Sunday 21st April 2013 - Well we arrived in São Paulo if not on time very close indeed. The journey had flown by. I didn't even have time to get my iPod out as I had already fallen asleep. The occasional stops really panic you because you wake up confused as to it being your stop or not. The São Paulo bus station is enormous its like an airport so when we arrived we were a bit slow getting anywhere. A quick toilet break and we were searching for the taxis. A large open entrance showed a road with a number of taxis on and it was annoying to see our one out the meter on before he even knew were we were going. Vila Madalena Hostel was the destination on Rua Francisco Leitão, 686. This city was enormous the magnitude of it was felt immediately with the consistent flow of high rise buildings. The taxi cost around R$42 which felt expensive but we were glad to arrive. A young man was there to show us in and the poor guy began a tour of the hostel at 6am or earlier. He showed us to our room and we thought we were going to get beds but suddenly he made us leave the room and said unfortunately we can't have them yet so we had to sleep for a bit on the chairs in the communal room. We weren't entitled to breakfast but they mentioned because were here so early and having to sleep on a chair for some rest we could have some which was good news and free! The reviews had said it was the best you can find but we found it quite ordinary like all the other hostels. No star fruit here! We rested in the common area for a while and I used a few of the facilities including a solo game of pool. At 11:30 we tried to check in half an hour early but then at 11:40 they had our beds ready. It was tempting to sleep as we were so tired but we locked our bags up straight away and headed out to the city. The main rush was to get to a pub that was showing the Liverpool vs Chelsea game. Which I'd somehow managed to wangle to Nicki. She laughed how football had been on the agenda 2/3 destinations but I thought I was doing well haha. The kind girl behind reception called Vanessa highlighted me a map of how to get to the closest pub that was showing the game. She told me to be quick else I would miss kick off but I didn't mind walking as she was going to call be a taxi. The last 600 feet I checked on the trip advisor app and it walked us to the front door. The name O'malleys, the best gringo pub in the city. An Irish bar full with one half red and another blue. We had just missed the first half but on asking everyone said it was a crap first half. But Oscar had put them 1-0 up with a great header beating our Jamie! I ordered 2 beers and some cheesy chips and we were given 2 ales which I liked but nicki didn't and steak dips instead. We carried it back but they explained that's what we had ordered. It wasn't true but the steak dips looked nice so we had them knowing the cost was going to be large. Sturridge equalised with a lovely dink from Suarez who 5 mins later have away a penalty for Hazard to regain their lead. There was then a situation where Suarez bit Ivanovic which was terrible really. All was looking lost when a Chelsea fan began standing in front of us telling us that we had lost in Portuguese and saying Suarez was a cheat. But then in the 97th minute when the fan was screaming at the tv blow the whistle! kick the ball out! Sturridge played a great ball which Suarez nodded in and the red side of the pub went berserk. We watched as the Chelsea fan ran out the door and ran home whilst we chanted we can see you sneaking out! One guy we met there Matt from Liverpool said he would pick me up in a taxi every game as I was good luck when I was there. His friend Steven was Irish and fairly crude but we enjoyed their company. They even offered us work in the country for cash. Probably dodgy but still. They were looking for people with the native tongue for English. We asked where we should go and Steven suggested the Skye Bar. He warned us it was expensive but one of the best views. We attempted to walk there along the Oscar Friere street and got pretty far but then we decided to flag a taxi down when the beer in us began its natural journey. We arrived at the Skye Bar or the Unique Hotel and it looks like a massive ship in the middle of a sea of green trees as you have the Parque Ibirapuera close by. The bouncers opened the door of the taxi for us and welcomed us. They opened the lift and selected our floor.. It was so posh even the toilets with your own towel to wash your hands. I ordered a dry martini for nicki which she hated and a beer for me and it came to R$41 so pretty deer but we were paying for the unbelievable view as well. The skyscrapers were literally 360 degrees around us. With green in the immediate surroundings like the ships sea. We took a few photos and were given some nuts but disappointed to find out they didn't do olives. Once we left the bouncers called us another taxi as we spoke to a man from Boston, another from California and a girl from Paris. They worked together but they asked us about upstairs and we spoke about our trip to the US last year. We made the journey all the way back to our hostel if not a little tipsy still. By the time we got home it was getting late and the hangover kicked in early so we got straight into bed. We met the other two people who were in our room called Abdul and Fatima. They were two doctors who were travelling and taking some time off at the age of 29. They apologised for the morning and said they weren't morning people. But they were funny and really easy to socialise with. Bed was much needed at this point as we had done so much walking through the day with a lot of hills, something I didn't expect about SP.
