Sao Paulo

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Hello Friends and Family,
Made it safe into Sao Paulo and we are staying with our friends Stacey and Angelo in a beautiful apartment on the 21st floor of an apartment building. The area is very safe and Angelo knows his way around really well, so it has made this part of traveling a real vacation, especially since we have been staying in rooms in hostels with 9 bunk beds. Very cramped and smelly! We have been hanging out a lot with Angelo's wonderful family and we will head to the beach on Monday for a bit.
Sao Paulo is such a massive city. When you look around, all to be seen are seas of sky scrapers. It is really bazaar. There are some 17 million people who live in this city.
We had a great time in Rio de Janeiro. We were there for a week and stayed in a cool little hostel about 3 blocks from the beach. In this blog you will see some pictures from a Favela that we visited. We took a walk through the Favela with a woman who knows it very well. These small tours are organized to raise awareness of the Favelas and pump some money into the schools and day cares in the Favelas.
The only rules on our tour were not to give money to the kids, not to buy drugs and not to take photographs of people with guns, which we saw plently of. It was actually very safe for us to be in this Favela. No one would even think of robbing or hurting us because the last thing that these people want is for the police to have a reason to come into their Favelas. The Favelas are ruled by the drug lords and they do whatever they can to keep things safe and quiet. The drug and gun business is the most profitable business in the Favelas so it is everywhere. The Favelas are very interesting. All of the buildings are illegal. People just go up in the hills, find a place to build a house, work some deal out with the drug lords of the area, and build it. A lot of the Favelas are getting cramped, so people just build on top of eachother until the buildings can´t handle any more weight. Since there are no building or zoning requirements, all of the buildings are different shapes, colors and made of different materials. Some of them look sort of sturdy, and some look like they should have fallen down yesterday. It was a very sad sight to see, but the people seemed very happy who were living there. Violence is low in the Favelas, so people who live there generally feel pretty safe according to the woman who showed us around.
Now, off to another barbeque at one of Angelo´s grandma´s house. We have already eaten so much today, but musn´t dissapoint anyone!

Oh, one more thing, I just changed my travel plans. I had planned to go to Europe for two months after this South American trip, but I have changed my ticket to come back to South America. Now that I have had a taste of this place, I want more! There are so many things that I still want to see and places that I want to go. I will still head back to SF for a week and a half for Jamie's bday early February and then I will be back for good in mid April.
Hope all is well with all of you.
Love,
Cassandra and Rose

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Photos

Victor, Rose and Donald
Our french friends that we went with to the Cristo Redentor. They were more than willing to pose with Rose.

Rose and Carlos
Rose bought this painting from Carlos. Carlos is an artist who lives in the Favela that we visited.

One of the 700 Favelas in Rio de Janeiro
This is the part of the Favela that we visited. More than 300,000 people live in this one. We walked from the top and winded our way down small pathways through houses and shops to the bottom where the city lies.

Cool little kid in the Favela
All of the kids in the Favela that we visited wanted their picture taken. They would jump in front of you and pose and would immediately want to see what the photo looked like on the digital screen.

Kids Practicing for Carnival
While walking through the Favela in Rio, we stumbled upon these kids practicing for their Carnival performance. They have a band made up of about 10 kids who use their bodies, cans and plastic buckets for their instruments. They carried a pretty good beat!

Graffiti
Each Favela is know for something. The one that we visited is known for it's graffiti and there was plenty of it along the walls of the winding pathways through this hillside village.

A Cloudy Ipanema Beach
I only had my camera on me a couple of times at the beach and this is the best I could get. You will all have to just imagine the amazing sunsets that Rose and I witnessed and how beautiful (and crowded) this place gets on a nice sunny day.

View from Sugar Loaf
Took a ski lift like thing up to the top of a small mountain in Rio to check out some awesome views.

I think this is a monkey..
This wierd little animal was hanging out at the top of Sugar Loaf. He sort of looks like a monkey, but I am not sure.

Me at Sugar Loaf
We decided that this should be my author shot, should I ever need one.

What else to do when it is raining outside?
Began to rain buckets in Rio, so Rose had the wise idea to have ONE glass of wine. The rain took quite some time to ease up, so let's just say that that one glass of wine multiplied.

Comments

[Phoebe]

you girls look great!!!
So great to get a peak at your adventures. The sisters and I are eagerly awaiting your return and more stories and pictures. Keep the pictures and captions coming! Love you lots!

[Anthea]

Why aren't I will you?
I am beginning to get worried that you will never come home again! Please say it aint so! Miss you both. Anthea

[jean-luc]

Holy Sao Paulo
La ciudad de San Francisco no es nada mas que una vecinindad pequena de Sao Paulo! Pensamos tanto que somos el centro del mundo y la verdad es que somos una mosca sobre el cuerpo del caballo corriendo. Juan Lucas