Day 4

8/14 (Day 4)

Today was quite an exciting day because we toured the city Florianopolis. Our first stop was Morro da Cruz, one of the highest points in Florianopolis. It was so amazing to overlook the whole city and everyone couldn’t help to take the beautiful pictures. Then we went to various beaches and one of them was called Joaquina which was the most famous beach in Florianopolis and people could enjoy surfing here. The sand of the beach was boundless and felt soft, water was clean and the sky looked blue. All of these made me feel comfortable. We also walked around in the sand dunes and found people sand surfing. At noon, we enjoyed our lunch close to the beach. After that, we got to a village which was colonized by the Azoreans.

Following the tour time, we attend a lecture from Professor Baltazar Guerra on renewable energy. Even though Dr Baltazar Guerra was an economist, he was devoted to advance sustainability in Brazil. In the lecture, he pointed out Brazil is a world leader in the use of renewable energy and in 2007, only 1.5% of the greenhouse gases emissions were generated by Brazilian electric systems while in the rest of the world was 24%. Since the energy demand in Brazil increased, he strongly advocated sustainable energy sources. Actually 50% of Brazilian vehicles were able to run on either by petroleum or biofuel, this is pretty compelling. And Professor trusted in their future of sustainable energy.

After the lecture, I went to have authentic Portuguese dishes with DJ in a local restaurant. It was tasty but a little bit expensive.