I’ve traded in my motorcycle and gasoline stations for overcrowded buses with smelly people leaking methane gas. Iguazu to Sao Pablo Brazil

So I am now a man of public transportation, and it sucks!

First bus station

My freedom is somewhat gone, I’m on time schedules and spending my time in bus terminals rather than being out on the road enjoying nature, the fresh air and talking with the gas station attendants while I gas up.

Seems everyone had the same idea of sleeping at the terminal

Instead I’m stuck in the stinky bus headed to Sao Pablo. What have I done!

Just kidding, I know what I did and am still happy about it. But this readjustment of transportation means isn’t going well.

The bus ride would take 18 hours. And once I entered the bus and the smelled the urine and feces from the back, I knew it was going to be a long ride.

I did however enjoy the window seat pretending I was riding the bike looking out the window. I suppose that will do for now.

I arrived in Sao Pablo at 12pm. Nice and polluted I will say.

I went out to explore the town. I have my choice of buses that run all say long out to Rio all the way until 12 am, so I’m taking my time.

The day before I didn’t have to pay a hostel to sleep as I did so on the bus ride, so I’m going for a marathon of bus sleeping by taking the 12 am bus to Rio again and sleep on the bus to avoid a hostel charge. Chacon money saving tactics at hand!

I calculated the costs and it is about the same to travel by bus than it would be to do so by motorcycle as a gallon of gas here in Brazil is around $7 dollars. In this case I’ll save myself some driving too.

So I enjoyed the city.

I’ve been passing quite good speaking Spanish to the Brazilians and getting by with what I’m asking and getting directions despite the fact that it’s a completely different language!

It’s the most peculiar feeling to understand a foreign language you’ve never heard before by using context clues and similar sounding words.

But I’m picking put the lingo and hope to have less trouble in the future.

The city was huge!

Saw a nice church

And got a glimpse of the city from the tallest building in a 360 degree view.

It is an immensely huge city as you can see.

Some funky colored buildings that stood out quite easily

I do however love that at the center of the city there’s lots of Juice and sandwich bars that are very affordable.

Everyone says Brazil is expensive, but I must say that the food is not cheap but not expensive either,it’s on par with US prices and cheaper in some cases like fruit. But everything else is deathly expensive.

Walked through Japanese town.

And saw some old buildings

So I walked and hung around the city until 1 am, when I caught a bus to Rio de Janiero.

Cheap me waited so long because I realized I could just sleep on the 6 hour bus ride there and save myself a night at a hostel. I am definitely missing the bike and being able to camp and sleep anywhere.

This traveling on a budget and being poor is quite difficult as well.

On the bus ride I was weary however as I was told by a few tourists I met in Buenos Aires that their bus was hijacked on the same route from Iguaçu to Rio de Janiero. So it seems safety is now an issue.

Before I could drive my way out of danger, now I had no control over it, and that isn’t good.

Hope I don’t get hijacked!

Tomorrow Rio!