Quick stop - Sao Paulo

Nico and I took the Paraty Tours transfer from Paraty to Sao Paulo to get to Sao Paulo.

Paraty Tours picked us up a little after 8:30AM there was 9 seats in the back with 8 of us passengers. This driver was very pleasant.

We had a bathroom break 2 hours in. The break was about 35 – 40 minutes long. Back in the van we continued on our way to Sao Paulo. The first stop was the Airport. We arrived at the airport a little after 13:00. The second stop about an hour later was the Blue Tree Tower Paulista, which is located in the center of Sao Paulo. We (I mean Nico) took some pictures of the Blue Tree Tower Paulista and we figured out how to explain where to get on the Metro.

We headed to the Tiete Bus Terminal via metro to store our luggage and to pick up our tickets for the next bus. For my backpack, duffle bag and Nico's HUGE bag the price to hold our luggage was R$15.

The internet café costs R$4.00 for 24 minutes, R$5.00 for 30 minutes, R$6 .00 for 45 minutes. There are free bathrooms in the terminal but there are also bathrooms that costs R$ 1 or 2. 

The Tiete bus terminal is a really nice and user friendly terminal. After we picked up our tickets to Floripa with Catarinense Bus Company we headed to the tourist information kiosk. The tourist information kiosk is a little tricky to find. There are two kiosks that say information and are located in different locations. The first one you will most likely run into is the normal Tiete Terminal information. If you walk past that desk you will come to another escalator going down in the middle of the terminal. Take the escalator down and at one end of the terminals you will run into  the tourist information desk. I must say the two employees working today were great! They could speak English and were more then happy to help with all my questions. How to get around, where is a good place to eat and all of the above, with maps!

We had time to spare before our next bus so we decided to return to the Paulista area. Once we got to Paulista we were starving it was around 5:00 PM so we started looking for the recommended areas that our good friend Claudio mentioned. However we didn’t find them. We did come across an excellent cheap find though! “Balaios; on Rua Luiz Coelho 190. We were able to get A LOT of food for a great price. I got two pieces of chicken breast, beans, rice and fries for R$14. Nico got Picadinho, which is cubes of beef, vegtables some type of sauce, rice and beans for R$13. To top off the meal we got a Big 600 mL Heineken for R$8. The food was great and the service was friendly and quick. Definitely would go there again.

Now, currently we are sitting in the bus terminal waiting for our 11:30PM overnight bus to Florianopolis!