Biggest city in the Southern Hemisphere
Trip Start
Oct 18, 2011
1
5
26
Trip End
Ongoing
Sao Paulo, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Friday, October 28, 2011
Friday 28th October
Arriving in Sao Paulo Tietê bus station, the second largest bus terminal in the world, at 10.30pm, in a city that everyone we had met along the way had painted a less than flattering picture of, we were a little daunted. The sheer size of this place is intimidating enough, more than twice the size of London. Despite this we braved the metro and short(ish) walk to the hostel with all of our bags. The hostel was the least friendly that we had encountered so far and we were back to sharing a dorm so we weren’t in the highest of spirits, however it was in a nice area. Av Paulista was a good recommendation by Renato. We were feeling tired from the late night previously and the bus journey so once I had called Renarto and established that we weren’t going out for the evening, we settled in and watched some Breaking Bad (our new favourite TV series).
After the midnight mishap the night before we were hoping for an undisturbed nights sleep but this was not the case. I woke up to see what I thought was a man attacking Jacqui in her bed! I jumped out of my bed and confronted him only to find I was on the wrong side of my bed and he was just drunk play fighting with his friend! I felt a bit stupid but he understood and apologised profusely for disturbing me and giving me a shock. Not quite as bad as Weegate but another dormitory story none the less. Saturday 29th October
We got up early to find that not only was the hostel the least friendly we had stayed in it also had the worst breakfast, it consisted of nothing! Gutted! Interesting showers as well. For some reason Brazil seems to think nothing of having exposed wires coming out the showers. Jacqui stupidly tried to change the temperature in the last place and got a nasty shock. You really do have to watch yourself. Anyway, we went out and met Renato and grabbed a cheesy pastry on the go. Renato took us to see some of the city, Sao Paulo has endless amounts of big buildings some of which are very ugly but some are stunning. We wandered about taking in the sights and stopping to go into the Cathedral and an art gallery. We then looked around a market before meeting Marina & Richard for lunch. When I say lunch, I mean breakfast, lunch and dinner because we ate enough for all three meals and we didn’t eat again! We had Feshuada, Brazil’s national dish, pork and beans in a sauce with rice. It was delicious! After we had eaten, Renato headed home while Jacqui and I went to Marina & Richard’s flat where they helped us book our next bus on to Iguazu (thanks again).
Back at our hostel we had a snooze before getting ready to go out. Renato picked us up from our hostel, which was good as it was chucking it down (the first rain we have had here). He was with his friend Miriam who we very quickly became big fan of. We all went out to a 'Salsa’ night, I put salsa in inverted commas because it wasn’t the same salsa Jacqui and I came to know and love during our short spell of lessons at Dance City in Newcastle, but more of a modern hybrid. We enjoyed the novelty of the valet system for the cars outside of the club but were more cautious about the card system in which all drinks were paid for at the end of the night (we are on a tight budget). The best way to describe the dancing in the club is a Ceilidh meets Ricky Martin! There is an instructor on the stage who takes you through all the moves and then calls them out as the song plays but of course all with a Latin flare. All in all we had a great night and particularly enjoyed stopping off for pizza on the way home.
Sunday 30th October
Again we enjoyed our breakfast of nothing before we headed out to meet Renato and Miriam, who greeted Jacqui with a gift of a necklace made of Acie beads (the seeds of the fruit used to make the super sweet slushy drink we had in Rio). We all went to their friend’s house where we spent the afternoon being served lovely steak and sausage off the BBQ, with some fish for Jacqui thrown in for good measure. It was lovely meeting all of Renato and Miriam’s friends who were all very keen to practice their English with the gringos and I even tried my hand at making caipirinhas. After our second afternoon in a row of gauging ourselves with food we hit the hay early with an episode or two of Breaking Bad.
Monday 31st October
Our final day in Sao Paulo was spent shopping for the cheapest backpack we could find (we managed to get something half decent for under a tenner which was a result) and walking to and around a large park near our hostel. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t too nice so the park wasn’t shown in its best light but it was nice enough. We did have a minor drama when just as we were leaving to get the bus a girl we were talking to at the hostel and the guy working in the hostel said our bus would be leaving from a different station to where we were expecting. With time ticking we were unsure what to do! The hostel staff were able to call the bus company for us and confirmed that they were correct we had to get the bus from Tiete but we later found out that the bus stopped at both stations so we would have been OK either way. Our first overnight bus in South America was certainly more comfortable than any coach in the UK but it wasn’t the cama or semi cama we had been looking forward to, perhaps next time.
