Sao Paulo, My ´´Home Away From Home.´´

Last time I came to Sao Paulo, I was lucky enough to have locals showing me around in a car, because I was ultra paranoid that I was going to get mugged or robbed at every street corner. This time in Sao Paulo, I realized as dangerous as Luiz claims it is (which I don´t doubt), I probably won´t get mugged at every street corner. haha. 

We arrived into the city late--like 11pm--so I tried asking the guy giving me my bag off the bus if it was safe to take the metro this late.  It took us about 10 minutes, and me saying every synonym I could think of for the word danger, plus pretending to mug him for him to realize what I was asking, and he laughed, and told me things were perfectly safe.  Then, being like all Brazilians--SUPER NICE--he pointed the way for us to go, and even took us part of the way to where the entrance to the metro was.  I shouldn´t have been surprised when I looked up from the ticket booth and I saw him waiting for us.  He had decided to come and escort us all the way to where we were going to catch the subway while explaining to me how to use the subway and where to get off.  So nice! I mean, at this point I already knew what I was doing, but it´s the thought that counts!! I thought it was such a nice thing for him to do, and a great way to start our stop in Sao Paulo.

What we didn´t know was that Sao Paulo has been experiencing quite the rainy spell--they had had 48 consecutive days of rain before we got there. Fantastic! We go from sunny and clear, no rain in sight, to 48 consecutive days and flooding!  I guess it wasn´t completely bad though, considering I was definitely in need to do my laundry and this weather was the perfect excuse to pull out the only clean clothes I had--longer sleeves and longer bottoms.

Jen and I spent the day walking all over the city.  I took her to the main street in Sao Paulo--Paulista Ave.--which is basically the business district.  The modern art museum there had an interesting display of naked women on the ground below the building.  I will never understand modern art. We continued our walk and actually ended up walking through a super ghetto, shady, seedy area of the city where all we saw was grafitti and homeless people.  I knew it was bad, but not until we were well into the walk--so there was no use in turning back I figured.  Luckily for us, nothing happened.  We made turkey sandwiches (hot dog bun + turkey + mutard = turkey sandwich) and had some fruit from a grocery store at what seemed like an ok area (we were wrong), and while Jen was using a pay phone, I sat watching our food and happened to make eye contact with a local who took it upon himself to come sit next to me and just start talking to me. What the heck.  I don´t understand why this keeps happening. haha. In every other city I didn´t mind so much at all since they were either helping or I was not in the ghetto so I knew they were ok people.  Here, this was the ghetto. And this guy sat and talked to me for a good 15 minutes even though I kept telling him I couldn´t understand him.  Turns out, he really was a good guy.  A hoodlum-ish kid came up to us while we were ´´talking´´ and wanted to take my food, and I said no, and then he warned me that there were lots of people who might try to take my food and that I should call the police if they did, and he pointed them out to me, although I already knew where they were.

My new friend finally left, and Jen decided to head back to the hostel, so I went to the Japantown of Sao Paulo because Sao Paulo is home to the 2nd largest Japanese population outside of Japan.  It was a pretty neat area.  There was a really nice church, but a lot of homeless people around, so I couldn´t take many pictures. The bank even looked like a typical Japanese house you would see on tv. Just imagine it because I couldn´t take a picture bc of the homeless. haha.

Back at the hostel, Jen had befriended a set of english brothers who were nice enough to cook us dinner that night.  It was fun to talk to them, although they reaffirmed that Americans more or less stink--at least all the ones they´ve met--and our health care system is absolutely ´´bollucks.´´  Tell me something I don´t know boys. Health care has been an ongoing discussion since I´ve been down here--no one can seem to understand how our system can be SO BAD.  Unfortunately, I can´t really give them an answer. Luiz´s cousin, Eloa, showed up to the hostel to give us some suggestions on what to do in the city at night.  We got some tasty dessert with her, and after getting caught in a ridiculous amount of rain that rendered my umbrella useless, we got ready for a night out with some caiparinhas and headed out to a club called Vegas. The night life in Sao Paulo is supposed to be insane. It seemed kinda crazy I guess...apparently the club we went to was open until 8am.  We left at 4:30am, and I realized the reason why my cough wasn´t going away had a lot to do with all of these late nights. haha.

