We made our way to Sao Paulo on the Sunday bus from Paraty, it was only a short six hour journey so we arrived at about six o'clock in the evening after the driver had taken a few wrong turns! Some of the Brazilians were getting a bit miffed but we eventually arrived. As usual we went to the local tourist information office to plan our route to the hostel we had booked.

Sao Paulo is a city with a population of 20 million people so it is vast, but it does seem to have a very good metro system, we jumped on after buying a couple of tickets and when we got to our stop we headed out. After a two or three block walk that seemed to go on for ever due to the heat and heavy backpacks we arrived at the hostel. It was in a nice area and was fairly new. It had been set up by a young guy about a year ago who was really nice and there were a lot of people there that seemed to have been there a long time.

After settling in we asked the guy at reception where we could get something to eat, he recommended us going to the Japanese street market which only runs on a Sunday where there were food stalls as well as other items for sale, we both thought this sounded good so off we went on the metro again.

Five stops later we arrived at the station and there was the market, stalls of food, bonsai trees, and other Japanese artefacts. It was really busy, people everywhere, we had arrived late so a lot of the stalls were starting to pack up, the food stalls however were in full flow which was our main concern. We had a Chow Mein style dish and also some battered prawns which were so nice. We stood next to a wall watching all the people go about their business, it was really interesting.

Our stay in Sao Paulo was only going to be for three days as we were catching our plane to South Africa on the 23rd. We hadn't planned much and were just going to wander round the city and see what we could find. We went to the main high street and also tried to walk to the park which we couldn't find without crossing a major intersection. We managed to see a few bits as well as going to the cinema to watch a film, so that was nice.

Over our few days we managed to get our blog a bit more up-to-date and relax before we had to leave, on our last day there was a street market outside the hostel so we wandered round and bought a fresh mango and some strawberries which were really nice. We also sample a local pastry which was lovely, and well worth trying. It was a type of pasty made from a local filo pastry and deep fried. We chose ones with various cheese fillings although there were allsorts available.

Then off to the airport, the guy who owned the hostel took us and dropped us off, this made life a lot easier as the airport was quite a long way out of town. We checked in and then went through to relax before we took off. The flight was delayed by one hour so it meant we had to rush to collect our luggage and book it on to our connecting flight from Johannesburg to Cape Town, we made it though.