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“Thunder and lightning in Sao Paulo is spectacular and... thunderous!” |
Sao Paulo
We arrived in Sao Paulo in the evening, so we were not able to see what the city looks like from the air, but we could see a blanket of twinkling lights stretching as far as the eye could see. Sao Paulo is a city of about 20 million people. It's more than 10 times bigger than Vancouver, and 20/35% of Canada's entire population. When you drive through Sao Paulo, you pass through neighborhoods that are bigger than our whole city.
Driving in, we were surprised and impressed at how clean everything was, and how tall and modern the buildings are. We are staying at a nice hotel in the best neighborhood of the city, called Jardins. It is the centre of banking, and filled with shopping, parks, malls, markets and all the conveniences of a modern city. Our beautifully air conditioned room was a great relief after the heat and humidity of the Amazon.
After checking in, we walked to a nearby restaurant, and were given menus in English, and served by many dapper young men in formal uniforms. They sent the maitre 'd along with our waiter to help translate our order, and a busboy kept bringing delicious, freshly baked breads and a few caipirinahs (of course!)
If this was an indication of the level of service in this city, we are in for a treat. In Salvador, service is a concept only; food comes slowly, and is usually incorrect, and nobody is in a hurry. The waiter placed the order wirelessly from a handheld device at the table, and processed our credit card the same way. A huge difference from the other cities we have visited.
The architecture here is very cool; ulta-thin skyscrapers with only one or two flats on each floor, large balconies, rooftop swimming pools. We are definitely staying in a luxurious section of town. Just down the hill from us is a neighborhood of private mansions, some covering complete city blocks, all of them gated and walled, and most in a colonial style. The cab driver estimated that one of the mansions would go for about 2.2 million Reals, and Joe met a guy who had just bought a small flat in the hotel we are staying at for 35,000R, only about $17,000 CDN. It is very cheap to buy property here.
In the morning, we walked the neighborhood and took photos of the unique buildings-- they are very proud of the special designs, and are not afraid to decorate the buildings.
We all headed for a nearby internet place where we caught up on our email and writing, and after Bob and Joe left for the museum, we were treated to a little thunder and lightning and rain. It seems like the Amazon has sent us a small storm. I have never heard thunder so loud before, and when I ventured out to head back to the hotel, I discovered that the streets had turned into rivers. I have a few photos, but I don't think they convey the magnitude of the rain. The streets have deep troughs to carry the rain away, but today it was spilling out onto the sidewalks, making it impossible to avoid. Our friend from Sao Paulo, Andre told us that it rains almost every day, which might explain why the streets are so clean, and there is no big-city sewage smell.
We shopped around a little bit, but avoided buying anything; Buenos Aires is just a few days away, and the Canadian dollar is worth about 3 times the peso, so we'll save our shopping for now. However, Joe started a new sunglass fetish in Rio De Janeiro, and we both ended up buying about 7 or 8 pairs (at $5 each, who could resist?)
After a disco nap, Andre met us at our flat and took us to a disco called Vegas, which is very popular on Friday nights. As usual, the bars here have very special accounting procedures: you go to the cashier and purchase poker-chips of different values, depending on what you are drinking, then trade them is at the bar later, so the bartenders never touch cash, and you don't have to pull out your wallet. The accounting got even more clever at other bars we visited: you are issued a paper card with your name on it, and on the back is a grid filled with numbers that he bartenders circle when you order a drink. When you are ready to leave, you line up at the cashier and they total the card for you. When you've paid, they either stamp your card or issue an exit card which you have to turn in to the security at the exit door. If you lose your card, you pay up to $149R. It sounds a little complicated, but it is very convenient, and maybe more secure, as your wallet stays out of sight.
Vegas is a cool room, with a long bar along one side, decorated with simple chandeliers, and orange light bulbs embedded in a padded wall behind the bar. The music was excellent , but the bar filled up quickly and it became difficult to move around. The Brazilians also call this bar "in the way" because everybody is constantly moving around, and Brazilians are not interested in moving gently through a crowd, they just push to get where they are going. It tales a lot of getting used to, but after awhile you learn to stand your ground and make them go around you. As for dancing; it's really impossible, there is just no space. We discovered another dancefloor downstairs, that had a little less transience, so we spent some time there, but it quickly got too hot for JY & I, so we decided to head home early and rest up for Saturday.
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On Saturday, we made the fortunate decision to visit the Museum of Modern Art in the Parca Iburicura??? Which was designed by (surprise) Oscar Neimeyer. The park is very big, and has a lagoon and jogging paths, and was packed with people today. The museum was showing a photographic history of Brazil, along with an excellent slideshow depicting life in early Salvador; it was excellent, as we recognized many of the places we had visited,
We saw photos of men practicing caipoera on the docks in the 20's??? And sailors, and street merchants and of course, the early days of Carnival, where people already wore costumes and played music and danced in the streets. Really, not much has changed. The photos were excellent and we all felt that it was a perfect way to complete our time in Brazil. After the museum we walked around the lagoon, and marveled at the size of the trees, the explosions of colourful flowers and at how relaxed and safe we have felt in this city.
Bob flew out today, and it's hard to believe we've been gone so long already.
