Dear Sao Paulo,

We landed after 22 hrs of travel from rainy Manchester. Your airport smelt of strong cheese.

The immigration officer was surprisingly blasé about the three of us entering the country considering the fuss air France made about our lack of a Brazilian visas. We explained to them we would be leaving before the 90 day limit but they required some proof. We booked a hostel in Columbia on the airport pc downstairs.

Exiting the airport we were hit by a wall of humidity and fine drizzle. The vegetation looked so different to what i was used to. The hostel guy picked us up and drove to your Villa Madelena neighbourhood. We stayed at Hostel Alice.

The next day we ventured around your steep streets to the local shops. The area seemed deserted, presumably because the paulistas were on holiday.

I seemed to be unable to avoid cheese. Bread and cheese for breakfast, Cheese sandwich for lunch, pizza for tea. I didn't help that word queso was one of the few portuguese things I could understand on the menu.

That evening there was talk of a Friday night samba club. The hostel owner Denisse offered to take us out. After a few drinks at the hostel Paulino offered to drive us down. He had arrived at Hostel Alice 3 months prior but never bothered to leave. He also didn't bother stopping at red lights on the way down. A safety measure I later realised.

Waiting in the queue we met Dennis' friends Marcelo, Raffael and his girlfriend. Her name was to hard to say so I didn't try. They were very friendly and spoke good english. It took over an hour to get in. One in one out. After much Samba and amazing dancing by locals we we're ready to head home. The bar worked like a tab system and you had to pay for everything at the end. Luke almost didn't get out not realising you needed your receipt as proof you had paid.

Marcelo was a surprisingly good drink driver. Me and Luke tried to walk home but they insisted we didn't.

We woke up with 4 ozzy lads in our room. They had been on the road for a while and had the man beards to prove it.

They talked about heading to your Japanese block containing the largest population of Japanese outside of japan. They were craving sushi after months of what they called bland Brazilian food.

We headed over on the metro where the views revealed your seemingly never ending skyline. I was told you are the 3rd biggest city in the world. After what saw I couldn't imagine how you weren't number 1.

Our destination was a busy neighbourhood crammed with markets, street vendors and sushi bars. Heading down the main road we suddenly heard a crowd shouting and the sound of running. Dramatically a couple dozen of street vendor had started the leg it down the hill. The police had arrived. I assumed they weren't happy about the fake DVDs and lack of licenses. An older oriental man overly ambitious in his attempt to grab every single item he had did not flea in time. The police took all he had.

Not being fans of sushi we split from the ozzies and headed down towards a cathedral. The huge pillars reminded me of the mines of moria from lord of the rings. Exiting from the other end we saw a number of people dancing in the square to samba music. On closer inspection it dawned on me they were homeless people. Amongst them one old lady was dancing revealing too much of what should have been definitely covered up. She kept on shooing one of the crazier men away who relentlessly tried to grind on her from behind. It was pretty disturbing.

Soon after the heavens opened turning the pavements into rivers. We headed back to the cosy hostel Alice where we filled the rest of our evening playing an N64. Luke unapologetically destroyed me on golden eye.

The ozzy's were a good laugh sharing a similar sense of humour with us. Alberto was also in the room with us behind the front desk. Bertie as he was soon to be called talked about some rock bars he thought we would enjoy. He liked queens of the stone age and blink 182. He also liked the word mother f***er and called us gringo.

We headed out in our gang of travellers on the metro to the main street. Bertie met us there with a girl he was seeing. We proceeded to head down a side street and walked for what felt like 40 minutes. As time went on the locals hair got longer and the piercings and tattoos increased. They really bought into the scene. Goths, skaters, bike bangs and gay couples.

We arrived at a grimy but cool bar with live music and pool tables. We didn't leave till the early hours of the morning.

The next we had a lazy Sunday in the the hostels garden. I love hammocks.

Our next stop was Paraty. A few hours bus ride up the coast. The 11 o'clock bus was full. We waited in your bus station till 4 for the next one. Luke bought the worst watch known to man. I had a cheese pasty for lunch.

We had a great start to our journey with you Sao Paulo. See you in June