Monday 22nd April 2013 - I woke up to a message from nicki seeing if I was awake I looked at the empty bunk bed below and wondered if she had gone to breakfast. She had been up since 6am texting her dad who was also in São Paulo at the same time on work. By the time I got out of bed nicki had already showered so when she got back we went for breakfast and sat next to Abdul. I had some more panini and another slice of the cake they put out which was amazing. We were deciding what we wanted to do whilst eating but we knew checkout was at 10am so we had to pack up for then. We spoke for quite a while in our room with Abdul and Fatima whilst packing away and we added each other on Facebook as they were going to a hostel just up the road from us and they were following a similar route down to Buenos Aires. Nicki quickly logged on the Internet and paid off our credit cards and sorted the banking while I put the bags in the safe basement and spoke to Vanessa the receptionist about which things we should go see and which neighbourhoods are safe. We were advised the city center is not safe especially at night and told that because we are in São Paulo we always need our wits about us which is fair enough. This time when we left our hostel we took a right and walked up to the cemetery which has enormous gravestones, all of them, absolutely huge. Yesterday Matt joked that at least we weren't far from somewhere to bury us if we got into some trouble on the street! But I don't think we would be rich enough to get one of these stones above our grave. Ha. Morbid. We then headed onto Graffiti alley we first thought this was a manky looking alley which did have a few decent bits of graffiti but then on the other side of the road there was a small alley with occasional cars coming out of it and it was literally covered in massive really cool graffiti with loads of different styles and some images 20 foot high! We walked on from here and eventually found our way back to Oscar Friere which was a good 30 minute walk we went into the American apparel for nicki but I was no cheaper out here. After this we walked up Grimodi Av. and visited some of the parks which look just like jungles in the massive city. This came out on to Paulista Av. Which must have been their financial center the road reminded me straight away of New York City. It was wide and full of people wearing suits. We grabbed a burger and handed in our ticket which warranted us a free ice cream from maccies then headed on to the art gallery. The view out over the city was amazing from the gallery, we knew it was closed as all museums are close on a Monday to rest from the weekend, which I thought odd but we most likely wouldn't of gone in anyway. The only thing I wanted to see that was closed was the museum of soccer but we drove past the stadium in the taxi so seeing it like this will have to do, along with how we saw the famous bridge with massive steel wires. On the walk back to the hostel we walked down Rua Augusta which used to be the busiest street for prostitution but has since been done up for the expensive street it is today with lots of vintage stores, new designs and film related shops. We found it weird how they have streets for furniture, streets for music an literally this is all the streets have just loads of stores of the same kind in one area. The walk back didn't seem to take long and we knew we had a long bus journey ahead so we bought lots of fruit including the biggest orange I've ever seen and some crisps for the 15 hour journey. Vanessa had previously booked this for us at the reception as apparently you need to be Brazilian to book online or something. We stumbled upon a really nice building made entirely out of tiles it looked like the same kind of shape as Gaudi from Barcelona buildings I have seen. But I'll google this later to see. There was also a massive white building at the Top of Av. Brasil. Which I presumed was parliamentary or something. It was lucky we saw these buildings as the art museum wasn't that epic to look at and these were my favourite two buildings we had seen and we only saw them due to a wrong turn by me. But still they were both only 1 block away from our hostel. Vanessa booked a taxi for us when we got back and we chilled for a little while on the free iPads they had looking into getting to Paraguay. Vanessa hugged us goodbye when we left nicki pointed out how well she seemed to get on with us compared to other guests. The taxi journey took forever and we panicked about getting there on time because around that bridge I mentioned was stand still traffic for miles. But with a bit of aggressive taxi manoeuvring he got us there with half an hour to spare. They wanted us there an hour before but this wasn't necessary and we were sat waiting for the 6:30pm bus by 6:00pm. This bus is expected to get us there for 9am apparently so I will let you know how we get on. I'm so tired so looking forward to listening to the new strokes album on the way to Foz de Iguacu. We've booked a hostel called the blue house on the Brazilian side and then were thinking about moving to Argentina or Paraguay but we will see.
- Josh -