Day 44: São Paulo to Ubatuba

Lynn loves her walking tours, so she does. And we loved the down town São Paulo walking tour so much, we decided to do the Vila Madalena walking tour the next day. We met the group at 11:00pm, a 20 min walk from where we were staying and were taken around the sights of the artistic hub of Vila Madalena.

It was a fairly chilled out tour, showing us the different stomping grounds of Sampas most famous and gifted street artists and stopping occasionally to look at the stylish contemporary architecture. But we knew we didn't have all day - we had a bus to catch. We were moving on to Paraty that evening. So, we tipped the guide and parted from the tour a little early. Not before stopping off to buy some funky t-shirts from two hippies selling clothes from their VW Van, while smoking a joint. It was entertaining watching them trying to work out in a loud slow voice the basic arithmetic of our transactions...

We got yet another uber from the hostel and went straight to the bus station. Another huge bus station. We managed to find the booth selling tickets to Paraty (we couldn't book online - you need a Brazilian social security number to do so) and the grumpy, rude and extremely unhelpful blob behind the counter informed us the tickets for Paraty were sold out. And that we couldn't get a direct ticket til the next day.

Rather than head back to the hostel and stay another night in São Paulo, we decided to push on - get a bus to a location en route and then head to Paraty from there. I understood from a basic conversation in Spanish-Portuguese, from a lady at information, that a bus could take us to Ubatuba (yes, that's a real place) in 1 1/2 hours, and from there we could get the last bus to Paraty, another hour and a half. This was feasible!

So at 6:30pm we boarded our bus for Ubatuba. At 8:00pm, our anticipated arrival time, we were still travelling away. And we'd only just come out of the city half an hour previous... I knew by the map that Ubatuba was a long way from the city on the sea front, so something wasn't right... 3 hours later, we arrived at our destination. A small, quiet bus station in the middle of a tiny sleepy town, with no buses marked for Paraty. We had gone as far as we were going to get that night.

With no wifi and no accommodation booked, Lynn employed her trusty Lonely Planet and found a recommended hostel for Ubatuba. We hopped in taxi and asked a taxi driver to take us there.

We arrived at The Green Haven Hostel a short drive out the road later. We checked into a large dorm, that although was a little grotty, we had the room to ourselves. We weren't were we had planned to be, but there was a thrill about it. Making it up as we went along. A much more authentic and unpredictable travel experience.

Accommodation: Green Haven Hostel
Weather: Hot day in São Paulo and warm sea air in Ubatuba