Sao Paulo, Brazil - American Adventures 2014 (Part 5 of 8)

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My time in Parati came to an end. I now had 2 weeks left in Brazil and despite initially wanting to stay in Rio for the month, I was in adventure mode. The more travellers I spoke to, the more I wanted to do. Others seemed to be doing the same journey as I was planning, however I missed a stop. After carnival in Rio people go to Ilha Grande on the way to Parati. I hadn't heard about this island so it wasn't in my itinerary. My next destination would be Iguazu falls, one of the modern wonders of the world. This was quite far away so I decided to break my trip into 2 and stop at Sao Paulo for a couple of days.

The journey to Sao Paulo was 6 hours on the bus, which didn't seem much to me after getting used to my 4.5 hr journey to Parati. Halfway through the journey we stopped at a cafeteria for snacks. They only sold junk food like most places so I decided to have a cheese toastie. This girl in the queue offered to help me with ordering in Portuguese. I told her "I've got this" and decided to impress her with my Portuguese skills ... or so I thought. What I actually ended up doing was order a ham and cheese pastie, the most anti-muslim item on the menu. I didn't have money to try again so I went back into the bus being a failure. I wasn't actually able to take any cash out of ATMs in Parati so I only had a little left from Rio. There was a bank with 3 cash machines and when I went to the 1st one, it gave me a message to try number 2. Number 2 said to try number 3 and number 3 said to go back to number 1. I went through the cycle 3 times hoping the messages would change ... they didn't. I just needed to get into a big city and access a working ATM.

I didn't know what to expect of Sao Paulo ... I thought it would be like London. You see, Sao Paulo is a huge city, the largest in Brazil and in the top 10 largest metropolitan areas in the world with 20 million people. It didn't seem like it because it's so big in size with many municipalities. When I arrived at the bus station I went to an ATM (actually I tried 5 before 1 worked for me, I looked suspicious). After purchasing my ticket to Iguazu I went to the underground station to purchase metro tickets. Rio and most cities have cards you can use but Sao Paulo have these tiny paper tickets you have to buy ... it reminded me of my trip to Paris in the early 90s, the primitive days.

I took the metro to the hostel that I booked. This time I decided not to stay in a dorm with so many people but to book myself into a more relaxing location. I chose Zen Hostel where I would be sharing with 1 other person. After Rio and Parati I wanted/needed time alone to recover. Zen hostel was the perfect place to do this ... as I approached I could see someone painting buddhist symbols on the steps and the vibe here was completely different, the clientele older and wiser, not into partying and drinking but meditation and intellectual conversations. I loved relaxing here. Even the lockers in the room were like wardrobes, they were big enough for me to fit into.

That evening I went out to find somewhere to eat, a task that wasn't so easy in the end. The place was dead, despite being a popular area for tourists to stay in. I eventually found a pizza parlour and indulged. On my return I made plans for the next day since I was only going to be in Sao Paulo for a short period of time. When the next day arrived and I was about to head out, a storm hit. We are talking torrential rain, power cut, no internet. This lasted for hours and I was hungry with inability to go anywhere. Eventually in the evening the storm passed and I headed out.

There isn't a lot to say about Sao Paulo for me ... I disliked it completely. It's a dirty city and made me feel miserable walking around. This is one of those cities that only makes sense to visit if you know a local who can show you the places to go to. I did visit a few tourist hotspots. One of them was a famous park where I decided to go on the day I was leaving. It took me 2 hours to get there and I only had 10 mins to spare upon arrival before I had to make the journey back ... not planned very well.

I was very glad to be at the bus terminal waiting to leave. I got what I needed to get out of this trip ... solitude and relaxation. As I was sitting on the floor waiting for the bus thinking about why I wasn't a fan of the city, a big blob of saliva landed on me. I looked up on the level above and saw children running away. I was definitely ready to depart for better adventures.

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