So, things took a turn for the absolutely foreign rather than the sort-of foreign of North America. The country we had the most reticence about when planning this jaunt was Brazil, chiefly because we knew next-to-nothing about it and speak none of the local lingo.
São Paulo was the most intimidating destination, because, well, I listened to a lot of Seputura as a teen and they always sounded angry about all sorts of social ills. Mainly it’s the size, though. São Paulo is 1500 square kilometers, holding 20 million people. It’s the largest city in the Americas and a lot of those 20 million aren’t doing too well.
But it’s less jarring than the frankly shocking numbers of homeless we saw in the large developed American cities, as at least here these people migrated en masse from drought-hit regions of the north onto a city with little means of supporting them, hence the massive slum Favelas.
That all said, everyone we’ve met here has been extremely friendly and helpful, despite our language barrier. Things are very, very cheap, owing in no small part to the tumbling value of the Brazilian Real (dropped 25% since we booked our hotels and flights here 12 months ago). As an example: A fillet steak and a beer in the hotel cost £7 and 80p respectively.
Slightly more expensive than McDonalds
The Brazilian churrascaria steakhouse concept (where men wielding skewers of meat and knives feed you until you beg them to stop) has been in the UK for a couple of years now, but prior to that we’d only seen one in Beverly Hills, while we were there on our honeymoon in 2007. The restaurant was called Fogo de Chão and it was glorious.
So we went to the source this time -as the chain originated in São Paulo- and visited their restaurant as it was 10 minutes walk from our hotel. The service was impeccable and the food fantastic. I will’ve eaten so much beef before we leave these shores that the local cows will wonder if they wronged me in another life.
A thing I noticed was, despite the ridiculous congestion, the drivers were actually really courteous and civilised (in a way that the Americans were uniformly not, regardless of where I went) to one another. So people were let out at junctions, were allowed to merge etc. It was a bit of a contradiction to the Naples-style Thunderdome that I expected.
Vincent and Pablo in the house
We also managed to stick in some obligatory culture, with a trip to Museum of Art of São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (who must be the patron saint of steak or something), where we found a few more Monets, Picassos and Van Goghs. They really did belt them out, that lot?
We stayed in a relatively posh area and were only here for two nights, so my opinion is of limited objectivity, but what we saw of São Paulo left a positive impression and was an optimistic start to the South American leg.
Kurzfassung auf Deutsch: I habe so viel rindfleisch gegessen. Brasilianischen Kühe denken jetzt, dass sie mir in einem anderen Leben beleidigt haben.
