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2nd December
Check out from the cave, heading towards somewhere we don't really have anything to do in but we can get our connecting flight so it's mandatory. That means packing your bag again. WORST part of traveling! We haul our bags around a bus station from Beirut wondering how you get to your gate when all the signs decide to miss out number 49. Ignorance is not bliss! Jen speaks some Spanish, I german, both of us little bits of French I also speak struggled Chinese. None of this helps our current predicament. It goes like this, approach bus counter, apologise for being English, they huff and we struggle on till we eventually find our bus which is pretty swish for a pretty nothing price. Some bender is convinced everyone wants to listen to 'Durka Durk' by 'Obama & the Bandits' through his mobile phone. IPOD TIME. Turn it up to eleven, Jennifer falls asleep instantly. The bus ride isn't that bad, it cost about 18 quid and took us a long way very quickly and comfortably.
The journey to Sao Paulo winds it's way through majestic hills and it feels like we're on safari rather than a bus ride, and then with a wave of sadness you realise they have paved right through the gorgeous landscape to put a road here. Not too much time to be sad though coz it's cheaper than a plane!
Another bus station to navigate followed by the metro station. When we finally manage to work out how to get to the right stop Jen realizes we don't know this stations name and it's wrote nowhere! More apologies and shrugs and we arrive in the right place without being robbed. 9 blocks downhill through commuter hour and we arrive at our hostel. It's pretty much empty, BONUS. The owner spends 3 weeks, or thereabouts, taking us through various maps of the area. Marking on in a selection of colours different art galleries and museums followed by a fine selection of bars. We don't have the heart to tell him we don't have the budget for bars. Not that after 6 hours on a bus it doesn't appeal , the bars that is. I saw enough pretentious art and artists through university to last me a very very very long time.
The bathrooms are clean and the beds are decent. Common room and kitchen awesome as well. One of the best hostels we've been to. This is mind we treated ourselves to a above par tea. Jen being vegetarian struggles in a lot of countries to find good food so when we discovered soya bolognaise in a super market it was Spag Bol all the way. We followed that by a nice night of chilling with the other unemployed people avoiding the real world.
3rd December
Soooooooooo Sao Paulo, big city in terms of footbll. Very big city in general but everything seems to be art galleries or similar. We took a nice long (and I mean long) walk to a really nice park and chilled there for a while. The weathers still around 30c so it's good weather for doing nothing. The park was good though and home to the AfroAmerican Museum of Art, no Afro's insight though. Entry was free (backpackers rejoice), so we ventured in and proceeded to not have a clue what any of it was about. The only exception was a exhibition about Barrack Obama, so cluing up on big Obama we made our way back to the hostel. En route trying some of Brazil's favourite soft drink 'Guaranna' it's gooood. We decided that pasta wasn't very creative so ate soup for tea that night!
4th December
When your away from home the surroundings can be a bit hard to relax in so when you find a hostel like Villa Almeida you have to make the most of it and have a nothing day. Yesterday we'd found a 2nd hand book shop selling some English books so we were well equipped to chill out, yesterday had brought an absolute epic storm with it and the remnants were still hanging around. The hostels common room was empty of pretentious art loving hippies so we made ourselves at home. Sao Paulo reminds me of a mix of LA and New York, with some nice village type areas but still massive tower blocks. We ventured out in the afternoon to this little place the manager had mentioned, not an art gallery though, it was a bakery, and we bought what has to be described as the best brownies ever!! Jen seemed to think it looked good all over her face, whereas I opted for the conventional eating method. We both liked Sao Paulo but it was just so damn expensive, as was Brazil in general so we were ready to pack up and get moving on to Peru
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