Intercity/Interstate/International Bus Terminal

Rodoviária do Tietê

Train services are virtually nonexistent in Brazil, therefore traveling from city to city must be done by bus (if not by plane). Intercity bus services in Brazil are quite reliable and punctual. 

São Paulo has 3 intercity bus terminals: 

Terminal Rodoviário Jabaquara - connected with the Jabaquara subway station on the blue line - buses to Santos and the southern coast of the state of São Paulo.

Terminal Rodoviário Barra Funda - connected with the Barra Funda subway station on the red line - buses to the west of the state of São Paulo, Center-west region of Brazil, and Bolivia.

And the largest bus terminal in Brazil, most commonly known as "Rodoviária do Tietê": 

Terminal Rodoviário do Tietê - Connected to the Tietê subway station on the blue line, it serves 65 bus companies that operate 300 lines, heading to 1,033 cities in 21 of the Brazilian states, and going as far as 4 countries in South America (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, and Uruguay). 

If you are going by car or by bus, the address is:

Av. Cruzeiro do Sul, 1800 
Santana - 02030-000
São Paulo 
subway station: Portuguesa-Tietê
Phone number: 11 3866 1100


The bus terminal is quite clean and organized, and offers a good choice of souvenir shops and eateries. Toilets are also ok (you must pay to use them). However, it is also very large. To avoid getting lost or losing time, visit it some day before your actual trip (for example, go there to buy your tickets), so you find your bearings and do not get exasperated on the day of your trip. And it is not too much to say to keep your belongings close to you at all times. 

For a list of the cities served by the buses, see here .

For a map of the terminal, click here.

Boarding gates at the underground level

Some bus companies sell tickets online... try it here:

http://rodoviariadotiete.net/

To conclude, one warning: check the calendar of Brazilian holidays and avoid at all costs to travel in the evening before a long holiday... the Rodoviária will be overwhelmingly crowded! Just do it if your humor is above average!

And have a nice trip!

Street Markets - Feiras Livres

Seemingly incongruent with the life of a hectic large city, whose main characteristics are heavy traffic and serious pollution, feiras livres, traditional street markets selling mainly fruit and vegetables, are still easy to find around São Paulo.

They are usually held once a week on a certain street (you can find a list of all feiras here, listed according to their neighborhood). Regular hours are from 7:30am to 1:30pm.
Also they are one of the few places in São Paulo where you may actually bargain! If you go early in the morning you will basically have to accept prices as they come; as hours go by salespeople start throwing their prices down and will be open to negotiate. For example, if they are selling a bunch of bananas for R$3,00, you could offer to buy two bunches for R$ 5,00, and so on. Fresh fish can also be found at reasonable prices.

The environment is usually quite friendly: salespeople - called feirantes - will offer you to taste their fruit, other people will chat with you, and almost everyone will stop at one of the stalls on the corner (no matter where you go, every corner will always have one stall) to eat a pastel. Most of all, they are typical old times' classics, places where you'll find people from all walks of life going around their regular lives.

TRANSPORT - Paying for the bus in São Paulo

BILHETE ÚNICO

This is a rechargeable card that allows you to travel in as many as 4 buses in the period of three hours, using the same fare. It can also be used in the subway system; in case you paid for a bus fare within a 2 hour-period, the subway fare will be reduced to R$ 1,65 (instead of the regular R$ 3,00). When purchasing the card for the first time, you must charge a minimum of R$ 15,00 (5 bus trips) - the card itself has no cost.

- Where to get your Bilhete Unico:

Several shops will display a sign like this:



Subway stations have selling points that look like this, where you may also recharge your card. Long lines are common at the main stations.

Most places will not sell the card, but recharge it, at least. Look for the logo with the words RECARGA AQUI or RECARREGUE AQUI.

One convenient place to recharge your card (you may try buying it also, but it will not always be available) are “Casas Lotéricas” (lottery shops) that look like this:





Check a complete list of addresses where you may recharge your card.

If you finally got yours and it is properly charged, then board the bus, approach the turnstile and place the card like you see on the picture below. A green light should then flash on the top of the equipment, allowing you to pass to the back of the bus.

Why are we doing this?

The first time I went to Paris I spent one month there learning French. When I arrived I only had some basic notions of it, but three weeks later, when my mom met me there, she was astonished to see that not only could hold a conversation in French but I moved about the city quite confidently. I remember she said I didn’t look like a foreigner at all. I always thought how a foreigner would feel here in São Paulo, for in this huge and confusing city only recently some thought has been given to how a tourist might get about here; for example, the subway system has just started translating its signage to English. But I’m always stricken by the fact that most bus stops have no indication whatsoever to which buses stop there. And those that do say little more than the destination of the bus, so if you don’t know the city it doesn’t help you much. Which means this would also be hard for Brazilians from other parts of the country, who would have to resource to the next person standing there to get this information. Yes, São Paulo is not for beginners. And what can you do if you don’t speak Portuguese? Who can you ask? Our proposal here is to be this someone you can turn to…