Sao Paolo and Paraty, Brazil

Well, it has been 5 days since we have been in the largest country in South America, and we will see so little of this garagantuan country. Brazil is the Hulk Hogan of South America and we are just 2 tiny beads of sweat on his body, moving along, but not getting to all the good places. But just a bit on what we have seen.

So our jaunt in Sao Paolo was short, but we had a taste, actually a nibble, of city life. We walked to Japantown, which was quite neat. There were a bunch of little Asian restaurants and shops. Although it is technically called Japantown, a lot of different Asian cultures have shops in the neighborhood. We got to buy red bean mochi and pot stickers for dinner. Yum! I was quite excited to have the pot stickers because it reminded me of dim sum, which is uber ymuuy.

Right before Japantown, we stopped at some massively important church in Sao Paolo. I don't really care much about churches, but when you are a tourist things you don't normally care or even think about in your real life somehow hold greater weight. So we went in because it was in our lonely planet book. And it was fine. At least as far as churches go. I don't really know how to evaluate churches. Mostly I am agahast at the gaudiness and frivolity, which i just don't get. It seems as if churches (and any other place of worship) should spend a lot less on interior decorating and more on giving that money to feed, clothe, and house the people begging right outside. But then again, I have never understood the politics or the grandeur of religion.

Moving on...the next day in Sao Paolo was a bit more mellow. We started off having plans to explore, but then we had to return to the hostel for something or other and then it started raining buckets so we ended up staying there for a couple of hours. Once the rain let up, we really only had a couple of hours left to sightsee until our evening plans. So really that only left us with enough time to buy our bus tickets for the next day to go to our next town. But we had a lovey night out with a couple of people we met in Sao Paolo. First there was this guy Luis who we met at the hostel. Annette and I went with him to a pub and gorged ourselves on french fries and beer. Somewhere along the way Annette got me to switch to smirnoff ice, which i still can't understand, and then the night becomes more of a blur. After a while Luis left (he turned out to be kind of a jerk) and then this girl Barbara, who we met at an internet cafe, and her girlfriend showed up and we had some drinks with them. After which, they took us to a gay dance club and i was so excited!!!! I love dancing at gay clubs!!! All the cheesy music was so great, as is being surrounded by lots of shirtless sweaty men. So much fun!!! I love that it is universal that gay men all over the world take off their shirts and rub their sweaty chests all over one another. Oh to be a gay man!!! We danced to Shania Twain, Britney Spears, and the Back Street Boys, just to name a few.



Going out with people we meet is a crap shoot. We went out with Luis, thinking he was cool, and he turned out to be a bit of a creep. But right after, we hung out with Barabara (who we met at an internet cafe) and her girlfriend. And we had a blast, even though they spoke no English, and we speak no Portuguese. But what an adventure!!!

As with any great fun night out, we paid for it the next day. For some reason it seems that every night that Annette and i have a big night out, we have to travel the next day. T his time was no exception. We had to check out of our hostel by 10 am the next day, which was no easy feat, considering that we went to sleep at 5 am. Then we were on a 6 hour bus ride to Paraty, which was a Portugues colonial town, where the Portuguese came on holiday way back when. The magical thing about Paraty is that it has over 300 beaches and 70 islands around it, so of course we were looking forward to having some relaxing beach time and bronzing our skin. And we are still looking forward to this time because as soon as the bus pulled in, it was raining. That was yesterday. We heard that the mornings were clearer and the rain comes mostly in the afternoon, so this morning we took a bus about 40 minutes away to the town of Trindade which is supposed to have one of the most incredible beaches in the area. We got there and it was beautiful, but alas, the sun did not want to visit the town today. We sat on the beach for about an hour before we had to give up on getting any sun. So we walked around the small town of Trindade for a bit and decided to come back to Paraty. Walking around Paraty is so beautiful, with its cobblestone streets and colorful buildings. You can definitely see the colonial influences in town. And we had a lovely 15 minute stroll before the rain decided to grace us with its presence again. So we hung out in a cafe with a lovely Irish girl we met on our journey. It is destined to rain for the rest of our time here, but maybe we will get at least 15 minues of sun. But there is something about being trapped in the rain in another country. It is way more excitng than being trapped in the rain at home. Funny how that works.

This is our beach day. Although we did not imagine this would be how we would get wet, we did get a cooling bath from the rain.
There are cute little boats all around Paraty to take tourists to the surrounding islands and beaches.