Sao Paulo, Brazil
On Saturday I met Juliet at Cape Town airport at 5am for our 6am flight to Joburg. We met Herrie in Joburg and caught our 10 hour flight to Sao Paulo.
We arrived in Sao Paulo at 4:30pm SP time and made our way to our hostel. Our first night we just went out locally to get something to eat. We ended up eating in a place that turned into a karaoke bar. There is nothing like being serenaded by a Brazilian man singing Whitney Houston songs while eating dinner! Truly entertaining.
Sao Paulo on initial inspection is a sprawling, polluted city with 18 million people. There is lots of poverty and parts of the city are very rundown. On closer inspection, there are pockets of the city that are green, with beautiful buildings and wealth. The gap between rich and poor is even more evident than in South Africa.
People warned us about the crime here, but I must say, that other than on one occassion I have felt safe. There are police everywhere, and they seem quite brutal - not a police force you´d like to get on the wrong side of.
I have learned a few things about the people of Sao Paulo. Firstly, no-one speaks English, and they are not the biggest fans of deoderant! All I can say is that I am permanently grateful to Herrie whose fluent Portugese has made things very easy.
On Sunday we went to the Pinacoteca (state gallery) and the Estacao Pinacoteca (station gallery). The Pinacoteca building is beautiful both inside and out. It seems to be more about the building than the art work. I know I will definitely see the most impressive buildings in the cities as we go - it´s a given when travelling with two architects!
We then went to Parque da Luz which is the first public garden in SP. It´s amazing how much green space there is in the city. It´s great to escape the polluted streets into these fantastic parks.
From here we went to Praca da Se, the main city centre. We saw the Catedral Matropolitana, and the Torre Banespa, a 35 floor building with panaramic views of the city. There is a video of the views on my photo site if you´re interested. We then walked through the city to Republica, which is where we are staying. We had dinner at a Pizzeria/Beer Hall in Consolacao which is a student area.
Yesterday we went to Parque du Ibirapuera. It´s a 1.6 million square metres of park designed by the famous Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer. We spent 3 hours walking around the park and only saw the highlights. We then went to Jardim, which is the wealthiest area of the city with beatiful buildings, parks, shops and restuarants. We also saw MASP museum which has beautiful views of the city. We walked down Avenida Paulista and went to Parque Trianon which is like a small forest in the middle of the city. Last night we just relaxed at the hostel and made dinner. It´s amazing how tired all this walking makes you!
This morning Juliet and Herrie have gone to the MASP museum as it was closed yesterday. I am doing my own thing, and we are meeting up again at lunchtime to catch our flight to Brasilia, the capital. From there we head to the coast - I can´t wait!
I´ll write more again soon.
