Costs pp: Bus Maresias to Boicucanga 2.50rs, Litoranea bus to Bertioga 5.95rs, bus to Guajura 5rs. Direct bus Maresias to Santos 28rs.
We have been so lucky with the people we have been priviledged to couchsurf with, in Santos Marcos met us with his car at the Guajura bus terminal and took us across to Santos where he lives by way of the car ferry. Marcos is a ship planner at the docks here, 25% of the products imported into Brazil come through these docks and this port is the largest in the southern hemisphere. His job is to organise the loading and unloading of the container ships, he has to take into account many things when both loading and unloading which we didn't think of. His apartment is a couple of blocks from the promenade and beach at Santos, each day he worked in the afternoon so before he had to leave he took us on tours about the city and beaches, in the evenings we walked along the beach and investigated the city near the apartment.
Santos is on an island actually although it is so close to the mainland that it is easy to mistake it as not being one. It and the next city of Vincente have grown to meet one another and share one of the beachfronts of which there are many. Guaruja is another city right next door to Santos but on the other side of the river and Marcos described it as a summer city as the huge apartment buildings there that run all the way down their beachfront are mostly empty in the winter time. Carol really liked Santos, right next to the beach is a big park that runs all the way down the beachfront and there are things going on all the time both there and on the beach like live music and sports etc. Although we did take a photo of a clock displaying the temperature of 40 degrees in the city streets it doesn't have the hot humid almost unbearable heat we have been having further north. As with all of Brazil so far we were able to watch storms coming over in the evening and one night in the apartment we were treated to a lightning strike right outside the window!
I, Carol, am writing this in the Lima airport. We caught a bus from Santos in the evening to Sao Paulo international airport and stayed the night there (I slept on the floor for the night while Kent worked on his stuff). We flew at 7.30am from there to Lima, Peru, arriving at 12.30 old time but 9.30am Peruvian time and we fly to Caracas tonight at 9.30pm. Kent's turn to sleep this time in the Lima airport but they have comfortable seats you can stretch out on, lucky him, so he'll be out until we leave. Apart from the better seats another plus about this airport as opposed to the Sao Paulo one is that we have free WiFi, yippee! So I am on here updating everything.
Next stop Caracas, Venezuela.
