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We arrived in Santos at 6 in the morning. It seemed that the 6 hour journey was harder than the longer more direct journeys. The bus kept stopping at stops every hour which means that every hour you wake up to check that it's not your stop (even though we didn't really know one stop from another) This leaves us feeling super groggy when we step off the bus at 6 in the morning. I wanna wait to wake up for a bit before we wonder into an unknown city, however Dyson thinks it's best to get straight to the hostel. We need to find the local bus station so following his lead he starts walking down a dark street because he's spotted a bus at the end of. As we get further and further away from the bus terminal I convince him that walking aimlessly into an unknown city with every single document and item of value on us probably isn't the best idea. So we head back to the terminal to think it out. When we get back there I spot the station next to the terminal but the other side. Thinking things through, 1, aimlessly wondering, 0. We know the bus is 155 so we wait about 10 minutes and jump on. The directions say jump off at the university opposite a restaurant. These directions are so vague, we assume it must be blatantly obvious where the hostel is. How wrong we were, after about half hour of not spotting it we arrive back at the bus station.... Brilliant! Let's give that another go, we get about 20 minutes round an realise we'll be arriving back at the station again soon so we jump off. By this time Dysons getting really agitated and I estimate we have about 20 minutes left before the bomb explodes. So we end up getting a taxi from where we get off to the hostel and it turns out we git off absolutely no where near the hostel.
We arrive at the hostel at about half seven and standardly have to wait until two to check in. Tired and sticky neither of us are in a good mood so we sit on the sofa eagerly awaiting the check in. The girl at receptions can obviously see this and she pushes it through and we manage to get our room at about half twelve. I hit the hay straight away and catch up on some much needed sleep. We wake up at about five to sort our lives out, it's been Dysons birthday for 17 hours now and he hasn't consumed one drop of alcohol. We aim to change that now so head out to find a bar, nothin seems to be open so we head to the supermarket and grab a couple creates, get back, cook dinner and its game on. Play a couple games of pool while the beer takes its effect. I feel bad because for the first time I spank Dyson at pool about 6-1, happy birthday Dice! The hostel have made him a cake so everyone comes out sings happy birthday and we end up chilling out with a guy from Sao Paulo till it's time to go out. The hostel organise a taxi to the old part of town, where all the bars are. We hit a bar then the club, dice has no ID so we have to shoot back
to the hostel and then back again. The night blurs away then, I remember tequila being involved which is strange because I absolutely hate tequila. I assume it was a good night anyways!
As u can imagine the next day is my much over used phrase, a nothing day. We watched a bit of football on the tv and had a wonder down to the beach.
The following day (6th) we hired out a bike from the hostel and decided we were gunna see a bit of Santos. The roads are dodgy as, no one indicates which is handy when u bike past a parked car an they pull out in front off you, its especially s*** scary when there's a bus up your arse, who by the way seem to be on a point system with other buses to knock cyclists off, an u get pushed into it's path. The first stop is the Santo FC museum. We get there and the grounds pretty run down. It about £3.50 for entry plus a guided tour so we lap that up. The museums wicked, mostly about Pele and a little bit about Neymar. There must be about 50 trophies in there aswell. There's plenty to photograph so we amuse ourselves till the tour. Once on that we saw Neymar's family's box, pimped out, the press room and the home locker room. Pele's locker has been locked ever since he retired and rumour has it he has left a charm in there for Santos FC, there is only one key which his family hold so no one, not even the Santos FC president, can see inside. We then leave for the beach. Whilst riding along see a cable car which will take us to the top of the mountain. We jump on and take the 15 minute rickety cable car up. Once up the views are spectacular. The high rise city sky line runs into the beach and seas with the occasional small island just off shore. We snap happy the situation and head back down and back to our hostel. Have dinner and mooch in the front room. We have an early night as the next day we plan to travel to Sao Paulo and onto Paraty.
Next morning we get up nice and early, have breakie, pack and set off. We assume that any bus going towards the bus station will stop at the bus station, this is not however the case. It stops at the docks and the driver tells us to get of the bus. By tells I mean firmly yells in Portuguese and points until we get off the bus. Luckily I have a map of Santos in my bag and I navigate us to the bus terminal, about a 15 minute walk. The coach leaves to Sao Paulo in about half hour, happy days. We'll be in Sao Paulo with plenty of time to catch our coach to Paraty... which we haven't booked!
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