Patience in Sao Paulo

After the 7.5 hour bus journey, 2 metro rides and a taxi ride we got to our hostel at quarter to midnight, we had all sorts of thoughts – are they going to be open, will they have let our beds go, because we told them we’d be there by 7, etc. but we were pleased to find that they were open, they hadn’t let our beds go and to our surprise – they even knew our names when they opened the door for us! Now, that’s rare – Casa Club was going to be our base for the next few days.

Sao Paulo is a huge city, with a very American theme running through it. Distance is measured in blocks, there’s valet parking everywhere and the hilly streets remind me very much of San Francisco. Casa Club was located within one of the new, up and coming neighbourhoods called Vila Madalena. There were a few hostels to choose from but the reviews for Casa Club were really good and it certainly didn’t disappoint. The hostel was owned by most of the staff and Paulo and Leo were helpful giving us information on where we should go in the city and on what days and giving us the lowdown on the best places to go. Which is a good job really as there’s over 15,000 bars, restaurants and nightclubs in Sao Paulo and over 400 museums (You know we love our museums – yeah?).

We checked in and Paulo takes us up to our room (as it was a city and somewhere where we’d be out of the hostel a lot, we decided that a private room wasn’t worth it and we’d be staying in a dorm) In every dorm we’ve stayed in there have been  bunk beds and in some places there are triple bunk beds and to date – Leah hasn’t had the option of staying on the bottom bunk!  Something that is starting to get to her – I hope our next place offers her the bottom bunk! (Argentina – are you listening?)

Anyway we went to bed in readiness for a busy day the following day, as you can imagine getting up on to the top bed of a bunk bed is difficult when you’re trying to not to disturb the person below. As I’ve always been on the top bunk I’ve never actually seen Leah getting into a bunk bed and I have to say, it is something that you have to see! She does however confess that she’s not that ladylike, putting that aside for one minute – it’s hilarious, she bangs both her shins on the ladder on the way up then when she gets to the top, takes an age to turn and get into the bed – its nigh on hilarious. I even found myself waking up 5mins before her 7:15 toilet trip just so that I could see her climbing down the ladder!

As I said earlier the hostel owners were great in advising us where we should go on each day and they advised of us of a brief tour of the city, taking in the sights and sounds of the huge city that is Sao Paulo.  They’d advised us that a local club was well worth a visit as they have live music, if I’m honest I had pictured a group of past it old blokes playing with their banjo-strings but in fact when we got there we realised that we’d gone to an awesome Samba club. Now, we all know that I love a dance as much as the next person (more if I’m standing next to Pie) but this club was amazing, there were people dancing up from the minute the band had started, which is quite different from the usual in my local, where blokes have to sink at least 10 pints of Stella before they’ll even get their left leg twitching. It was truly amazing, to see people young and old, getting up and jigging about.

In fact, it got a bit heated and I’d never had myself down as a bit of a prude but to see people with hands over each other from start to finish was great/a bit much (delete as appropriate.)  I know I should be prepared for such eventualities - I have been to the “boot” on a Sunday night before but to see a woman’s eyes being crossed and her hair everywhere as her partner is rubbing up against her Samba style a true eye opener!

We were also told that Brazil has a national football museum, located in Sao Paulo. Now, I’m not that bothered about football if I’m honest but I thought my mates (who are all massive football fans) would disown me if I had the option of going to the museum and turned it down. After eventually finding it, I can honestly say that we both had an amazing afternoon and learnt so much about the “beautiful” game. The following day, happy about our cultured day at the museum, we decided that we should go to another museum we were told that the Portuguese language museum was well worth it so we made our way to it, paid our entrance fee and then spent the next 2 hours being totally clueless and understanding nothing. It would seem that the language museum is all in Portuguese and has not a single sign, piece of information or any additional piece of information in English! Disappointing to say the least…. However, the highlight of the day was to be our evening meal, we stopped for food in a little place in the Japanese district of Sao Paulo that had been recommended to us by the Lying Planet. It said it is one of the best places to get authentic Japanese food at the cheapest prices. For once, it wasn’t lying to me this was the best Japanese food I have ever tasted. The biggest bowl of noodles, veg, pork and broth I’ve seen, enough to keep even the Pie and his monster hunger at bay all for the very small amount of £4!

All good things must come to an end and with the help of the guys at the hostel we’d booked our bus journey to a place called Florianopolis, the journey was going to be a mammoth 12 hours so we’d booked an overnight bus to enable us to save money on a bed for the night and not have to waste our days on a bus. So, armed with our booking reference number and seat numbers we made it to the bus terminal early to get something to eat before the journey. For those of you that don’t know, Sao Paulo has the second largest bus terminal in the world and our bus was on Platform 4 out of 89! As we were early we decided to go and get some food and get to our bus stop early, being the boy-scout I am, I thought I’d better check with the guys that I had the right bus stop. The dude there confirmed I was at the right one - result! The driver hops out and an orderly queue forms, we get in the queue and I leave Leah to manage it while I take a pee. I return to see Leah in a state of panic and I realise that I’ve got the reference number including seat numbers; I calm every one down and produce the necessary numbers.

Then the driver drops the line – “You need ticket – no ticket, no autobus” So I run up the escalator, the 100m through the middle of the bus station, to the ticket office to be confronted with 3 queues of at least 15 people to each window, so I bite the bullet and push past them all where I can feel all of their eyes focusing on the back of my head, I point out to the stupid bint that the bus should be leaving now and I need to be on this bus! She then tells me that she needs our passports – I could have died. So, I turn around and run all the way back to get the passports – Leah’s face was of sheer relief however this turned quickly to fear when she realised I needed the passports and again I set off like Linford Christie’s training partner. I get back to the front of the queue, the guy hands me the tickets and I make it back to the bus, expecting to see Leah lying down behind the bus to stop it from leaving without us. No, in fact Leah is sat on the bus in our seats calm as anything and I’m a total bath of sweat from running the 1000m in an Olympic gold time. Now, before we left my mate Van handed us a list of the 10 travelling commandments, following his travels a few years ago. 

Number 4 reads –

“Be Patient – You’re not going to catch every bus/train, instead of getting angry use the time to explore”

Now butt, I’d seen a fair bit of Sao Paulo and I’d paid £70 for my bus ticket, like hell was I going to relax – I’ve got the legs for it, so I wasn’t going to miss that bus. I’m sure you can understand that… (It was £70 after all… Enough to get you back into your house after you’ve locked yourself out!?)

Next stop is a little place called Florianopolis for a few days then we’re off to The Iguasu Falls. Hopefully we’ll catch every bus without hassle this time…