Blogs from São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, South America - page 4

Nachdem ich in den ersten beiden Blogeinträgen eher auf weiblichereThemen wie Bildung und Soziales eingegangen bin, kommen wir heute zu den wirklich wichtigen Dingen des Lebens: Autos und Bier. Erstere Faszination kann ich seit meinem Auslandsaufenthalt im Schwabenländle nachvollziehen, zweitere ist familiär bedingt. Since I dedicated my last two blog entries more or less on girly topics such as education, I will talk about the things that truly matter today: cars and beer. Former fascination became my second nature when moving to Stuttgart (which is pretty much all about cars for the ones not familiar with the Swabians and their love for Mercedes and Co.). Speaking about the latter is due to my personal background and upbringing, I guess. Flexiblität – Die gibt es auch bei Autos Nun gut, befriedigen wir zunächst einmal die Neugier nach ... read more

My time in Parati came to an end. I now had 2 weeks left in Brazil and despite initially wanting to stay in Rio for the month, I was in adventure mode. The more travellers I spoke to, the more I wanted to do. Others seemed to be doing the same journey as I was planning, however I missed a stop. After carnival in Rio people go to Ilha Grande on the way to Parati. I hadn't heard about this island so it wasn't in my itinerary. My next destination would be Iguazu falls, one of the modern wonders of the world. This was quite far away so I decided to break my trip into 2 and stop at Sao Paulo for a couple of days. The journey to Sao Paulo was 6 hours on the ... read more

I dont think I could call Sao Paolo a dissappointment because I didnt expect much, but I didnt feel I seen all that much of it, but to be fair that that I did see wasnt overwhelming! A city of circa 28 million, the biggest in the southern hemisphere, it is sometimes called the New York of South America. Like most concrete jungles, its appeal lies not with the beautiful scenery but in its people, its culinary and nightlife scene and general vibe. Apparently it has about 13000 bars and 500 odd types of restaurants, though any that me and Gary sampled were just your bog standard cheap brazilian ones with the budget we have! I've surprised myself by really liking the food here. I think i imagined it would be more how i imagine argentinian ... read more

"Do you really want to go to São Paulo?" I ask Sonya for maybe the tenth time since we arrived in Brazil. It's fair to say I was unenthused about the prospect of visiting Brazil's and what is in fact the Southern Hemispheres largest city. I think after spending five glorious days on the beautiful and serene Ilha Grande, the thought of a city the sheer size of São Paulo with its 18 or so million inhabitants busily scurrying around made me shudder. What's more, we'd spoken to numerous fellow travellers about their time in São Paulo and none of them gave a glowing assessment of the place. We were told there was little to keep you amused, that it was a high-rise concrete jungle and that it was perhaps better left avoided. Nevertheless from Paraty, ... read more

The flight from Cuzco to São Paulo turned out to be not a straight forward as we may have hoped. After arriving at the airport and having one of the most efficient check in's yet. We turned to walk away from the desk. A man who had been standing behind the counter, and I had been smiling at, thinking he was just a member of staff on the check in who happened to be staring, came after us and revealed he was a police man (genuine). he did not speak much English but gestured he wanted to search our bags and suddenly another guy appeared. Clearly we have nothing to hide, so we said sure no problem and they carried our backpacks leading us off to a little room. They showed us a sign saying they ... read more