Paraty to Sao Paulo bus station

So after leaving rio I decided to head to a small colonial town four hours away called Paraty.

I arrived in Paraty and rocked up to hostel where I met Paul and Marion the couple I met in Rio. After settling in we all rocked up to the bar which was on the beach. After a couple of minutes this Australian guy in his 40s joined us. The only way I can describe him is as one of the most annoying people I have ever met. He was biking across SA but had apparently also biked across every country in the world and he literally would not stop talking about him self.Its hard to explain how annoying he was but lets just say after about two minutes I wanted to shoot him in the face.

After a couple of minutes a norweign guy named markus joined us so I no longer had to listen to the annoying Ozzy.

After a couple of beers I explained to Markus the economic situation in Ireland and asked would he mind maybe giving us back our oil. He said that if I was stuck for a job I could come work in his norweign mansion because in Norway they employ people from poor countries just for the laugh.

He also bought me a beer and called it norweign guilt beer which was cool but I wasn't letting up on the oil thing. So he promised to send me a couple of barrels of oil whenever I got back to Ireland.

After a few more beers myself, markus Marion and Paul decided to go on a Jeep trip to see some waterfalls because lets face it everyone loves a good waterfall.

The next day we got in the Jeep which was apparently from the Korean war(this was definitively not true). The guide seemed like a nice guy but couldn't speak much English but did drive around for around an hour so I could get batteries for my camera.

Anyway we drove out into the Brazilian country side to the first waterfall. To reach the waterfall you had to cross a rope bridge so that was cool. It all seemed very tropical and sunny etc so I was happy enough. The waterfall it self was more like a downward bend in a river as apposed to an actual waterfall It was a cool place to get in for a swim though.

After a couple of minutes we moved on to the so called second waterfall which again not so much a waterfall fall more like water falong at a small incline over some rocks. This did have really large flat stones running down it to a pool at the bottom. The rocks were unbelievably slippy and you could slide down them which was good craic. The Brazilian guy working there could surf down the rocks and do really impressive tricks which was really cool.

After that we decided to give the tour a second chance until the guide decided to bring us to some weird hippy house in the jungle.

He brought us in to the house and said we could order food although to me it looked just like some ones house. They were all in the kitchen making a Salad and one women was breast feeding. It was all very strange and I don't really know what the whole thing was about. I'm pretty sure they were growing pot and making clothes out of plants and shit which they were trying to sell. Anyway we high tailed it out of their to the next waterfall.......

That again wasn't really a waterfall. There was water and I suppose technically it was falling but not much I've seen better water falling in the shower.

We were all fairly hungry so we didn't stay long and moved on to a kilo restaurant in the middle of know where. (a kilo restaurant is a restaurant that you pay for your food per kilo. Its like a buffet but they weigh your plate at the end. If your clever and don't put really heavy things on the plate you can eat cheaply. These restaurants are very popular in Brazil).

After food and a few beers the guide brought us to a beach and then just walked off and drove a long beside us at the edge of the beach as we walked along the beach.Again I'm not really sure what he was at. He was kind of mental. At the end of the beach you could jump into the sea and get covered in this weird mud that looked like oil which was cool.

After that we went back to the hostel to have beers again.I was due to check out the next day but decided to stay another night and do the boat trip to some Brazilian islands the next day with Marcus.

The boat trip was good and it brought us to some beeches and we seen some great views of Brazilian coast line. Although to be honest after the first one they all look the same. I do enjoy a good beach though.

On the boat trip we met a really cool couple Alex(from England) and Jane(from Canada). We ended up sitting with them the entire day on the deck of the boat having a few beers which continued on to beers on the beach outside the hostel.

The next day Marcus was supposed to be heading to ihla grande an island near rio famous for its beautiful beaches. Marcus had become somewhat obsessed with this island as he wanted to fulfil his life long dream of playing a pirate on a pirate island. It was the reason he spent weeks growing a pirate beard.

Anyway I suggested that he should come to florinopolis with me and after a few beers we had set a plan to head to Flori then into Argentina to iguazu falls. We legged it down to the bus station to book our tickets to Sao Paulo so we could get a night bus to Flori.  Sao Paulo is apparently the biggest bus station in the world although I'm not sure I believe that.

We hopped on the bus that was half an hour late and hoped we would make it to Sao Paulo bus station before half eleven at night to make the night bus to Flori....what could possibly go wrong you say...a lot..lots of things could go wrong and did go wrong.

In Brazil it seems they are not really big on time keeping.They're a very relaxed nation of people who are extremely friendly but not the best at being on time. Firstly the bus was half an hour late so we were cutting it fine already. Then it looked like the bus driver started dropping people off to their houses and taking de tours all over the place.

We made it to the Sao Paulo bus terminal with around two minutes to spare and legged it through the bus terminal to try jump on the last bus to Flori although ironically this seems to be the only bus in Brazil that leaves on time. When we reached the departure area at two minutes past half the bus had gone... Resulting in what lead to myself and markus spending a night from hell in Sao Paulo bus station.