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Our experience of São Paulo was an interesting one. Us and a fellow traveller Sheridan who we had met in Buenos Aires decided to follow the Lonely Planet's advice and head to the down town districts where we found our hostel quite easily. Even walking from the subway station to our hostel we had the feeling of being in a huge city. We knew that to get a proper feel for São Paulo we needed time to explore, which we didn't really have and so we quickly decided that we'd rather spend the time on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro and Ihla Grande (a large Island on the way to Rio). We therefore spent the next 5 hours experiencing São Paulo's public transport, navigating our way around the subway system and two different bus terminals trying to get tickets to Ihla Grande. It was during this time that we realised how important Kat's Spanish had been throughout the rest of the trip, as we struggled to understand anyone. No one spoke anything other than Portuguese and even after a lot of hand gestures, the help of google translate and written down instructions we couldn't get tickets to the Island. There was only one main company which went and due to it being a holiday weekend (which we hadn't realised before) all the buses were booked up. We therefore decided to book a bus to Rio for the next day, and hopefully get to Ihla Grande after the holiday weekend. With this done we headed back to the hostel for a rest, and then out to find some cheap dinner. It was this point where we realised we must have been staying in the red light district of the city, with several sex shops, women (and men) on street corners, a lot of transvestites and rows of gay bars. It was amusing to walk by but not our scene so we headed back to get an early night.
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Cynthia Payman Mrs So even though your Spanish was moderate? You could not understand Portuguese? It must of been amazing, I 've always wondered what Rio was like? I will tell Joseph all about this blog, I want to see more...? Where is the Island you were trying to get to?