Blogs from São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil, South America - page 9

First of all: the picture follows when I'm back! The day after my last entry (Saturday), I went - after a long night with English, American, Irish, Australian, Italian, and Argentinian people - again to the Argentinian part of the park. This day I got totally wet again, because this time because of the rain (yeah, it's called rainy season...), but the falls were impressive anyway. In the evening - my last day in Argentina - a girl from Italy, the Australian guy and I prepared a nice lomo (meat) in the dirtiest kitchen I've ever seen, but it was delicious. The next day, the taxi brought me to the Brazilian airport (I never crossed a border more easily), and I flew to Sao Paulo, where my dear friend Patricia, who I met in Cambridge 3 ... read more

TT: Well, wouldn't you know it, before we could add the last paragraph and photos, we had an all passengers should be on board call. So here is the last part: KF: Our last day in Brazil, we went to visit our Exchange Student from 2006-2007, Eduardo Nauiack and his family. We had a wonderful lunch created by Marcia and Luis. Lots of fun talking about old times and looking at old photos, when Eduardo had MUCH longer hair. Now we are really going to sign off -- my flight leaves for Canada in a few minutes. ... read more

Carnaval, this most wonderful Brazillian celebration, had gripped us like it had the nation. Scenes of jubilation, cross dressing, dancing and drinking filled both the day and the night. Eighty percent of the country's expenditure during the five days is spent on beer and with us contributing to the cause our Carnaval continued, the siestas always followed by extravagant fiestas.    Having enjoyed the lucid carnaval feel of Ilha da Santa Catarina and the free spirited delights of Florianopolis, it was time to indulge in a night of electronica at one of Brazil's biggest nightclubs. Set amidst the lush Atlantic rainforest near the town of Balneario Camboriu, 'Green Valley' was the perfect setting for three of my favourite DJs to throw us, and four thousand others, into raptures. Booka Shade, Trentemoller and Axwell kept us going ... read more

Sao Paulo is gigantic, we reached the outskirts on the bus, admiring the skyline that continued for miles. We were told this one city had a larger population than the whole of Australia. With a little unintentional detour we made it to our hostel and decamped our belongings. Unfortunately Lucille was feeling unwell but Jane and I went out for a drink. We were joined with one of her friends from Madrid's friend who came from Sao Paulo. It was interesting to hear from a local about the city and Brazilian culture. He highlighted how the city was a ghost town compared to normal as most people go out of the city for carnival. Apparently one poet described Sao Paulo as the place where samba died - oh dear! The second evening it was Jane who ... read more

Please take back everything I ever said about Brazil being cleaner than Argentina - Sao Paulo is FILTHY! We arrived to our hotel about 9pm and stayed in Kings Cross equivalent - but in a city of 19 millin people I´m sure you can imagine what it was like! They had carnival type celebratins going on which we watched from our hotel window. There was loads of people all partying and dancing down the street to the samba sound coming off the float. It was really cool! We had typical type Brazilian BBQ feast for dinner - I ordered a bottle of Brazilian red - big mistake, it was like grape juice! The meat was great! Afterwards we headed out for a few ´quiet´drinks right next to our hotel at the local lesbian bar Maryjane .....EEEEEeeeeek. ... read more