Both Simon and Ang were up early, checked out of their accommodation and then received their next clue. They were required to make their way by bus to the mega city of Sáo Paulo. Once again they headed back to Puerto Iguazú where they jumped on a regular local bus for the trip across the border to the Brazilian town of Foz do Iguaçu.

Ang hiding in a tree at Foz do Iguaçu border

The border crossing was unremarkable and the team raced into Brazil. Unfortunately while the bus connects the two towns, it doesn’t connect the two bus stations. So after being dropped off in the middle of Foz, Simon and Ang decided to take a taxi rather than skate like some of the other teams did, mainly owing to the heat and humidity.

Once they arrived at the station, the team bought tickets to Sáo Paulo on the cheaper overnight bus. This once again was a long bus ride, made all the more challenging for the Team by the switch from Spanish to Portuguese. During the course of the long ride the bus was stopped three times at police check points, one woman kept collecting five reais from approximately 80 percent of the passengers for some unknown purpose and an elderly lady who liked to talk didn’t stop until two am (she had a captive audience and received many barrels of laughter). Because of all this action, the team got very little sleep. And once again, due to all the stops, a fifteen hour bus journey became a twenty hour journey with the bus arriving in Sáo Paulo five hours late. With the bus edging its way through early morning traffic, both Simon and Ang regretted the decision to purchase tickets on the cheaper bus as they now ran the risk of elimination.

Arriving at the Terminal Rodoviário da Barra Funda, the team was given a clue that required them to purchase onward tickets to Rio De Janeiro. They quickly enquired at the ticket windows, but found out that the bus service they wanted departed from another bus station, the Terminal Rodoviário do Tietê, the second largest bus terminal in the world and eight metro stops away.  Racing down into the metro, Simon and Ang quickly pulled ahead of another Team Australia on their own exclusive race, but with the same clue.

After 30 minutes, they raced into Tietê.  There they purchased tickets on the moderately premium bus service to Rio, mindful that they would be travelling their along with a huge number of people and keen not to have a repeat experience of their earlier bus ride in Brazil. Simon and Ang then were given their next clue and made their way to their accommodation. After checking in the hostel, they set off to explore the large, but surprisingly accessible city in search of a suitable upgrade to Ang’s ancient SLR.

Busy Sao Paulo street	Graffiti all the way to the roof. A Pro for sure.

The team raced around the centre, from shop to shop before the stumbled on a large collection of small electronic and computer equipment retailers over several blocks. There they were able to negotiate a price that was approximately similar to what would be paid back in Australia for the same camera type.  Due to the bad experiences of previous races, the team had no credit cards on them, so they raced back to the metro and their accommodation, hoping to meet the six pm close time, the only opportunity to purchase before their early departure to Rio the next morning.

Sao Paulo tech street

Once they had a chance to think about the potential purchase, the team decided to not go ahead and instead took a time penalty.  Simon said “while the deal was good and the new camera would have been useful for upcoming legs of the race, I think we were tired and the prospect of heading out into the centre of Sáo Paulo on dusk was not appealing”.

Ham cheese and Tomato sandwiches come to Brazil

With the time penalty completed, the team remained at their accommodation, the pit stop for this leg of the race. Once again they were the first to arrive. After a great celebratory sushi meal, they went to sleep.