Sao Paolo

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Only spent a day and a half in Sao Paolo but still managed to see quite a bit. Stayed with a friend who lives next to Avenue Paulista, which is the main street in SP. We mostly drove around the city which made a nice change from walking everywhere. We picked up a friend from the coach station and went for lunch. We had feijoada (the national dish) which is pork chop, rice, beans with random bits of meat in it, veg and more pork. There was a band playing some sort of Brazilian jazz/samba in the restaurant. An old couple got up and were dancing for a while which was nice. I couldn't stand up I saw so full, my excuse for not getting up there. A heavy night out as usual which was good fun.

We spent the next day exploring some of the city before our bus left. We went to the market for these famous sandwiches we'd heard about. They looked like something out of Man vs Food, they had an incredible amount of cooked meat piled into them. So much so that you couldn't fit the whole thing in your mouth. We then drive to the Asian part of town. Sao Paolo has the largest community of Japanese people outside of Japan. There was a market on as it was a Sunday. Loads of food stalls and random things to buy. That was all we really had time for so we made our way over to the bus station.

The city wasn't what I expected. I had heard some rather negative things so was expecting quite a run down and dirty city. There were of course these parts which we saw, there were a lot of homeless people living in large groups by the side of the road and under bridges. But despite this there were some really nice parts to town. I was lucky to have stayed with a friend here and to see the better parts of town with a local. Had I done it on my own it would have been a very different experience. Avenue Paulista is the main street and is mostly occupied by offices. It's not in the centre of town, the buildings in the centre were nice but very run down. So most of the office blocks were moved away from this area. There's a long shopping street known as the Jardins neighbourhood which felt almost like being in L.A with all the designer shops.

An interesting piece of information were we told was the influence that the gangs have over residents of SP. In the residential areas there is big conflict between the gangs and the police. I believe the largest of these gangs is called PCC. They impose curfews onto people living in many areas as they can't distinguish between civilians and undercover police so it's easier to have everyone off the streets. One of the guys who was supposed to join us for dinner was at his friends house and was driving off when he got told to turn around and stay off the road by gang peeps. So he couldn't make it.

Got off to a really good start on the bus as the driver spent well over an hour lost in Sao Paolo trying to leave the city. He was actually lost trying to leave. We drove through quite possibly some of the dodgiest areas I've seen, and then pulled over to ask for directions. Mind blowing stupidity. Things got better as captain fantastic left behind 2 people at one of the service station stops we made. Had half the bus shouting at him to stop as he was driving away. I think he must have felt bad about the journey so far, so to make up for it he turned the ac to just below freezing. Through all of this I still managed to sleep for a good 10 hours.

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