Brazil - Sao Paulo

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David here...

The flight from Santa Cruz to Sao Paulo was over 2 hours, our longest flight for a while (and number 28 of this trip - so far, so many more than we envisaged). The checks at Santa Cruz airport took a long time, including a narco check, where every bag was checked and then random person searches took place as well. Suzanne spotted what was going to happen next but I didn't so was shocked when one of the attendants made a beeline for me and dragged me into a room to be searched. It was only an over the clothes search but being directed to a small room in a foreign land is never a good thing and the nerves do start jangling a little.

The flight itself was fine, we had the usual idiots in front recling their seats, this time before the seatbelt sign was even off. I had revenge though as the person in front of me inadvertently put their seat directly in line with where I had moved my airflow from the panel above and they could not figure out why they were cold. It's the little things. We got a drink and small sandwich on the flight, enough to see us through and we were soon landing in Brazil.

If we're honest, Brazil is the Australia of this trip. We have never particularly wanted to come here, it has just never appealed, much like Australia on our last trip. But seeing as we're in the area, it would be foolish not to pop in and see what it is like. We ended up loving Australia, and our hopes were high that the same thing may happen again.

We breezed through immigration. No questions, just stamp-stamp, off you go. Our bags came through and had obviously been searched as the zips were not done up properly (nothing missing). We had read various ways to get to the centre from the airport, ranging from the easiest option (taxi) through to the cheapest, which involved a bus and two metro rides. We stepped out of the airport and for once, were not hassled. We looked for the 257 bus but could see no sign of where to get it from so decided to just get a taxi into town so we could search for Heavy Metal, one of the main reasons we had come to Sao Paulo. Just as we were about to pay for the taxi at the booth Suzanne spotted the 257, on the middle section just outside Arrivals. We ran down just as it pulled away, the driver letting us on as he waited in traffic. B$6 (Brazilian Real) each, around £3 in total. The bus took us to Tatuape metro station about 30 minutes away and once on the metro, it is easy to get to pretty much anywhere in the city for B$3.50 a journey, even changing lines.

We arrived at our hotel, the BBB Rooms, at 19:00 as estimated only to find it was actually the BBB Rooms inside the Hotel Missouri. We felt a little scammed as the BBB branding was much more modern than the older hotel we were actually in. We only paid for one night instead of all 3 up front so we could decide what to do. In the end, the room was clean, the beds comfortable, the price was pretty good for Sao Paulo, the breakfast was great and most importantly, the shower was big, hot and powerful so we did end up staying.

The first issue we had was the language. We foolishly thought that we may be able to get by with a smattering of Spanish, thinking Portuguese must be similar. Everyone says that the two languages written down are very similar. Well, the sound is nothing alike. Portuguese is like a mix of Dutch, Spanish, a touch of something Swedish and possibly French and Russian, all rolled up with a bit of Klingon. We soon found our best option was to do most things in English and use a lot of smiling and pointing (and Google Tranlate). That seemed to work. We headed out of our hotel and hit the town, looking for food and Metal. We found the bar (Alcatraz) we were hoping to go to later on and a nearby Italian restaurant, which made sense, we were in the Italian quarter after all.

The restaurant was lovely and we soon had people helping us order. We went for Lasagne al Bolognese, which served two people, and soon had a big beer to share. We were then presented with olives, fishy pates and bread. The pates were pretty good but the bread was amazing. The best bread we'd had in a long while. Yay for Brazilian bread. Our lasagne was cheesy and hammy, but lacking in meat for us. We were full though, which was the point. We were disappointed to find though that the bread and pates were all on the bill, despite us not asking for them at all. The norm in Brazil apparently. It was also twice the cost of a similar meal in Bolivia.

We paid up and headed to the bar to discover it full of people, with no music playing, no band posters up and nothing like a Metal bar at all. In fact, while it was busy, no one looked Metal in the remotest. Really disapointing as we expected the Sao Paulo Metal scene to be amazing. We decided to cut our losses and head back to the room and some sleep.

The next day, after a good breakfast, we headed for the Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand on Avenue Paulista. We found the main street blocked off to traffic but didn't really pay much attention to what was going on. The gallery was an excellent mix of different art from many periods in history. We thought we might be there for 30 minutes but it was more like an hour as there was lots to see, all presented in a very different way to the norm. Highly recommended. As we left we realised that the Avenue was filled with performers and stalls so decided to follow the flow of people.

We passed magicians, singers, bands and people selling food and beer. Say passed, we did stop a few times to buy cold cans of beers while we walked. We stopped and listened to a punk-metal band called Insurreicao for a while, who finished with a cover of Black Sabbath's Into the Void. Apparently, the road is closed every Sunday, well worth a visit.

The Immigration Museum, our next stop, is in a dodgy area of town. Walking from the metro, we felt a little uncomfortable. Not helped by leaving the metro by the wrong exit and having to walk for about an extra 30 minutes. When we did arrive we found loads of homeless men hanging around nearby, which was disconcerting. No one gave us trouble but it was not nice walking through the area. We found out at the musuem that part of the complex is still used to offer vulnerable people food and shelter to this day. The musuem was alright, most of the presentations were in Portuguese and it glossed over the trials and tribulations of people coming into a new country but it was interesting.

That evening we decided to try finding Metal again. We weren't hopeful after our failure at Alcatraz bar the previous evening but decided to do the hour walk to Manifesto bar, again walking through a South American city at night. Not that the walk was dangerous as we followed main roads through the richer area of town. All indications were that the bar opened at 18:00 so we were shocked to discover it closed when we got there at 20:30. A live band was setting up and they did not fill us with joy and again the place looked sparse, with little to indicate it was Metal.

Again, we cut our losses and walked back to a street food area we had passed, bought a burger and beer each, followed by a Belgian waffle for me, and sat on a bench, watching the world pass by. It was actually pretty relaxed. The walk back to the hotel was a struggle (it was over a 10k round trip) but we made it back without any hassle.

The next day we went to another art gallery, the Pinacoteca do Estado. Again, a very good collection of art, taking up about 90 minutes. We then walked through the nearby park, which despite the massive police presence still felt run down due to the amount of homeless people there. Sao Paulo seems to have a massive homelessness issue. We then walked to the Cathedral (very impressive) and again found masses of homeless people in front of it. We walked through the Japanense area before deciding to try our luck and head back to Paulista Avenue to see if it was blocked off again seeing as it was a bank holiday. We found the same situation as the day before, though more people and less performers. It was still nice walking up and down the avenue with beers in sun.

That evening we went to a nearby Indian restaurant called Tandoor which had good reviews. The food was lovely and we really enjoyed the meal. A little expensive but as we'd saved money by not drinking in Metal bars we felt OK about paying the £40 bill. We stopped off at a 24 hour supermarket and grabbed a few beers for the room before an earlier night as we had a flight the next day. We were up earlier for breakfast and went back to the airport the same way we arrived, via 2 metro journeys and a bus to the airport, so much cheaper and possibly quicker than a taxi.

As I mentioned earlier in the blog, Brazil is much like Australia from our previous trip and so far, our first stop matches our first stop in Australia, Melbourne. Both had excellent museums and parks and we really enjoyed both places. We found both to be a little more expensive than expected and failed in finding Metal. In the end, we left Australia after having a wonderful time so our hopes are high that Brazil may surprise us.

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