On Saturday night, we were heading to a club called Le Week, which is open only on Saturdays, and holds up to 5000 people. It is packed every weekend, and stays open until 3 pm on Sunday afternoon. Andre was supposed to meet us at the hotel, but he called at midnight, and was still waiting in a line-up at a restaurant. Brazilians eat dinner after 10pm, which explains why the restaurant we went to at 8:00 was empty. Joe had arranged to meet with some friends of a friend of his from London: Odelon and Manuel. They were easy to spot coming into the restaurant, as Manuel is about 6'4, and very big, Odelon is probably about 5'0, and the contrast is very fun. Both of them speak excellent English, and we had a very entertaining dinner.
After dinner, friends we met in Rio came to meet us at the hotel, and we all went to Le Week together. Jaimie and Paulo brought a friend of theirs, Markos, who was all of 22 years old. We found out later that Jean Yves is older than his father, but we all had a good time anyway.
Le week is about a 30 minute drive, and worth every minute. The gated structure includes valet for your car, a large outdoor area with a beautiful wooden deck, outdoor bar, comfy seating, two large dance room inside, along with a few elegantly decorated chill-spaces. The place was ultra-clean, and the security were all dressed in beautiful suits, and were friendly as opposed to being overbearing. We were incredibly impressed with the staff, who were constantly cleaning the bathrooms, the bars, and even came though the dance floors to pick up bottle and cans.
The place was perfectly ventilated, with fans on the ceiling keeping the place comfortable all night. We didn't even break a sweat, which was a complete change from any of the other clubs we have visited here.
The main room was decorated simply with a half-dozen elegant chandeliers, and platforms for dancers spread throughout the room. The music was just OK, a DJ from Philadelphia was spinning, but we managed to stay until 7am, and met dozens of nice Brazilians.
A beautiful girl spilled beer on my back, and after she apologized, I pointed to my back, and she happily licked it off, which opened to door for us to meet all of her friends. She kept telling everybody that she was coming to Vancouver to live in our apartment for 6 months. Her friends all warned us that she would never leave, and we would have to drive her everywhere. We had a lot of fun with them. Almost everyone we met that night was a doctor, and we had seen many if them in Rio two weeks ago. They were all fascinated that we had seen so much of Brazil, and many of them had never been to the Amazon. We invited dozens to visit us in Vancouver, and distributed lots of business cards. Everyone has heard of Vancouver, and they all think it is a beautiful city, and know its reputation as one of the best places to live in the world. maybe we will have some visitors this year.
Many of the people we met knew friends of ours who had visited last year, it is such a small world, and again we felt so welcomed. We were invited to stay with Paulo in Santos, a beach city about 45 minutes outside of Sao Paulo, but we just didn't have the time in our schedule.
It was difficult to leave the club, but we wanted to have a little sleep before seeing Joe off to the airport on Sunday. As we left the club, we saw that they were transforming it into an after-hours by moving some walls, and closing the second dancefloor. The place turns into a pool party in the afternoon. Maybe we'll stay longer next time.
Leaving the club was a nightmare for some people, who waited in a credit-card line-up for more than an hour. We only had to wait about 15 minutes, and grabbed a cab home, and were sleeping before 8am.
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Sunday
We got up around noon and met Joe for a little lunch and some shopping. Many of the shops in our neighborhood were closed for the day, but many restaurants were open, and marketplaces pop-up in the parks, on the streets, and even some malls are transformed to markets. Joe and I discovered a very cool vendor selling excellent t-shirts, and we both could not resist buying a few to go with our fabulous collection of sunglasses. We are going to be so cool when we get home.
Sadly, this was also Joe's last day with us, so we said goodbye to him around 7pm and got ready to go to a bar called Blue Space, which all of the locals had said would be fun.
Blue space was more than fun. We arrived by cab at around 8pm, the place was just filling up. As usual, we were issued a card to track our drinks, and after buying a few caiprinahs, we saw our new Sao Paulo friend, Manuel, who is big enough to stand out in any crowd. He recognized us immediately and took us upstairs to the main room of this converted theatre space. We were greeted with a room full of dancing boys and girls, an excellent DJ, and excellent performances every half-hour. Go-go Boys, Drag Queens, Ornately decorated transvestites, cowboys and edgy punk androgynous creations mingled and danced. The irritating, always moving melee was a little calmer in this room, but only because it was already so crowded, nobody could move easily. We managed to squeeze ourselves up near the stage, and we both loved the music. Jean Yves grabbed the DJ's card, and we are already considering creating a Brazilian connection so we can throw some great parties in Vancouver. The crowd was friendly, the shows were excellent and we danced for a couple of hours before leaving with Manuel to get some dinner.
Manuel took us to a local hang-out, a nice, inexpensive restaurant that was packed and very busy. we saw a lot of the people who had been at Blue space and at Le week the night before. We ordered burgers, and Manuel showed us that you should eat them with a knife and fork. These people are obsessed with never touching your food. Fries are eaten with toothpicks or a fork. Beer cans come wrapped in a paper napkin. Beer bottles are served with a napkin wrapped around the bottles neck like a tie. Burgers are served in a small wax bag so you can pick it up without touching it, or as we discovered, you rip open the bag and use your cutlery in nicer restaurants. Pop is never taken from the can, you always pour it in a glass first. I think Brazilians would be horrified at how we eat in Canada, we must appear to be barbaric to them. Our hotel was only a few blocks from the restaurant, so we said goodnight to Manuel, and packed our bags, ready to leave for Buenos Aires in the morning. I am already sad to leave Sao Paulo, and even more sad that our leg in Brazil is over. We will definitely come back, and hope to forge stronger ties to these wonderful people and great cities
previous travel blog entry
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