Road to Rio

Day 22

Today, we left on another bus trip, this time to Sao Paulo.

The trip takes about 6 hours to get the city, then about 1-1/2 hours to get to the bus terminal. Traffic was very heavy being just a few days before Christmas, and the bus terminal was incredibly busy.

This is a huge bus terminal, with gates for about 100 buses at a time, and we still had to wait for our turn to get into a spot. Makes a lot of airports look pretty small.

As for the weather, it appears that our luck may be running out. We have had incredibly good luck for the entire trip so far. The only times it has rained has been when we are in transit and even then only a couple of times. But coming into Sao Paulo, it was absolutely pouring. Fortunately it let up some by the evening.

Our hotel is situated near the center of the city, on an obviously gay avenue, next to a very dodgy area of town. Lots of same-sex couples parading by the front of the hotel and the occasional fireworks - very loud explosions - to liven things up. Hopefully everything will be much calmer in the morning.

Day 23

Things do look a lot better today.

The weather cleared up and we had a beautiful time strolling through the extensive maze of pedestrian shopping streets. By the afternoon, the streets were incredibly busy with crowds of people doing their last-minute Christmas shopping. It did start raining later in the afternoon and we had to make an emergency umbrella purchase. Spent some time hiding in a Metro station wating for it to subside. The news later was showing some areas of the city that were completely flooded. Fortunately that did not happen to us. Our only problem was with a downed power pole brought down by a bus, which blocked our way for a while when trying to get back to the hotel.

This is a huge city. Estimates on Sao Paulo´s population range from 17 to 24 million people. The people are a very mixed bunch, due to a lot of foreign immigration in the early 20th century. There are a large number of Europeans, mostly Italians and Portuguese, a lot of Africans, and a surprising number of Japanese.

We visited Japan-town, where sushi is a big seller.

Overall, it is a bit intimidating.

Day 24

Today, we were supposed to get a bus to the town of Paraty, but due to the Christmas rush, we could not get any tickets. So instead, we got a bus to another coastal town called Ubatuba, where we had to walk between two bus terminals to snag another bus to Paraty. It actually worked out quite well as the bus to Ubatuba was a little early and we made a better connection than we had thought we would, ending up in Paraty by about 2 PM.

The countryside around here is very lush and green and the land has a lot of character. Very pretty but also lots of people.

Day 25

Paraty turns out to be a very nice seaside resort. Actually a Brazilian colonial city, with a very touristy Historic Centre District. Lots of restaurants and bars and such. Our hotel, which was very pretty, was about as far away from things are you could get. Apparently the local hotels are mostly full of holiday-minded Brazilians - and the prices are a lot more than usual.



We took an optional yacht excursion which visited several beautiful beaches on some of the surrounding islands. Crystal clear warm water and sandy beaches. Snorkelling around the rocks and reefs. A little bit of paradise. And we lucked out and had a very sunny day till late in the afternoon.

This is where we had our Christmas dinner. We had the traditional Christmas Linguini and beer at an Italian restaurant. Apparently Christmas eve is the big day for Brazilians, so not a lot of places were open. Tomorrow, Christmas day, is supposed to be a day of rest, so even less will be open.

Day 26

Merry Christmas!

Today we took a quick 4-hour bus ride to Rio de Janeiro. It was quick because there was hardly any traffic on Christmas day. We got to the hotel, in the rain, in the early afternoon and we all went out for supper in the evening to an all you can eat pizza place.

Tomorrow we will be taking a city tour of Rio. We are hoping for better weather but the forcast is not promising.