The missing blog

OK, finally I got to a place where I can update again!

Here is the 27th of January:

Yesterday we spent time exploring Sao Paulo and organizing and planning our next few days of the tour. The area is a lot nicer and more accessible during the day. Felt very comfortable and safe in most of the areas we visited. Night brings out all sorts of weird characters! Already a bit of the initial shock is gone, although we still struggle a lot with the language barrier. Even getting the right metro subway ticket is difficult! I'll divide today's blog into three sections: Strange things about the hostel, the Sao Paulo tour and what happens next. Strange things: Bathroom manners. All the toilets here have septic tanks and you cannot throw any toilet paper into the bowl. There is a nice little bucket for your waste! The showers are also pretty interesting. There is hot water, but if the hot tap is turned nothing happens until you turn on the cold tap as well. Water from this is heated by some sort of current. You can actually see the wires going into the shower! Does not fill you with a whole lot of confidence! The elevators here are very small. Think single closet. 4 people are crammed in here. And lastly the breakfasts served here are excellent. Fresh fruit, ham, cheese, bread, juice, coffee and of course chocolate cake! The computers are in Portuguese as well and cannot be changed. I can't understand any of the menu's, so cannot set up any photos for now. Can't find the right options. I'll send a few photos as soon as possible. Probably via e-mail for now. Sau Paulo: Sau Paulo is a town of many flavours. The old center of town is a bit rundown with lots of old buildings in terrible shape. The streets are filled with an unbelievable array of shops and people. There are fruit stalls everywhere, with many fruits that are found only in the Amazon. People park their cars anywhere and sell beer and juice from out the boots. The prime piece of the area must be the magnificent Cathedral de Sé. This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen! It is HUGE and very beautiful. The surroundings around the cathedral is very interesting, although a bit dodgy. Thousands of shops selling counterfeit dvd’s, games and all sorts of Chinese and fake American products. The rest of the time we spent exploring Avenue Paulista. This is known as the New York of the Tropics. The street is lined with MASSIVE skryscrapers and fancy designer shops and little cafës. Walking around this area it is easy to forget how poor the rest of Sau Paulo is... One interesting thing we came upon was the chinchila. We couldn’t really figure out what it was. It’s sort of a kangaroo type rat? With a bushy tail. Plans forward: Today we are taking the bus to Curitiba. A large student type city. It is about a 6 hour bus trip from Sau Paulo. From there we go to Paranagua by train. This journey is supposed to be the most beautiful train trip in all of Brazil. You even pay more to sit on the left side of the train! This is about 4 hours. From there we head on to Foz de Iguazu (Brazillian part of the falls) (a 10 hour bus trip). There we will attempt to cross the border to Puerto Iguazu (the Argentinian side). Then we head for Buenos Aires. We’ve got a lot to do! Ciao, Neil and Lloyd