The One Where I Turned 30 In Brazil - Part 1 - São Paulo.

So here it is - my first ‘proper’ blog post about my most recent trip to Brazil. Just like any good trilogy (Back to the future, Star Wars...High School Musical!) I’m going to split it into 3 parts, first being São Paulo. For those that know me personally or follow me on Insta, you will know that Brazil is my FAVOURITE country. The atmosphere, the dancing, the music and of course the Caipirinhas- there is just something about it all that makes Brazil my ‘happy place’. As a general rule of thumb I try not to revisit countries until I have ticked more off my list, but as my 30th birthday fell at the same time as Rio Carnival it was a no brainer.

I have gone away for my birthday for the last few years now - mainly because it’s a perfect excuse for some sunshine in February. I always knew I wanted to do something BIG for my 30th so my partner and I went ahead, booked the time off work and got those flights in the bag!

I took the reins on the planning (as I do) and we decided to cover 4 different places in Brazil over a total of 16 days. Flights to Rio around Carnival time were way more expensive than normal so we decided to fly from London to São Paulo and then return home from Rio. We booked the flights in September and paid £649 each, flying direct with BA.

Itinerary planning came next and we finally decided on :

São Paulo (2 days)

Rio (6 days)

Ilha Grande (3 days)

Paraty (3 days)

Rio (2 days)

As soon as we landed in São Paulo we discovered how cheap Ubers were compared to the normal taxi firms. We took a 50 minute cab to our accommodation and it literally cost us less than £10! We opted to stay at ‘Vossa Bossa Consolação SP London’. It had a rooftop infinity pool and cost us £47 for the 1 night we were staying there. It was still early when we arrived but the first thing we did was get in the pool and look out over the iconic city of São Paulo. We had arrived!

After an 11 hour flight we were in need of a 20 minute power nap before getting ready to explore the city. First stop was the Municipal Market where Raj experienced the famous Mortadella Sandwich (pictured below). The market had a great atmosphere with the colourful fresh fruit stands and the general hustle and bustle of the locals doing their shopping. From here, we walked through the city and stumbled upon some live samba music being played in the streets. It was that moment that put the biggest smile on my face and my love for the country came rushing back! We arrived at São Paulo Cathedral which was timed to perfection - there was a service taking place so we quietly took a seat and observed. Religion is massive in Brazil and the passion and faith we saw that day in the cathedral was breathtaking.

We headed back to the apartment as we had dinner reservations at the well known Terraço Italia Restaurant. We had decided to treat ourselves to a fancy meal to celebrate our first night so of course we wanted to look the part! I don’t think anything could have prepared us for the view though - I swear a helicopter flew right past us at one point, we were that high up in the sky. The city was lit up and it’s a moment I will always remember. The food was sublime and the live music really set the mood!

The following day we had a night bus to Rio booked at midnight. We had decided to not waste 6 valuable hours in the day plus we were saving money on a hotel by doing this trip overnight. However, we found that we were in a bit of a pickle with our suitcases as the accommodation couldn’t hold them for us. After putting Google translator to the test, we were finally able to leave our luggage at their office which was a few streets away from where we had been staying. The only problem with this was that we had to collect them again at 4pm - a full 8 hours of lugging our suitcases around before boarding our bus! While we were free without bags, we visited the football museum (Raj is a massive football fan) and then Beco do Batman, a winding myriad of streets full of amazing graffiti and somewhere I highly recommend visiting.

One slight sticking point about buses in Brazil is that when you book the tickets online, you only receive a voucher by email. You then have to exchange that voucher for your actual tickets at the ticket office - and you have to make sure the ticket office is open when you plan to do this. It was hard to find the opening times online as it was all in Portuguese (and São Paulo bus station is the second largest in the world!) so we decided to head there as soon as we had collected our luggage and make a decision on what we wanted to do afterwards.

Tickets in our possession, we opted to get an Uber and head back into the city to a rooftop bar and watch the sun set (remember Ubers were costing us £1-£2 for a 20 minute trip). The View Bar ticked all the boxes and we enjoyed some caipirinhas whilst chatting away our final few hours in São Paulo.

The bus was delayed - something we later discovered was the norm in Brazil and looking back I would have chosen a better way of travelling to Rio. It was a long journey, especially with the carnival traffic, and we didn’t sleep well. Having said that, it was busy with fellow 'carnival goers' and there was an amazing atmosphere in the bus station and on our bus. After all, we were on our way to the biggest party of all!

Laura-Ann

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