Sampa

We planned on leaving for São Paulo early yesterday morning, however we missed our bus. SO we rented some bikes and climbed a steep mountain chasing waterfalls. (TLC had warned us against this but we were sick of the rivers and lakes that we were used to.) After nearly giving up because of the great incline this hill challenged us with we came across a man who smelled of early morning liquor, sweat, and work. He asked us if we were looking for the waterfalls and he said he would show us where they were as he was walking that way anyways. We pushed us bikes up the nearly vertical turn and he pointed us in the right direction. We locked up our rented bikes and stumbled upon a group of onlookers gawking as a teenaged showman scaled up the slick rock which water trickled down only to surf back down on his bare feet plunging into the water with little to no regard for the rocks that sat in the water. He invited us to do the same only sitting on our butts. We all went down and all reached the same feeling of panic, as the rocks seemed to imminently loom in the water waiting to bust a skull. We all survived. We walked up further chasing waterfalls and found a precarious suspension bridge. We crossed the bridge and dove into the cold, pristine water. We jumped off the top of another waterfall back into the water. We rode our bikes back down the hill, took showers and caught a taxi just in the nick of time to catch our bus. After a white knuckled bus ride through curvaceous mountain passes--coincidentally spent sitting next to the lovely receptionist from the hostel, we made it to São Paulo, the biggest city in Brazil. We said goodbye to our smoking traveling partner and went off to find a cab. The Hostel had told us that the cab should cost no more than 25 reais so when the cab driver started talking about 40 reais I knew he was trying to screw us. I started negotiating, telling him the hostel had told us one thing and he couldn’t charge us more. He was a middle aged black guy with glasses and his shirt unbuttoned half way down his chest. He haggled until he eventually agreed to 30 reais. We shouldn’t have paid a dime; he was quite possibly the worst cab driver I’ve ever had. It turns out he was from Bahia, a state in the northeast of Brazil. I started to ask him where some good Bahian restaurants were and where we could find some exciting nightlife. He got extremely distracted by my questions, crossing over lanes of traffic, swerving at the last minute to catch exit ramps, and dancing while driving. He finally dropped us off at our hostel, after a slow and nerve-wracking journey. We only had a 50 and he only had change for 35. Insufficient change is a common occurrence in Brazil. In fact we almost missed our bus from Paraty to São Paulo because of this exact same phenomenon. We checked into our hotel, went across the street to get a cheap meal of steak, beans, rice, greasy French fries, and manischevitz-esque wine. The middle-aged waitress seemed as if she could be out of a Jewish deli in Philadelphia or NYC. We wandered around looking for a bar the receptionist had recommended and gave up after the directions he had given lead us on a wild goose chase in a dark and sketchy neighborhood. This was our third night in a row without partying substantially, something is amiss.