From Ilha Grande on!

Rhia writing!

October 11th -

We had a lovely evening after the snorkling, though John´s still boasting his sunburn.
Unfortunately, it was the start of hard times for our team. Initially we temporarily lost our key on the way back from snorkelling. They let us into our room at the hotel, though, and it turned out my shorts have a secret pocket, so that day was saved. The following morning started off ok, it´s true, with breakfast on the beach, getting our stuff together, and ferrying across to Angra dos Reis.

This, however, is where things started to go seriously wrong. First off the busses to Paraty and Sao Paulo ended up being full.

We were goin to experiment with going to Paraty and buying a bus ticket there, when the sales guy suddenly comes up with two seats on the three o`clock bus to Sampa. We`d been planning on getting the noon, so this was a bit of a pain, but we were game enough to wander around town, having a beer and such. We made it back to the bus in lots of time, and rode a pleasant 90-minute journey to Paraty. There, we discovrered that the attendant had ¨Somehow¨managed to sell us tickets from the day before`s bus. I am not proud of my dissolution into tears, but I was not relishing the idea of scrounging for a room when we´d been previously quoted inflated prices, nor the idea of buying a new ticket. Of course, when I´m upset, my Portuguese becomes even iffier, and so the whole thing was a debacle. They somehow found us seats on the otherwise sold-out next bus. The hitch? It left Paraty at eleven-thirty pm. Ugh.

It was about six by then, so we had a long wait ahead of us. The left luggage office was only open until 7, so it was a bit of a loss. We did, however, discover a drop off laundry place, which lightened our loads a little. We had no alternative but to wander into Paraty with all the rest of our possessions on our backs. It´s a gorgeous little town, and I´m sure that under any other circumstances I would have loved it.

We were a little limited in our options, though, with the bags, so it was a matter of exploring a few steets and killing time until we could eat dinner. We had an amazing filet mignon, with a fancy sort of salad, and headed back to pick up our laundry before they closed for the evening.

Then there was nothing to do but wait for the bus, then sleep in discomfort until we rolled into Sao Paulo at 5 a.m.

October 12th -

Fortunately, our hotel was OK with us checking in that early, so we grabbed a taxi over to what turned out to be a slightly dodgy neighbourhood, and fell into the bed. Several hours later we emerged for some lunch, and to get some cash. Once again, we couldn´t convince any of the bank machines to give us money, which was full of stress until we finally stumbled on a Citibank, and succeeded. We went back up to the room to stash some of the money, and passed out again for another few minutes. Later, we tried to find our way to a park to hang out in the warm weather and maybe see some museums. We got a little lost, though, and it was REALLY hot, and the whole combination of the slight scariness of Sao Paulo and all the rest... well. So we gave up on the Park and tried out Avenida Paulista, which was a better bet. We poked around some shops, saw a Peter Greenaway exhibit, accidentaly stole some free internet... had a few beers.

By then we were seriously craving vegetables, so we aimed for the asian area of town for supper. It was actually pretty scary up there too, dark and ominous, but we found somewhere open and had some pretty decent Chinese, then back to the hotel and fell into bed.

October 13th-

Saturday in Sao Paulo was finally a nice experience. We wanted to track down the city food market, because I´m a bit of a fanatic that way. It took us a few tries in the end, but in the meantime we navigated a good number of completely thronged shopping streets, and really enjoyed the atmosphere. We managed to separate ourselves from a few bucks in the process, but we got some good gear! After those few false starts, we did find teh market and it was everything I´d hoped. I acquired myself a fat slice of pineapple for about 50c and then we got our lunch. John had the mortadella sandwich, a veritable mountain of meat, with a tomato-onion sort of sauce. Me, I tried the Pastel de Bacalahu - a deep-fried salt cod fritter. Yum. All kinds of awesome.
We made our way back to the main train station and joined up with a free metro-based tour group. This took us to the Luz metro and train station, a beautiful building initially completed in 1901. Tehre was a fire there at one point and part of the building was completed in a similar style in the 40s. The guide was very good, but the whole thing was in Portuguese, so I had my hands full translating for John. We got some good pictures in a nearby park, then had a quick turn through a sacred art museum.

We decided that staying out for the day was our best bet, so headed back to the Asian neighbourhood to check out the end of the street fair there. It was pretty well wrapped up, so we settled in for some beers and Japanese snacks. Then, eight hours after leaving the hotel, we collapsed back into bed. (after a serious degriming shower).

October 14-

We overslept due to the time change and missed our free breakfast! We headed back to Paulista and took in a couple of street fairs, acquiring some souvenirs and wandering the Trianon Park. We were thinking about checking out the art museum tehre, but gave it up as not quite interesting enough. Had a giant churrasqueria lunch again. We tried once again for the park of our first day tehre, and it turned out to be a heck of a long walk. We saw the Afro-Brazillian museum, and attempted another art museum, which, as it turned out, had no exhibit at all. Huh.

We went back to the room to pack and chill out in preparation for our 5 a.m. flight. John watched the futbol on TV and wanted to catch the second half in a little local bar. So we did. We ordered the `plato del dia`, an absolutely enormous plate of canned-like spaghetti noodles in a pinkish sauce with a chicken leg on each plate. Way too much food. We were feeling guilty about how much we were leaving on our plates, especially with the entirely too concrete poverty all around us - but things ended well!

There were a couple of guys at the next table, and when some kids came begging for scraps, he sent them to the bar to get a takeout plate. Then he scraped the spaghetti he hadn´t finished into that. We handed over our leftovers in a heartbeat. The guy topped it off with some of the fries he and his friend were sharing, and we gave the kid some of our bottles of pop, as well. The look in his eyes. There´s not much more I can say about that. IT felt good, but also sort of in a ... well. I´m sure you understand.


TODAY! October 15th.

I got up all stressed today, sure that it was 5 after 5 and that we´d missed our alarm and they´d failed to give us our wake-up call. Only after I´d brushed my teeth and woken John did I finally realize it was 5 after 3... Ooops. We did get our wakeup call at the appointed time, and made it to our flight and Foz de Iguazu without a hitch. A city bus took us to the national park, we paid our entrance fee, and a second bus delivered us to the trail at the top of the falls. The Brazillian side gives a sort of overview - and what an overview! Even in this year where people keep telling us how little it´s rained, it´s pretty impressive. Not so much the lesser falls, which are loud, but not whitecapped right now, but the Devil´s Throat is just amazing. The photos will really have to speak for themselves. (Not today, this place is pretty rustic).

Then we caught another city bus to a hotel on the outskirts, and switched over to one that, for $2 R(about a buck) would take us to the Brazillian border. The bus didn´t wait for us to finish our exit formalities, but when we caught the next one it did stop at the Argentine border for us to get stamped in. Kind of incredible.

In the torential rain, that same bus delivered us here to Puerto Iguzu, where we´ve checked into a fairly luxurious (for us, anyway!) hotel, found some pesos, finally had lunch, and this here internet cafe.

Looks like tomorrow is the Argentine side of the falls in the rain, then a rush to the airport and on to Buenos Aires!