On the Road to Find Out

Okay, so I only stayed in Saõ Paulo for a night and a day, but certainly managed to do quite a bit in this time. Stayed with Ney and his family in Tiradentes, near the center. Ney was a massive football fan so got to talk to him for hours about this, mainly about the impact of Ronaldo. He taught me how to make some pretty darn good caipirinhas. Which for anyone who has ever tasted one of Sambo’s caipirinhas, only uses 2 limes, not about 1 million lemons. Anyway, so the next day we went to both the Pinoteca museum and gallery. Gallery itself was rather good. Interesting stuff from Daniel Sinise (like Kevin McCloud on spacedust) and Fabricio Lopez (huge prints made from carved wood stencils). The museum was mainly centred around the many ways in which the Brazilian dissidents were punished during the dictatorship. Plenty of false imprisonments and unnecessary torture. Crazy to think this only finished in 1985. After that it was off to the fresh fruit market and a bit of daytime drinking before packing my bags.

I think it’s fair to say Saõ Paulo isn’t my kind of city. They are currently going through some serious cleansing (which they seem to be doing effectively, as opposed to Rio), trying to eradicate the working class from the center by building alternative accommodation, their previous homes being bulldozed, no doubt soon to be replaced by trendy high rises. It all results in something a little sterile, and expensive. There’s no doubt a hell of a lot more to see though. It is the biggest city in South America after all. Don’t know if I’ll be making my way back there anytime soon though.

Next stop: Florianopolis – island life!