The flight to Sao Paulo from Istanbul took 12,5 hours and that was the longest flight in our lives. Anyway, last year we flew 3 times to Los Angeles, so it wasn’t that bad as every such flight takes ~11 hours. Sao Paulo airport looked really nice and wasn’t crowded at all. After we got our passports stamped and crossed the border, we had to get Uber as it was the most convenient way to reach city center. Flash forward, Uber has cost us 98 Reals which is ~33$. Ordinary taxi would have cost ~140 Reals while bus + metro would be ~50 Reals per person, so ~100 Reals in total. Uber driver was nice, car was new and in ~35min we reached our destination in Sao Paulo center.
We used Couchsurfing and found Vicente who agreed to host us for 3 nights. He is a lawyer, lives in 16 floor apartment building and also has an office in the same building. He has been hosting Dutch and Chilean girls already, so he gave us another apartment he has in the same building. It was small, but had everything we need: a couple mattresses and shower. Vicente also helped us to plan our days by explaining all the main sights and how to get there and we also went to eat out a few times together. So in general our first Couchsurfing experience in South America was really great!
The first evening when we arrived there was a weekly Couchsurfing gathering in downtown, so we went there with Vicente and girls. There was ~30-40 other hosts and couchsurfers inside already when we arrived. It was a good chance to chat to fellow couchsurfers and to have the first capirinha in Brazil. It was actually really strong and as we found out in the next couple of days it wasn’t an exception. Brazilians like their drinks strong or very strong. It was also a funny moment when we got asked where are we from and when we said that we’re from Vilnius, the guy we talked to said “oh that’s the city where mayor is crushing illegally parked cars with tanks, it would be nice to have the same mayor in Sao Paulo”. So that was a nice surprise to hear that this Zuokas’ PR thing got noticed in another side of the world as well.
The next day we walked to the Old Town or how local call it “the oldest downtown” (there is also new Downtown and the newest Downtown). On the way we also had a chance to change money in the “touristic agency” which apparently has the better exchange rate than banks (definitely better than in airport where I was offered 225 Reals for 100$ while it should be ~300 Reals. I kindly declined). The exchange place was well secured with ~7-8 guards.
The next thing we went to was a Cathedral which is nice, looks old, but was actually built only in the last century. The surrounding of the Cathedral is not the safest place in the city especially having in mind that next to is a park where all the “crack heads” are gathering to do drugs. The story behind it is that for a long time all those people were scattered across the city, but as ordinary people didn’t like them very much they have been getting hurt or even killed in streets. So for some reason they started gathering in that park in front of Cathedral (some say it’s because there is a lot of police, so they feel safe).
Then we went to see the first house in Sao Paulo which was built in 16th century. It looked very similar to Spanish Mission building in California, so I guess the purpose of that building was similar here as well. After it we went to a building which used to be the main office of Bank of Brazil. Now it’s used as an art museum with paintings from such artists as Picasso or Dali. They also have original vault doors preserved which was really interesting to see.
Another thing which draw our attention is that it can suddenly change from feeling “safe” to “not so safe” by just walking a few blocks. For example, we have been walking to see another church and everything looked nice until we entered the park behind it. There were a few hookers (behind the church!), some strange looking people, so we didn’t stay there very long. We have also noticed a few high-rise abandoned buildings (30-40 floors) which used to normal apartment buildings some time ago, then they became slumps while finally city government cleared them and now they are just empty, standing in the middle of the city. Actually a few buildings seemed to still have some residents, so it might be that people are still living in them even if it’s probably very dangerous.
We also went up to the highest (or one of the highest) building in the city (Santander tower). Surprisingly it didn’t cost anything to go up and check a nice panoramic view of the city. Usually there is a big line waiting to go up, but we got lucky and waited only ~20 minutes. After going down we went to have lunch as on Wednesdays most of the places serve dish called Feijoada which was highly recommended by our host Vicente. It’s hard to describe, but it’s basically a combination of a few things: pork stew, rise, beans, some greens, crushed corn (not sure) and oranges. The dish was really good and big(!), I’m quite sure it would have been enough to take one for us two, but we didn’t know that when ordering.
On the same say we also went to Mercado – the big market selling all kinds of food: fruits, meat, spices, fish etc. It’s nice, but actually quite expensive, so it’s better to buy e.g. fruits somewhere else (in the street). The last thing we saw that day was a train station and the park behind it. The park is big and nice, but apparently not always safe. We saw some police in front of it, so decided that it’s safe to go and it actually didn’t feel dangerous in any way inside.
The next day we spent in Ibirapuera park which is one of the biggest parks in the world and has 10 museums in it. We went just to one of them – Afro-Brazilian museum which was really interesting to see and learn about this culture. The park itself is really nice, lots of green spaces, a few ponds with lots of birds, running/cycling tracks, picnic places etc. It’s well maintained and clean, so definitely worth a visit.
On the last day in Sao Paulo, we went to a Botanical garden of Sao Paulo which is another great park. It cost only 5 Reals to enter and is quite big. In addition to some nice plants we also saw monkeys that actually live in the park, so with all other animals like birds it’s actually like a small zoo as well.
After this we packed our things and took overnight bus to Rio de Janeiro. More from there soon!