Air conditioning… a pure luxury!

But who needs it when you’re in Brazil and want to sample the local lifestyle, where sometimes the memorable experiences are the ones without the luxuries… like catching a local intercity bus…

Closing your eyes as you bustle down the road, you can smell the different aromas; smoke from a wood fire cooking something delicious, the different fruit trees, like the jack fruit, and hear the constant sound of Brazilians conversing, greeting each other and signaling for a stop.

For me, it’s a great way to meet people too…

On the trip from Sao Paulo to Ubatuba, I had the privilege of sitting next to Raquel and Rafael. Rafael was just 8 and was heaps of fun during the journey. He became a very quick learner of how to play Angry Birds on the iPhone, and I must say it was fine trying to translate what you need to do to play the game in Portuguese.

He wanted to know all about kangaroos too, and how high they jump, and whether we ride them..

Afterwards I offered him and his mother one of my favourite chocolate biscuits (Passatempos), and he turned to his mum and said, “I like him, he’s really cool”…

Raquel works in Sao Paulo part time and then heads back to home near Ubatuba, which must be difficult to live in two places at once, three hours apart by bus. They gave me a smile as they hopped off and told me how long it would be until the next stop.

Just two of the many cool people I have been fortunate enough to meet while on buses in Brazil.