I need to write this up pretty quickly and then I will go back and write about Paraty. There is a good reason for this. I havent slept in about two days, and have just spent about 20 hours on two buses. Some time in the near future I am going to have to do that again so I need to completely forget the experience.... also since I havent slept properly in so long there is a good chance I will forget it anyway, so here it is Paraty to Iguazu via Sao Paulo....

It all started quite promisingly, we worked out which buses left Paraty for Sao Paulo during the day so that we could get a bus from Sao Paolo to Foz de Iguazu overnight. P to S should take about 6 hours and S to I should take about 16. The last bus out of Sao Paulo is at 8 in the evening with the Pluma bus company and that would get in to Iguazu on the Brazillian side at around lunch, perfect......

The next consideration was of course the type of bus, there are a few. Sleepers, half sleepers, executive and regular (From my understanding at least). The sleepers are the best because the seats recline completely or almost and they have plenty of room..... and so our story begins....

Got to the station about 30 hour before our planned bus was going to leave... one seat left. The next bus was 3 hours later and would mean possibly missing the last bus in Sao Paulo and having to stay the night, with no other real choice we took the gamble and waited around in the hostel playing cards. When we did get down to the bus it was quite nice, an executivo for 6 hours, how bad... knees in back as usual... still we are getting there and the views are mind numbing. On the right there are jungle covered mountains stretching waaaay up in the sky, to the left there are rolling beaches with white sand and light blue seas crashing up on them.... this view does not get boring btw. We get to the first stop and drop a few people off and then head out of the town and up the hills. I reckon we were climbing for about 45 minutes, ears were popping and everything. At a few stages on the climb I could see speed limits of 30kmh it was so steep, but again it was amazing. Through breaks in the trees you could see out to the bays and islands all around. At the top of the climb there was a massive lake with farmers ranches and things scattered around, and from there on there was a lot more ranches and farm land. So now that you have the picture in your head, we hit motor way and into Sao Paulo. Again, guessing, I reckon we drove full speed for about 45 minutes on main roads through town to the station. Seven O`clock, perfect. Got our tickets for the next bus.... executivo (crap, but at least its cheaper.. 130 reals each). Got some food and went to wait for the bus. This time, leaving Sao Paulo I again reckon we drove for at least an hour before we left city. It is massive, approaching the city you could see skyscrapers for miles, it looks bigger than Manhattan, and apparently it is!!!

And this is where my ranting will begin. I was told the bus would be "freezing", an exaggeration I am well used to, so I brought my fleece on board but stayed in shorts and flip flops. It got quite cold, not freezing, but cold enough to prayed for socks. Second problem, the one guy in the seat in front of us decided to put both chairs back as far as they would go. I could have scratched his nose without leaning forward. He also smelt revolting... wee and poo by the end of the journey. Third problem was, I couldn`t sleep, got about half an hour of half sleep and thats it. Regina slept grand (nice!!!). Then we stopped to pick up people in the middle of nowhere off the side of the road and also made four pitstops along the way in random petrol station type places. The last one of these was at dawn. It was really old looking, and in the middle of nowhere also. At the pumps was an old VW beetle and an old chevy truck. Around the entire area was fog, if I had been awake enough to photograph it I could have won awards for it, it was so eerie and yet amazing at the same time, anyway, I didn´t so tough!

For the rest of the journey, stinky pants and the new guy who sat beside him after a stop (he looked like fat b****** from austin powers movies, head off him), both decided to have a "who can make me sick first with body smells" competition... .at this stage I had tricked regina into waking up so she could suffer too.

Anyway, we arrived, just, got a taxi to the local station, a bus to the border, got our passports stamped for exit hung around no mans land til the bus came to take us to argentina, and here we are. Hostel is lovely, we have gone for food and instead of all the lovely hatefull things I had planned writing I can only muster the above plus the advice to never ever ever use buses ever ever ever ever ever. Plus the food in argentina looks like it could be great, and cheap. Four ppl, stuffed to the brim for 30 euro with drinks included.

Thats it for now, Paraty will be written and photos put up when I wake up in a few days time, plus photos from the UNESCO heritage site that is foz de iguazu....

Regina - Sure i said i might update the blog myself after reading all davids ramblings, the bus really wasnt that bad, i think hes just delirious from lack of sleep at this stage, we paid for the cheapest bus so we got the cheapest bus but really wasnt as bad as i had expected, well except for the smelly people but sure you have them on buses in ireland..think we will be wise for our next trip and splurge on an expensive sleeper bus...think my feet did nearly freeze off at one stage last night so no exaguration there...argentina is savage soo far and as david says above the food is fab...il be a stone heavier leaving...anyways thats my update so far...byeee