Today, we spent the majority of the day driving 450 kilometers from Sao Paulo to Joinville. Normally, driving 450km by car on paved roads does not take nine hours, but the road we travelled on was through the mountains, had numerous radar guns and bizarre speed limit changes, and features 20 kilometers of one-lane traffic behind a line of trucks. But I will get to that after talking about final day and a half in Sao Paulo.
After spending the three days in Sao Paulo, two overarching questions were floating in my head. The first was a seemingly simple: where is Daniel? The other question was: por qué los estadounidenses no hablan más idiomas? These past few days, I have been speaking so much Spanish, as it is the common language of the four of us. Well, and the language of cupcakes, with words such as "chocolate," "vanilla," "gum paste." It is a bit confusing sometimes as I'm not sure if they are speaking Portuguese or Spanish, or Spanish with a hint of Brazilian Portuguese.
Yesterday morning, I met one woman at the hostel from Shanghai, China. We started speaking in Chinese, and she was in Brazil for a business trip. For the first time during the trip, I had my own secret language! So at the breakfast table, there was a mix of English, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, and everything in between.
After breakfast, Daniel and I started the day by going to "Rua 25 de Marco," a famous street in Sao Paulo where there are many cheap things and wares and such. It is comparable to the Chinatown in New York City, just overwhelming with sights to see, stores, people, and everything else in between. I am certain that Daniel and I went to every single store that sold items for the kitchen and cooking. Somehow Daniel was able to spot every single store that sold even just a plate…and of course, anything cupcake shaped.
After a solid, four hours of browsing every single store the "25th of March" and the surrounding streets, we changed focus and went to the opposite: the luxurious mall of Iguatemi, where it is very important to check in on FourSquare at Louis Vuitton and Chanel. The day ended with dinner at sushi Matsuya with Vani, a good friend of Camilo and Daniel, and her son Daniel.
Today (Tuesday) we "hit the road" and made the 450 kilometer drive from Sao Paulo to Joinville. Scenically, the drive was all right. There were parts where there was endless construction, in efforts to increase the number of lanes of traffic. There were also parts where there was a single house in the mountains. My favorite scene is of the fruit stands, where you drive for kilometers in the mountains, and then come to a clearing where there is a stand with more fruit you can count. Below is a photo of one of the said fruit stands:
We also stopped in Curitiba in Paraná for lunch (pasteles con carne, what else...) and cupcake supplies since you cannot find cupcake linings nor some of the other supplies needed in Joinville. Furthermore, Daniel is going to make 1250 cupcakes by Friday for an event. I wish that I had taken a photo, but all I can say is that the amount of supplies took up about two seats in the car.
Finally, after nine hours, we arrived in Joinville. Apparently you will know when you are in Joinville because it will start raining. Surprisingly, it was not (and it currently is not either). By the time we had arrived, it was dark, so I couldn't see much out the windows. Tomorrow, we explore Joinville!
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