Our flight was perfect, we left and arrived on time and there was no turbulence. The pilot even commented on this, saying it was his smoothest trip across the Atlantic! The first thing we noticed as the plane descended upon São Paulo was how enormous it is. It is Brazil’s largest city and the sprawl stretches as far as the eye can see with hundreds of multi storey apartment buildings (30+ storeys). It is no wonder they need to build up though as 11 million people live in the city. We arrived in São Paulo at 5pm. We had the address of our friend Luis where we would be staying the night. It could not be easier to get around in a city. Coming from South Africa, we are not used to public transport, let alone public transport that is so efficient! We literally walked out the airport, hopped on the first airport shuttle that takes you to the general bus terminal for free. From there we took a bus to the nearest metro station (Tatuape) for R$5.50. We then took the metro to the station closest to Luis’ house (Barra Funda). A metro ticket to anywhere on any line is only R$3.50 (~ZAR15)! The metro system is so efficient, you never wait more than 5 minutes to get the next train.
We arrived at Luis’ amazing flat just before 8pm. Brazil is 4hours behind South Africa, so for us it actually felt like 12am. It was still light outside though so our minds were completely confused. We had our first couple of South American beers and enjoyed chatting to Luis. He was very helpful with helping us sort out our plans for the next day to get to the bus station and catch the bus to Paraty (pronounced Pa-ra-chee). We went to bed at around 10pm (2am South African time) and slept like babies!
The next morning Luis dropped us at the metro station where we caught the train to Portuguese-Tiete, which is also the major bus terminal in São Paulo. We bought our tickets to Paraty for R$54 each and an hour later we were on our way! Again we were so amazed at how efficient everything is! The bus ride was great, very spacious, with reclining seats. We stopped at two different refreshments stops and ate some amazing Brazilian street food. One of our favorites was a piece of chicken, wrapped in cheese, wrapped in potato and then deep-fried on a stick! We are struggling to understand people as no one speaks English, and our Portuguese is limited to what our translation app tells us to say! When the serving lady tried her best to explain to us what the main ingredient in the various dishes was, we could only muster blank stares in return. We were pleasantly surprised at our food delight (“Frango”, it turns out, is Chicken), as we had taken a gamble when picking it!
The bus ride took 6 hours in total but it felt much shorter as the scenery along the way was spectacular. We are now in Paraty, enjoying 7 nights in this idyllic seaside village. So far we love the chilled atmosphere! We’ll write about what we’re getting up to in the next post.
Chris and Ro go... 