time there, Alrica reported getting through an entire shower without losing hot water. But usually you'd be all soapy or shampooy (why is soapy a word and shampooy isn't?) and that's when it would transition to bitter cold. Here in Florianopolis, the shower stays hot for an entire shower. But the shower is the only place in the house you can get hot water. The sinks, entirely cold water. Even the kitchen sink doesn't have hot water. (What's more, the water pressure in the kitchen sink is so low, it takes a long time to rinse a pot.)

Sink Plugs: These are just not a thing. In both Lima and Florianopolis, there is no way to plug the sink so the water stays in it. Mostly that's not a big deal, but I like a basin of hot water when I shave. So my solution is a bowl. I heat water, here I use an electric kettle, in Lima it was a teapot on the stove, and then pour that hot water into a bowl which is sitting in the sink. It isn't perfect, but it works.

Toilet Paper Disposal: Florianopolis is a place where you can't flush the toilet paper. This isn't the first time we've encountered that. We've seen it in a few places. You could flush it in Lima, but you can't here. So there is a small garbage can right under the toilet paper holder and you throw the used paper away. This means we take out the garbage. Frequently.

I am trying to give my readers more of a feel of what day to day life looks like in our adventure. Did you need any of this information? Certainly not. But now that you have it, admit it, you feel richer for knowing.