Blogs from São Paulo, Brazil, South America - page 4

Despite our only previous experience of Brazil was a 4 hour stopover in Sao Paolo airport on the way to Santiago, Chile, it feels like I already exhausted all the innuendos about Brazilians. Although our visit was a quick 'in and out', puns such as when the plane, as it was coming in to land had a near miss; and me referring to it as a ‘close shave' or ‘Don't forget to grab yer nuts!!' I will try not to strive for such predictable laughs during this trip!! (but I can't promise anything!!) Our latest ‘voyage of discovery' (OK not a real voyage of discovery. Vasco da Gama and Magellan went on voyage of discoveries, quite literally. If it wasn't for them we wouldn't be making this trip and you wouldn't be reading this) Anyhow, I ... read more

Dear all, A day after my first story I got a stomach virus and was in lots of pain for a week. Stayed in the house for 4 days and started feeling better. Decided to leave Paraty and go to Trinidad for a few nights before leaving for the farm. Trinidad is a very small town just a bit more south from Paraty. It has lots of amazing beaches and the town mainly consist of tourists. There is one main street and after two days you recognize people that you have seen on the beaches, in the restaurants and on the street. Its quiet cozy and I was lucky to find a hostel opposite a cafe that had live music. So on my arrival day, I heard live reggae being played from my balcony. It was ... read more

11 février 2014 - Jour 117 Nous embarquons ce matin pour notre dernier long trajet en bus, environ 7h pour rejoindre Ubatuba, une station balnéaire située sur la côte, entre Rio et Sao Paulo. Pour nos derniers jours de voyage, on recherchait une belle plage où l'on pourrait passer nos journée à flâner sur des transats. Il y avait pas mal de choix sur la côte brésilienne, notamment plusieurs îles, mais dont les prix en période de carnaval étaient beaucoup trop élevés. Il y avait aussi plusieurs autres villages qui sont surtout réputés pour leur aspect colonial mais, c'est terrible à dire, on n'a plus rien envie de visiter, on veut juste se poser à rien faire sur une plage ! Notre choix s'est donc porté sur Ubatuba, réputée pour ses plages et ses vagues qui ... read more

An overnight bus saw us arrive in Curitiba very early morning for one day. We were feeling pretty tired after two big, long, hot ‘aggressive tourism’ days at Iguaçu and the bus so we took it easy. We heard Curitiba was a university town with many parks throughout but we thought there was the feeling that it was a public holiday and nothing much was happening downtown. We took ourselves on a walk of the city center viewing many colonial buildings, churches and interesting street art before relaxing for a few hours with an English screening of The Hobbit. The following morning we were on a bus again to the biggest city in South America, São Paulo for two days. After escaping from customs officials without too much hassle (Courtney was randomly selected while walking on ... read more

In truth,I have left Araraquara but this story is too good to leave swinging in the breeze. So here is the very abbreviated version of the history of TAM airlines. If anyone is interested in a more complete history then you know what to do - just 'google it'. We were fortunate to visit the beautiful museum of the history of not only TAM but of flight. Every age of aircraft was represented and most were on display. A wonderfully illustrated story with as many authentic photos as possible was given. The entire museum, once an old tractor factory, was modern and spotlessly clean. There were many middle school students there on field trips which was fun for me, a former teacher, to observe. Teen-agers are pretty much the same everywhere. TAM was started in 1961 ... read more