We awoke stupidly early, well for us anyway, to another miserable day. That meant that the beautiful scenery from the train may be non-existent, but it did make it easy to justify the taxi to the station! Though it meant that we arrived with plenty of time to spare and find our seats. We weren't exactly sure where they were as the ticket wasn't clear, so we asked a staff member and still we weren't 100% certain. We go on the carriage that we thought was correct a...

The reason for our stop in Belo was to then catch a train from there to Vitoria, which was to be a 13 hour trip, with the train leaving at 7.30am. We therefore decide to try and get accommodation close to Central Station, so it would be easy to get to the train when required. Once off the bus the first order was to try and get our tickets for the train. A task that seemed simple, as the station was between the bus terminal and our accommodation. However once we ...

After disembarking from the bus at around 11pm, we felt a little stranded as everything was closed. But as we stood on the street corner contemplating how we would get to our hotel, a taxi drove past. He flew down the steep cobblestone streets and pulled up at our hotel. Being a bit tired from the trip we didn't negotiate the rate before hand, and he had no meter, so he completely ripped us off charging $R 20 for the 2-3km trip. Our room was a twin with a shared...

We read the bus terminal in Sāo Paulo is the largest in the southern hemisphere. We pulled into bay eighty-something, and there seemed to be several more after that, so that description is probably accurate. This makes sense in a city with such a huge population. We heard different numbers, but somewhere in the vicinity of 15 million people, perhaps even 20 million in the greater São Paulo area. Almost the population of Australia! We had booked through Airbnb...

The road from Rio to Paraty follows the winding coastline, with some spectacular scenery over forested hills and islands with beautiful blue bays. We had a crazy bus driver who hammered along, throwing the bus from side to side, making one of our backpacks fly off the rack onto a poor woman's head! Apologising was difficult without speaking the language! We pulled into Paraty in the late afternoon, checked into our room, and wandered into the Centro Historico. T...