São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro

South America » Brazil
April 12th 2008

Published: April 13th 2008

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mjist

SÃ£o Paulo

A view from the hill of Vila Madalena across perhaps the less wealthy part of SÃ£o Paulo

Ah yes.

I spent my last 3 days in São Paulo having all in all a very good time. On the Monday I think (I can´t quite remember, seeing as it was a few days ago) I went to USP (University of São Paulo) to the Instituto Butanta, which was and is a herpology centre and a centre for microbiological research and vaccine development, and all that kinda shiz, back in the day when Paris had the only supply of Plague vaccine in the world, and there was plague in Brazil, and someone didn´t quite see eye to eye. So the Brazilians decided to build their own immunology centre, and it all went from there! The only problem, on this particular Monday, was that I had caught the wrong bus. Fresh from Canberra, I was used to the whole ´bus stops at bus stop´deal - whereas I have discovered that in other parts of the world you have to run your bus down. You have to hunt it as if it was prey - you have to jump in front of it (almost) and thrust your arm against the door in order for it to open - otherwise it drives

SÃ£o Paulo and I

Less than wealthy SÃ£o Paulo plus me, seen from the vantage point of wealthy Vila Madalena

right by. So after waiting for my bus for a little while, and finally catching one, I found out that it was the wrong one (because although the sign said that it went to Instituto Butanta, apparently it didn´t). So I found myself on this bus, with a crazy driver who liked to zoom around the small streets and shift the gears really clumsily so that whiplash was a concern. I had to hold on for dear life when we went around roundabouts (they´ve got roundabouts WITH traffic lights in São Paulo - just as well, otherwise many people would die) and finally staggered off the bus, a little shaken, somewhere at the University. USP, catering to a population of 15 million, is a big place, but I managed to get some directions from someone who spoke a little English, so onwards I staggered.

Once I found the Instituto Butanta (I mean, there were no signs or anything saying what it was, only a manned gate on the side of a roundabout) I found, to my dissapointment, that it was closed on Mondays. This would have been alright, except I knew that it was closed on Mondays - perhaps

Marcos and Dinner

He made spagbol, and might I say that it was rather delicious! Salude!

I had forgotten that it was Monday, maybe I am just plain dumb. So instead I jumped on a bus which took me to Vila Madalena (that more wealthy of suburbs I keep on talking about) and I had a little bit of a wander round before jumping on the Metro to Paulista Avenue, to have a wander and meander, feeling kind of clueless about my failed day.

I was rather glad, on Tuesday, to find the Insituto Butanta open. I paid my 2 Reais admission (maybe AUD$1.2) and had a meander through the exhibit of all these deliciously Brazilian snakes - from Anacondas and Pythons to these miniature Coral snakes, which take great pleasure in having some rather deadly venom. After feasting my eyes on snakes, and wandering around the Instituto (though to be honest there was not much else apart from a snack bar, where I had bought my chicken-filled-pastry) I headed back to Marcos´ place, with the intention of going for a walk around my largely unexplored neighbourhood. I walked down Rua Teodoro Sampaio, a busy 2 lane, one way road, which is always clogged with buses and cars and motorbikes and much hoking, to the

Food Market

The praÃ§a outside MarcosÂ´ apartment also plays host to a food market every week, where you can find organic fruit and flowers and meat and that markety kind of fare.

Tomie Ohtake building, a rather spectacular building, which is a culture and arts centre - with a Brazilian photography exhibit, no less! After it started to rain down I headed back to Marcos´place, where that evening he picked me up after work (about 9pm) to take me to Vila Madalena to have beer and empanadas with a friend of his from work and Claudia. We all got rather merry with beer, trying a few different ones, and taking silly photographs of each other, before we went back to Marcos´for more beery shenanigans.

I had arranged to meet up with a girl who I had contacted through Couchsurfing to show me around the city, and we met up pretty bright and early on Wednesday morning. After meeting at the Clinicas Metro station, Gabriela took me to city markets on the northern side of the city, a great big hall filled with semi-permanent merchants, selling all manner of foodly goods. We then walked to the Empire State Building, or the São Paulan version of it, and took photos from the very top, looking out across the city. From the top you can see for 40km, but I still could not see

Tomie Ohtake

The Tomie Ohtake Cultural Centre, is really a rather impressive building. It has got a lower gallery area, and then this office building as well. Pretty neat, yo!

the end of the city, or any indication that it was thining out. After struggling our way through crowded streets filled with people selling everything from pens to gold jewellery and toys that lighted up and bounced around, Gabriela and I found ourselves at the Brahma Bar - named after the beer, where, as one does, we drank the beer. After a run down Paulista Avenue and a perousal of a large bookstore, we said goodbye to each other and a lovely day.

The week before Marcos had planned to have a bit of a party on the Wednesday night, which was going to be a bit of a going away party (after a whole week and a half in São Paulo) with more beery shenanigans. After work, at about 9pm, lots of his friends from work came around, with so much beer that I thought that they were planning to start up an export company. All the beer had been consumed by 4am, when everyone left, with Marcos´collection of music DVDs dispersed over the floor, INXS still in the player. After a lovely 4 hours of sleep I woke up, thinking, oh, my, today I´m planning on going

Tomie Ohtake

Another view lower down.

to Rio. After I had packed all my things, and Marcos had come to and rose from his bed, and after we ate Marcos Freitas´ Special Breakfast for the last time (for a little while) it was already about 11, and I was a little nervous about the whole getting-to-Rio-in-the-Dark thing.

