Advertisement
Published: February 23rd 2007
Edit Blog Post
Man, it was great to get a flight to Sao Paulo. Leon and I were more than happy to pass up a 30 hour bus ride for a 2hour flight from Buenos Aires to the 3rd largest city in the world.
We touched down in Sao Paulo and were greeted by Leons friend Carol and Rodrigo - Leons Long Bay College (boo!) exhchange student friend.
We drove through the rush hour traffic of 20million. Great introduction to the city. We crawled along the laneless main highway. The scenery was forever changing and contrasting the many social classes. This really hit home when we past a slum - known as Favelas - holding 130,000 people. Welcome to Brazil.
The crime is derived from the extreme wealth gap and it is prevelant here. It felt good to be under the loving care of some locals!
That night we went out for a lovely meal and visited a couple of bars on our own. We found a random Aussie, a guy from the Bronx and 4 bi sexual Brazilian girls to chat to in English. The girls ended up taking us out to another bar and then got lost trying to drive
Salud
Fernanda, Carol, Rodrigo and I enjoying some Samba. us home. Thank god for Carols map which she had thoughtfully drawn!
As you can imagine the following day was a bit of a write off. We went out for Pork, beans and rice which is the staple food - not too shabby for NZ$4.
Other activities included being educated about the vast array of fruit from the Amazon, how to open Brazilian nuts with a table knife and caiprinha lessons.
Friday Night we experienced some live Samba at a crowded little restuarant accompanied by Fernanda - Carols friend who meet us there and easily spotted us among the locals. The live band set the mood and small tables of people sat around drinking beer. Carols favourite little bar was a definate hit!
Saturday - it felt good to be alive. Rodrigo arranged to set up a traditional BBQ at his mums penthouse apartment. The house included a large deck on the top floor with a mini rainforest and view of downtown.
Rodrigo took charge as the master chef. He prepared and arranged large slices of meat hanging over the coals. The ritual of cooking and eating lasted all night. Small slices of
Local knowldege
Rodrigo giving Leon the team talk for later travels on our own through Rio and North Brazil. meat were teasing cut off and passed around. No such thing as a quick Sirloin on the barbie here!
Palmeras!
Carol and Rodrigo are both STAUNCH supporters of the local team and offered to take us to a game. So we arrived at the local stadium as if it was an international flight - 2hours before kick off. We perched outside the Stadium and devoured a pork sammy and a couple of beers. The place was a war zone with people chanting, letting off fire crackers in the air and generally ensighting aggressive behaviour. To wear the wrong colours would be suicide. My borrowed Palmeras jersey was ample camoflauge amongst the sea of green and white supporters.
We headed in to the stadium around 90mins early and watched the stadium fill. The stadium itself was a unique horseshoes shape - with the open area behind the far goal. The stadiums field had a moat, complete with military equiped riot police - so the field could not be charged. Perhaps the most insane thing was the opposing supporters. The Santos (opposing)supporters were escorted to the stadium by bus and sat in the far corner. They were seperated
Nice look
Leon in one of his more awkward moments. From the roof top apartment by a fence, militia police and a 20m gap. The Palmera crowd taunted them by jumping, chanting and swinging there football tops over their heads.
The 90mins of football was blur.
The emotion was high throughout the game. Spearheaded by the Palmeras fans behind the goal, the crowd moved as one in a jugernaut of support. It intensified as the game went on. The crowd losing control of emotions over the 3 Palmeras goals.
However, Santos managed to sneak in 3 goals of its own. You could hear a pin drop when Santos scored. No one moved and the green machine sulked as one until the subsequent kick off.
All in all 6 goals and a great game. What a way to spend a Sunday!
Monday we spent shopping in town, before heading to Fernandas beach house, which she kindly let the 4 of us borrow. 3 hours later I touched the warm currents of the Atlantic Ocean for the first time!
The following day i was first to wake like a child at Xmas. I checked out the beach and went body surfing in some great little waves. We spent the whole day chilling at the
beach and getting sunburned. Whoops!
We switched beaches after lunch and chilled some more before scaling some rocks and watching the sunset. Bliss.
Day 2 at the ocean, we headed to an island off the coast - close enough where it was easy to get to by boat but just far enough away where it was completely ours. We sat under a palm and waded in the warm water for a few hours. Sharing the white sand beach with some large birds and 2 other people.
The island excursion was all gravy execpt for the fact i got sunburnt. Great for trying to sleep.
On the way back i decided to drink a 6 pack in the back. It passed the time and made me quickly forget about the surf board that was taking up most of my head space.
We stopped in on Carols father who had meticulously made a typical seafood dish from Bahia. So we gobbled that up with some red wine. Then watched for the Palmerias mid week game.
We spent one more day having a look around Sao Paulo, organising tickets before having a much needed quiet night in before
BBQ again
No gas in this puppy our bus ride to Rio.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.086s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 13; qc: 57; dbt: 0.0594s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb