Sao Paulo

Feb 2023

Sao Paulo

We left Curitiba and headed straight for Sao Paulo. This was one of the fixed dates of our trip as we had to be in Sao Paulo on the 15th February to pick up our friend, Yike, who was flying out to visit for a few weeks. We had booked an Airbnb for two nights then we had a different Airbnb in a different area for the 3 of us, from which we explored the city some more. Our first Airbnb was in the iconic Copan building, one of the tallest in Sao Paulo, and designed by the famous Brazilian architect, Oscar Niemeyer. It is the equivalent to visiting London and staying in an apartment in the Barbican. Think enormous, brutalist building, small apartments, stunning views, and lots of history. We became a bit obsessed with researching the building before we arrived, especially after visiting the Oscar Niemeyer museum in Curitiba. It was built in the 1960s and had once been run-down and home to illegal activity including drug dealing and prostitution. But, in 1993, an engineer called Affonso Celso Prazeres de Oliveira took on its management and turned it around, filling the basement with thriving businesses, evicting tenants and anyone doing anything illegal, and turning into a desirable, well-run, profitable residential building once again. The main problem it’s facing now are the 72-million minute tiles falling from the façade. For the last few years, the building has been draped in a giant blue net to prevent tiles hitting pedestrians below but, as it is a listed building, the renovation of it is painstaking. The tiles were no longer in production and had to be replaced like for like, so the Building Manager, before he retired, managed to convince a factory to remake the tiles so they could begin to be replaced. Luckily (maybe not for the pedestrians) the section where our apartment was located, on the 31st floor, had a tear in its blue netting so we still had unrestricted, breathtaking views over Sao Paulo. 

As is our experience arriving in any major city, finding somewhere suitable to park Pedro was tiresome in the heat. We eventually found somewhere with no height restriction where we paid more than double a normal car, to park our, not-more-than-double-a-car-length-van in (typical).

As Yike was arriving the next day, we didn’t want to tick too many things off the to-see list without her, so we just wandered around the ‘Centro’ area. It was lucky we didn’t wait for Yike to see this particular part of the city as it was hands down the worst poverty either of us have ever seen. We have travelled in Asia, America, Africa, and Europe, and never has homelessness, poverty, and drug addiction been so obviously prevalent anywhere we’ve visited. This was the first place we have felt unsafe in the last 4 months in 6 different countries. After some googling, we found out there are currently an estimated 32,000 homeless people in Sao Paulo, which increased 25% during/after the covid pandemic and the subsequent cost of living crisis. Aside from the obvious social hardship these people were suffering, it is a real shame for that area of the city. We don’t want to paint Sao Paulo in too much of a bad light, but you could imagine how the historical centre was once thriving, with grand buildings and parks. 

We had been warned by our Airbnb host to not get our phones out when we were walking around the streets in that area because they have a big problem with thefts by people on bicycles speeding past. We made a conscious effort not to do so, but if we got our phone out for a second to check directions, someone would come over and tell us to put it away! We didn’t witness any thefts or attempted thefts but still went inside the entrance of shops or banks just to get our phones out for a minute!

It was Valentine’s Day, but as Carnival week was the same week in February, they instead celebrate Valentine’s Day in Brazil, in June. We still went out for a nice dinner in one of the restaurants on the ground floor of the building. Em had wanted to treat herself for her birthday by getting some new ear piercings and her nails done. You would think they are quite straightforward activities in a major city, but what followed was a wild goose chase of various piercing shops and beauticians which ended up being people’s flats in residential blocks, mainly found by following strange old women from the street who had a flier into a building! Eventually, we found a shopping centre which could cater to both requirements. Two ear piercings: 5 minutes, £10. Nail extensions? 3.5 hours (YES, WE KNOW!), £30.

(Written by Em…) Some of you may want to skip over this part but we found it fascinating…in the UK, they do acrylic extensions basically by glueing a bit of plastic to the end of your nail and painting over it. Here, they do fibreglass extensions, which ends up being a lengthy process of laying individual fibreglass strands onto your nail and then hardening them with some kind of goo that smushes the fibres together into a big mess, then they paint over them! From experience, I assumed it would take an hour, so Justin went off to amuse himself in the shopping centre. Cut to 2 hours later, Justin feeding me a meat pasty he’d found as I was still prisoner in my own hands, and another hour and a half later, finally being able to go for a wee! The nail technician was exhausted at the end, especially as I’d asked for a smiley face which she kept messing up and had to re-do the whole nail 3 times, until I eventually told her it would do and please could we stop. A day later, we discovered that insect repellent removes nail varnish so ruined them all anyway!