The bus was absolutely lovely, with seats that reclined quite a bit, nice, wide and comfortable, with the added bonus of having two seats to my own self. I tried to get a bit of shut eye, but I discovered how annoying a high pitched, giggly portugese voice can be, throughout the 6 hours on the bus. To be fair I don´t think I was in the right kinda mood for sleeping, it just didn´t seem ´right´. I was correct, after decending down the escarpment near Rio, the night fell and I toyed with different ideas of how to get to the area that I was planning on staying at from where the coach was going to stop. I could take a bus, which could perhaps be a little risky with all my things on board, considering the risky area the bus terminal was in. Or I could

Tomie Ohtake

From a different side of the building, facing up.

take a taxi, which would have been more expensive, but safer and faster. Well, I thought that I had found a good compromise when I got talking to two guys who had been on the bus from São Paulo, who (i thought) said they were going to Ipanema, a well heeled region of Rio south of the centre with a beautiful beach. So after doing a bit of bargaining with different taxi drivers, we jumped into the cab, only to find myself in the centre of the city, in front of a really dodgy hostel. We didn´t stay at the hostel long enough to know that it was dodgy, but the kids that climbed on the windows and the manner of people outside the hostel certainly put me off. So the three of us walked to the bus stop 100 metres down the road, where they jumped on a bus destined for Copacabana (I didn´t because I knew Copacabana, the next beach/region north of Ipanema, was dodgy and lame), while I waited for one to Ipanema. After interrogating people on the bus for help on when to get off the bus I got a vague indication that I should get

Rua Teodoro Sampaio

At night, when I was walking home and it was raning. SÃ£o Paulo is in many parts a concrete jungle, but this is offset by some beautiful parks.

off sometime in the near future. Which helped a lot. Walking along the footpath I was greeted by streets lined with tall trees, and was impressed by the lack of homeless and destitute on the streets. I kept on walking, in the dark and the rain, with my lonely planet in hand, down the streets of Ipanema, searching for a hostel, which I couldn´t seem to see. Until I asked someone who pointed out that it was behind a really big gate and lush greenery.

In a bit of a hazy daze (I hadn´t really eaten that day, and I was running a little low on sleep) I booked in and through my stuff in the dorm before sitting in the outside pool/bar area talking to people. Because I´m a naughty boy, I got to sleep late, and woke up probably a little too early for my liking. I was full of get-up-and-go though (hey mark! guess what! you´re in rio de janeiro!) so I headed 5 minutes walk down the road to the beach, had a swim (my first time in the south-atlantic) before jumping on a bus to the centre. I walked around for a while, consuming

Vulmar and Marcos

MarcosÂ´friend from work out eating Empanadas with us. We drank a fair amount of beer too. Yummo.

two maccas 50cent cones, in chocolate flavour. I had flashbacks as I licked and remembered that time in Brisbane, a long long time ago, when I had had a chocolate cone. Simply delicious. The centre of Rio seemed to be a little bit more busy than the centre of São Paulo, and I walked around looking at markets and architecture and all that shizz. At about 3pm I managed to find a bus destined for Cristo Redentor, which was quite a relief in my dehydrated and hungry state. I took the cog train up to the summit, and looked around in awe for quite some time, taking a few thousand photos at the same time. At about 1am, after making myself some dinner, and drinking quite a few beers, half the hostel jumped into taxis to the centre, to go to Lapa and party! There was supposed to be a street party, which in the end consisted of a few thousand people on the street, mingling vendors selling food and alcohol , the clubs on the side of the road pumping. We all went to a club, where I stayed with a few people until about 5:30am, dancing and shaking

Claudia and I

MarcosÂ´ friend Claudia and I. I have promised her that when I am 30 that we shall marry. At least I hope thats the plan.

it like we just didn´t care. After a shower (yes, I am like that) and seeing the sky brighten, I jumped into bed for my four hours sleep.

I never had huge expectations of my Saturday, but it surpassed them anyway. I spent the day on Ipanema beach, lying around, swimming, and those beachy things that people do. I even bought some sunscreen, after I came to realise, against all my normal logic, that my hat was not sufficient sun protection (my shoulders were a little burnt after perhaps 10 minutes in the sun the previous day). Oh yes, and I also lazed around the pool here at the hostel - which is kind of like a resort, in that it is rather lavishly fun. I´m treating myself very well indeed. I was toying with the idea of going out tonight as well, but the idea of an evening sitting around with a couple of beers chatting to Mike and Roman, my Austrian rockclimbing buddies, appealed to me more. I made myself some pretty decent fetbol (I don´t much like spaghetti), and even had enough for three spagbags.

Tomorrow, after heading to the beach, I´m thinking about going

Marcos and I

Plus beer.

to the Maracanã football stadium, where a semi-final is being played between two Rio teams - a very big deal. After the game I´m planning on jumping on a bus for Iguazu falls, 22 hours away on the border with Argentina.

Doing very well,
Lots of love,
Mark

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