I'm in Rio at the moment. I take back what I said about the wonderful buses in Brasil. We experienced possibly the worst of the lot. Crap seats, dysfunctional curtains, no entertainment - can be a problem on a 28 hour journey - no air-conditioner, no reading lights, no pocket for personal belongings - most people take this for granted... trust me, they're very useful.
Then that bus had problems and we changed to what I thought was an impossibility... a worse bus. This was only for 20 hours though. It had all the special features mentioned above except the ventilation on this bus was broken and so was pumping the foul, smell of shit from the toilet continuously through the bus.
We stopped for a break, and forgetting all about the stench for 15 minutes I was reaquainted with it upon steppping up and into the bus again. I yelled out, "Não, algo muerto dentro!" which was my Portuguese attempt of saying, "No, something has died inside." The other passengers shared my sentiments. I had an eye-mask and ear-plugs but unfortunately nothing for my nostrils.
Tonight my host took me to a bar playing live forró music - which is like salsa but more bouncy. She told me forró are songs about happy love, tango are songs about lost love and samba are songs about missed love. I danced a bit and managed not to dislocated my her arms. Yep, I'm a natural ;)
The little boy sitting in front of us on the way to Rio. He was cute for the first hour.