We acquainted Yike with the sweaty tin box that is Pedro, drove back through the city, checked out of our Airbnb, stored our bags in the basement luggage store, and went to explore the city. We got an Uber to “Batman’s Alley”, a street filled with impressive street art graffiti. 

Then came another one of Em’s weird cosmetic procedures. She was going to some woman’s studio who she’d found on Instagram, to get her eyebrows ‘microbladed’. This is a process where tiny cuts are made in the eyebrow, then dye is put on top, creating the illusion of hair. Clever, almost pain-free due to anesthetic cream, and a third of the price of getting it done in London. The only problem was the language barrier, but the lady was so lovely and communicated with huge patience solely through Google Translate. The funny thing was, like a tattoo, the marks are very dark for the first few days, then the top layer of skin sheds, so the day after she looked a right mess, and couldn’t touch or cover them up, just had to patiently wait for them to heal without scratching. While this was happening, Yike and Justin visited the Football museum in an old stadium with lots of video footage of iconic games. 

Once reunited, we got another Uber to our new Airbnb in a slightly different area, Bela Vista, where everything was hidden away - all the rooms were inside cupboards so from the main living area it didn’t look like there were any other rooms. It took an age to get inside as the Airbnb instructions were limited at best, and we had to explain through a buzzer on the street in Google-translated Portuguese that we had a reservation, for the security guard to allow us in. The apartment was also in the back of the building, with no signs and multiple lifts going to 4 flats each. 

That night, we decided to go to a nice restaurant, 'Abaru Bar', on the roof of the same shopping centre we’d spent all our lives in the day before (and Justin swore he would never set foot in again). More confusion as some old ornamental lifts with a sign to the restaurant weren’t functioning, and we had to make our way down to the underground car park to a secret lift up to the roof (of course!).

The next day was a proper touristy day and we went to the IMS Cultural Centre, with exhibitions about indigenous Brazilian cultures; Japan House, where we got to try what it felt like to have a prosthetic leg; the Altino Building (inspired by the Empire State building), with lots of cool art installations and optical illusions; and the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, which had very boring exhibits of Marc Chagall, but a cool floating fabric installation in the main atrium powered by fans underneath. 

We then went to ‘Asia Town’ and Yike was delighted to find some of her childhood favourites in a supermarket. We all got express massages in the basement of a hotel, which were amazing. While Yike and Em were waiting for Justin to get his massage, a man came to show us around the rest of the spa. We weren’t sure what was happening as it was all in Portuguese, and information was definitely lost in translation, as when shown the sauna, we proceeded to sit inside the boiling sauna fully clothed with our bags, as if this was the invitation. It wasn’t and he soon told us to get up and showed us the other rooms to which our response every time was “Oh, very nice.” Once Justin was finished, he got the same tour. We didn’t warn him about the sauna. 

For dinner, we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant where you get a hot plate and some raw meat, veg and loads of condiments to cook yourself...cut to 1am that night and Justin was struck down with violent food poisoning out of both ends until the next morning!

Ilha Grande

Feb 2023

Ilha Grande

We nervously drove to where you catch a boat to Ilha Grande, not knowing if we were making the Pedro problem worse. We made it and followed a bloke to a car park who told us he could organise a taxi boat over to the island. The town was chaos, so we blindly trusted him. It paid off and after a very bumpy speedboat ride, we were safely on Ilha Grande for the night. We had a 4-bed dorm with bunkbeds in a basic hostel that was right next to a huge building site.

Ilha Grande is a jungle paradise with no vehicles, white and black sand beaches, and lots of restaurants and bars. We only had one day on the island, so we changed into our swimming stuff and set off on what we thought was a leisurely 5km circular stroll to see a waterfall. It was not. We got lost and ended up doing a 12km hike with no water, just in our bikinis and crocs in a humid and dense jungle. We finally arrived at the waterfall and after asking some fellow, much more well-equipped hikers, if we were nearly there, they responded with a nonchalant “There’s a Cobra at the waterfall by the way.” We hurried there, Justin eager to see it, but unfortunately/fortunately didn’t spot him. There was a sign on a tree that said taxi boat from the beach and the last one was at 5.30pm. We practically ran down the track to the beach but realised it was far too far to reach the beach in time. With our tails between our legs, we headed back. It had started to get dark, and we passed a lone woman still walking towards the beach. We told her the last taxi boat had gone, but completely unfazed she responded with “Oh it's fine I’m going to walk back, I’ve got a head torch.” Storms had brought huge trees and power lines down in the forest, that none of us would have volunteered to manoeuvre in the pitch-black. Once back in civilisation, we went for a pizza that was more cheese than pizza.