So after the internet cafe last night, laina and headed to a restraunt in colonial Paraty, and met up with a new greek guy, the guy from israel, our brazilian frien and the two british guys. Then we headed to the bus station, "rodovario" to catch our 11:30 bus to Sao paulo. The bus was nice, about half the amount of seats as usual, and footrests, a great place to sleep for our 6 hour ride to the biggest city in south america. We fell asleep very quickly, and with only a few disturbances, we woke up in São Paulo. Our friend took us to the metro, and then to another bus station where we caught a 4 hour bus to here hometown, Cerqueira Cesar!
The bus ride was very interesting but my eyes actually kept closing, even though i was interested! Once we left the city proper, the land became shallow and hilly. There are orange fields on both sides of the highway, and some small villiages around them. After a while I saw many miles of eucalyptus plantation, which look like an organized forest. Also there are many cttle pastures, the cows here,"vaca" look different, more wild, and alot thinner then the plump ones we saw in Hawaii on parker ranch. As we traveled I could tell we were leaving the gingo trail.
The Gringo Trail, as i see it is traveling by bus from Rio de janeiro, to são Paulo, adn all the nice beaches betwee, and then to curitiba, and onto foz de iguassu.Since at são paulo, we went to Cerqueira Cesar , we are headed on a high way to the north of the gringo tail, and I was already able to tell this as we were driving on the bus to Cerqueira Cesar.
Coming into the town of Cerqueira Cesar we left the high way and passed through farmland, and then entered a small town with brick streets. It does not seem to be poor here or a great seperation of classes. We got off at the bus station, and our friends mom picked us up in her car! She is very nice, but does not speak english. We all get into her car, a VW Foxchase, (VW has their own line of brazilian cars) and drive through the town ~5 mins to get to their house. Getting out of the car, we were greeted by two very energetic puppies. They are both small lap dogs with energy to rival a hummingbird. The house our friend lives in is brautiful, the ouside walls are a brick red, and the whole house exudes an arizona, we live in a warm climate and have many doors and windows, feeling. The kitchen is half outdoor, and is already warm with smells of rice, beans, bacon, beef, and spices. Mmmmm!! Brazilian cooking!
The family here is great, she lives with her grandparents too, they do not speak any english either, but we seem to do alright with hand gestures, and "Muito Bom/Lindo" (very good/beautiful) and "obrigado"(thank you). I show the grandmother the ht I am knitting, and she gets very excited and took me to her oom to show me al the baby clothes she is kitting! She also a very good knitter. It is very sunny outside, and it is alot dryer here then in Rio de Janeiro. It feels more like souther california, there is a pool and the concrete is warm under my feet. In their backyard they have a trellis with beautiful flowers, and a big Acearola cherry tree, very high in Vitamin C. They also have monstera, and orchids, many plants i miss from hawaii. The mother calls us in for lunch, Mmm, I am very hungry. Lunch is delicious, rice, breans, bacon, beef, eggs and salad. very filling. After lunch laina and I went to take a nap in the guestroom, and we slept for 5 hours. When we woke, it was still sunny! it is summer here!! and we went for a walk around town. We headed to the supermarket and got some snacks, fruit and yogurt drink things. We also bought a fancy christmas bread for the family as a gift. We headed back and stopped at a church shaped like a piramid, and now then sun was starting to set, and we headed home.
Back at the house, we had a diner of delicous pizza, and now we are going to make it an early night, because I expect to have a very full next few days.
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