Our next leg of the journey took us to Paraty, back on the mainland of Brazil and not far off from Ilha Grande. We initially tried to book a transfer from the island straight to Paraty but they wanted to charge us 85 reais (an arm and a leg) and I knew we could do it for far less. But at what psychological price you might ask? A great one.

We knew the ferry for Angra dos Reis left at 10 am the day we were trying to go and that this would be the cheapest one all day. We figured we would try to go down to the ticket office after breakfast to ensure ourselves a place on board. By the time we set off it was already scorching hot and the sweat started to stream down our faces and then our entire bodies, lezbehonest. We were told by hostel lady to go to the tourist desk only to be told by the tourist desk we had to go one more dock down... This island is miniature, I know you know, hostel lady, where the dock for this ferry is... We turn up around 9 am and the ticket office isn't open and won't be open until 10 am. Again, thank you for the communication people, this could have all been sorted so easily, but now we have to leg it back to the hostel to grab our backpacks and queue up to make sure we get a ticket. We manage to do this and get back in line albeit the line has grown exponentially. That's all fine, we get on board and set off for Angra where upon arrival we are informed the bus station is about a 25 minute walk or we can take a bus (with all of our belongings, mind you) and it'll get us there quickly. We take the bus after a bit of a struggle and manage to get to the bus stop where we ask at the ticket counter about a bus to Paraty where we are informed there is a bus leaving at 12:20 (it's 12:30 at this point) and we should hurry out to platform 2. We run and then have to wait another 15 minutes for the bus to arrive. I hope you're recognizing a pattern here...

The bus arrives but it's not a nice, cozy bus with air conditioning. No, no, no. It's a metro bus, I suppose would be the best way to describe it, and it's arrived to take us on our 2 hour journey to Paraty. There aren't any seats left so we're left standing for the majority of the trip (Negar eventually sits on the exit steps) and we're off.

We manage to find the hostel without much effort and tour around the pretty colonial center for a bit and then we're back to the hostel to play in the pool for the rest of the day.

The next day we take the bus to Trindade, which is meant to have a beautiful natural pool and waterfall. Unbeknowns to us there is a bit of a hike involved to the natural pool. Naked hiking and endless sweating is what we like to call this sort of activity. Poor Negar, as well, was a bit too small for the massive steps put in place to hike to the natural pool and had a few mishaps with stubbing toes and cutting her feet. It was difficult but worth it (theme of this trip). The water was beautiful, the beach stunning as well, the waterfall's water cold. All in all a great day trip!

Our unofficial plans were to leave Paraty the following day for São Paulo but the world has other plans for us. We queued up to get our tickets a day in advance (feeling so good about how weren't procrastinating to get these tickets) and after about 5 mins in line a lady comes out of the office and says stuff to us in Portuguese. Negar and I look at each other, shrug and continue standing in the queue. We definitely heard something about mañana and the girl behind us informs us all buses for tomorrow to São Paulo are sold out, agotados, ausverkauft. Sucks to suck, b****es. So we're stuck in Paraty another day and our spirits are low. I had seen these shorts the day before and decided I now deserved to buy them, but as soon as I walk in the store I see they've been sold. We go to the supermarket to get some food for dinner and some lady yells at us for jumping the queue although neither she nor her cart nor her daughter we're in the same queue at us. Paraty was rubbing salt in our very fresh wounds.

Now I know I sound like the biggest brat complaining about being in paradise another day, but the reality of it all is that Negar and I are very much city kids. I enjoy the beach, I really do, but after a week and a half of "chilling" on the beach every single day, I get bored and I want to find some culture, a museum, anything at all but frying in the sunlight and I think that's why we were so excited to head onwards to Sâo Paulo, the largest city in the southern hemisphere with I'm sure more than three things to do. We couldn't wait to be surrounded by millions of people, but that plan was delayed another day.

The next day at breakfast we met a lovely couple from Dublin and an Israeli who we soon befriended and headed to the beach. Talking to the Israeli guy, Niv, I learn that instead of the three years all Isreali boys are required to serve in the army, he stayed on another three years as an officer. I asked what it was like to be so young and required to serve your country, and he said it's quite strange because boys finish high school around 18 and then go straight into military service where they're given a gun and put on the front lines of any and all issues facing Israel. He said cadets are predominantly stationed around Israel, especially on the borders, rather than outside the country. I asked whether he had seen combat and he pointed at a pink spot on his arm and asked what I thought that was. Turns out he had been shot twice in Gaza while serving in the army. He made a very interesting statement as well, that being that people outside of Israel/Palestine are fed all sorts of information about this and that in Israel and, of course, it's not ever a complete picture of what exactly is going on in the region. But he said, imagine how conflicted you feel about the issues in the region and what you think you would do if you served in the army in a war zone, and then imagine being about 20 and having to make minute decisions about how the conflict in the country will play out. The weight of all of the problems of Israel are on our shoulders and you just finished high school. I look back on when I was in my late teens and how little I knew about the world, I can't imagine being put in such a position of responsibility at such an age with very real consequences for my actions. That conversation is something that will stay with me for a long time to come.

The next day we are finally ready to set out for Sâo Paulo and we headed to the bus station to make sure we had enough time to situate ourselves to have a comfortable ride to the city. The bus was an hour late... As we had planned (had the bus been on time), we would have had more than enough time to take the metro to our hostel before it closed and avoid being ripped off in a taxi. But no, it couldn't be that stressless. Not only were we late hitting the road, but your man the bus driver decided it was essential to stop every single hour along the way to have a bathroom and Coca-Cola break. The worst part about the whole thing was that no one else on the bus thought this was an issue! They must have all been thinking, "Yeah, I could definitely go for some food/drink. This is totally normal to stop so much." Newsflash: It. Is. Not. The drive is meant to take about four and a half hours. It took us seven. SEVEN. Bus driver did everything is his damned power to prevent us from making the metro but jokes on him cause we caught the last one straight into town and saved ourselves, I'm sure about $50. Sucks to suck.

Anyway, this post was predominantly about the struggles of traveling around. I'll be honest, I knew we would encounter some difficulty but I didn't expect this level of inefficiency, and honestly it's fine! We laugh it off to prevent ourselves from crying, but we're still having a great time despite it all. The theme of the trip: It'll be difficult, but worth it. Very worth it.

Now we're in Sâo Paulo and the city kids are back where they belong... ;)