Next morning, Jen decided she wanted to go to Paratay--a town about 6 hours north of Sao Paulo--so she headed out that afternoon, and I stayed back in Sao Paolo so I could head out to Florianopolis.  I spent the day with the English brothers, Pete and Phil, and we spent over an hour traveling to the Snake Farm in Sao Paulo which is supposed to be this super cool place where they milk snakes and make anti-venom and everything.  I thought it would be SO COOL to see something like this in person instead of on the Discovery Channel, and I figured it would be awesome to tell my parents about.  Well after taking forever and a day to get there, we get into the park and we realize we only have 1 hour to see the museum which was set to close in 30 minutes, and the park which closed in 60 minutes.  Holy crap! We power walked up this ridiculous hill, only to find that no building was marked clearly and the ´´snake pit´´ only had 2 snakes! WTF!  We booked it all over the park struggling to find the snakes, and finally we´re at the completely opposite end of where we started and I ask a woman in ghetto portuguese, ´´Onde feca the SNAKES?´´ with a snake sound effect. haha. She points us back to where we started all the way at the other end of the park! At this point, we´re so sad, because it´s basically 4:30pm, and we feel like there´s no way we´ll see the snakes.  Luck was on our side, and we were the last ones allowed in, but wow, after ALL of that running around, the snake farm was CRAP.  It was just a bunch of snakes behind glass in really small boxes.  WHAT A WASTE OF TIME. I should just stick to the Discovery Channel.  I can´t believe this is a main attraction in Sao Paulo though.

We spent another hour or so getting back to the hostel, and then I left to stay at Luiz´s cousin´s house since the hostel had no more space for me.  Man, that was the best thing that could have happened to me.  Luiz´s family is absolutely amazing, and his Aunt Sandra heated up rice and beans for me to eat, which doesn´t seem like anything special, but if you remember my turkey sandwich from the day before, you can see how a home cooked meal would be absolutely amazing in comparison.  I got to take a shower without sandals in a clean place for the first time in weeks, and I got to do my laundry (which is good bc I had NO underwear left!), and I got to sleep in a nice bed.  I was living the dream. Luiz´s uncle even made me fresh mango juice before I went to bed. So tasty.

I spent the next afternoon catching up with Luiz´s extended family at his Aunt Terazenia´s restaurant.  Some more amazing food for lunch and fresh mango juice. They spoiled me. =)  I even had a dessert which I actually liked, which means something since last time I came here, his aunt let me try every since dessert from her restaurant and I don´t think I liked any. It was a passion fruit custard or pudding I had--it was sooo good! I´ll have to try to find more of that before I leave Brazil.  I hung out with Eloa and her friends until it was time for dinner with Luiz´s parents.  We went to what was actually one of Lu´s favorite pizza places in Sao Paulo, and we had a good time sending him pictures of the food while he sent us pictures back of being sad.  I ended the blissful day and a half of my time with Luiz´s family by getting dropped off to the bus station by his parents.

 Sao Paulo doesn´t have much to do for tourists in my opinion, and I wasn´t planning stopping there at all because of this (and because I´d already been), but I am so so so so so GLAD I did stop there.  It was absolutely fantastic being able to hang out with Lu´s family, and they are so wonderful for hosting me.  A big THANK YOU goes out to them!

Next stop, Florianopolis--aka Floripa--in the southeast of Brazil.  I´m expecting the 12 hour bus ride to be worth it because I´ve heard nothing but praises for the beaches there. One last set of beaches before I hit the middle of South America. Maybe I can learn how to surf...