Brazil: Paraty: Uba-Too Many Buses!

Thank god the “Cell Phone Disco” bus ride finally came to an end at 11am dropping us at the hectic bus station in Sao Paolo. . . we will just consider it an early Christmas present that we got a few hours sleep and the karaoke party stopped Neither of us speaks Portuguese and this was the first indication that we were going to have a tough time trying to get around like a local---initially we had to resort to pointing and charades. Our plan was to make our way up the Costa Verde (Green Coast) up to an old colonial town calledParaty. . . after figuring out that Paraty is pronounced Para-che we found out that to our dismay the 4 hour DIRECT bus to Paraty was fully booked so we grabbed a burger and hopped on bus #10 to Caraguatatuba which will allow us to connect to #11 in Ubatuba. . This would allow us to connect to #12 to Paraty arriving at 11pm. The Costa Verde reminded us a bit of inner Jamaica--near our friend Makeda's grandma in Mandeville. By the way, the busses in Brazil drive fast, really fast! If you come to this area and get on a city bus hold on for dear life! The first corner we took sent our bags flying across the aisle just about killing some old lady. The driver looked at us with a look as if to say “Ha, rookie tourists”. As we sit here traveling on Christmas Eve (and pondering how strong the guardrails are), we wish we could be with family enjoying a delicious dinner and making cookies for Santa! After a long day of travel we finally arrived at Sereia Do Mar. It’s an adorable, small beachfront hostel on the north side of town. When we arrived there was a party in the street and a Christmas celebration going on inside. It was a warm night, the Gypsy Kings were playing on the stereo, the wine and beer was cold and it was the perfect way to end a long day of travel. We can’t help but think of all our friends and family tonight and hope you all have a Merry Christmas! Love and miss you all!