Florianopolis - oysters

They produce a lot of oysters in this region of Brazil. There were a lot of oyster farms around some parts of the island, you can see some in the pictures below.

This was a perfect opportunity to try some really fresh oysters. So I went to a restaurant, which was located just a few metres away from the oyster farms. I tried a couple of natural (or raw), a couple of steamed and couple of gratinated oysters. The natural oysters are eaten with lime. The oysters move and contract when you squeeze the lime juice on them. All of the oysters were quite tasty, but the gratinated ones mainly tasted of cheese.

However, there is always a small risk that you get a bad oyster. It feels like this risk should be decreased when you eat just next to the farm, but somehow I managed to eat a bad one. This left me imprisoned in the bathroom for about two days, which was not very nice. In order to be sure that there was nothing really bad with me, I went to a small local hospital. The nurse in the reception had one important question for me. Do you think she asked me how I was doing? Did she ask questions to make sure I was ill due to a bad oyster? Did she tell me to eat, drink or behave in any particular way? No, she asked me whether I was from the area or if I was a tourist. When hearing that I was a tourist, she said that all the tourist spots were taken and that I could try to come back a few hours later and hope that they had time then. This did obviously not feel to good, so I went to the pharmacy instead, thinking that they should be used to people eating bad oysters since everyone wants to try some when they come here. The pharmacist was way more helpful and gave me some hydration powder, which had an interesting taste. I did recover nicely, but I'm not sure if the taste of oysters is worth the (tiny) risk of a two day sentence to the bathroom.