Blogs from São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, South America - page 24

We emerged at dawn to look round the noisy city, found a great breakfast coffee shop called Bella Paulista set a block back from the famous main drag called Avenida Paulista. The coffee bar had a huge mural with a picture from the 1930's showing the large houses and gardens on the tree lined streets. Now is different with the financial centre and the Arts. There is a picture here for Tommy - things don't look too good for City Group here! We went on a trip round the City taking in all the sights. I would not say SP is a tourist haven but we had a really great time taking in the city culture! The central market was a great experience and the shopping in the boutique district was pretty spectacular. We were recommended ... read more

I had read about Sao Paulo before I arrived and it wasn´t entirely reassuring: 10 years ago the murder rate was up to 700 a month and it is legal to drive through red lights at night in case someone tries to rob you. Stepping out of Praca da Arvore Metro station (the nearest to my hostel) didn´t reassure me either as the place looked pretty dodgy at 11 pm on New Years Day. I got a taxi straight away, checked in and went to bed. In fairness, Sao Paulo is far nicer than its reputation suggests and my local area was quiet and safe. Ok, it is not as pretty as Rio and, if you are not a city person, then you might not be that fond of it. I am though and hence I ... read more

We spent 3 nights in Cusco after the Inca Trail to give our legs time to recover. Miles was still not well & we had to get a doctor to him too. He had the same as me, but Tina recovered quickly¨& was ok. I think hers was food poisoning. We flew back to Lima xmas eve lunch time & booked into our lovely hotel (Tina´s birthday treat). I got my hair cut (still a mess). Wish it was still straight! Tina¨& I made xmas crackers¨& we wrapped our secret santa presents up. I phoned home & spoke to my mum, dad, sister & nephew. Very emotional to be so many miles away from them all. Everything closed early xmas eve as this is the Peruvians special time. Apparently they eat xmas dinner at midnight. We ... read more

Wow...I know I say this all the time but I really don´t know where to start!! So sorry I´ve been so distant recently, really have been just mega mega busy and don´t really have any other excuse hehe!! Ok, think I´ll start with my last week of Alegría, since that´s as far back as I can remember! What a week and a half!! The weeks before it were also really busy, since all the kids had exams (well the older ones anyways) which was a lot of hard work for both us and them! Then they had parent/teacher interviews which was scary cos I was left to take the class a lot of the time, at least it was just Christmassy stuff they were doing so I could manage fine =) Then on Wednesday 28th November ... read more

14/12-15/12/07 What can I say about Sao Paulo..... Well there are apparently 17 million people living there. Thats about it.... We arrived about 6 in the morning and had stupidly not booked any accomodation thinking it would be easy to find at this time when people are checking out. haha! We jumped on the metro and headed to a highly recommended hostel, only to be turned away as they were full. They were very good though in letting us dump our gear to allow us to find somewhere which we attempted to do. Paul set off into the streets to find another recommended hostel only to return unsuccessful. We eventually found the Samba Hostel which isn't actually called that but is in the LP but actually called Pousada dos Franceses. We got our fingers to do ... read more