Sao Paulo, Brazil, South America

I woke up this morning and I was just outside of Sao Paulo on the bus. I got a few hours of sleep, but not a lot on the bus last night. I’ve definitely had worse nights on a bus though, so it wasn’t all that bad. I got into Sao Paulo around 9am and had to get a taxi from the bus terminal to my hostel. I felt like I got screwed by the taxi driver because he told me that his meter wasn’t working and told me it was R$40 to get to my hostel. Then when we got there he wouldn’t open the trunk where my bag was until I gave him R$50. I was really pissed off, but I don’t speak Portuguese well enough to argue, so I had to give him the R$50. Then he actually had the balls to ask for a tip. I grabbed my bag, told him he was a terrible taxi driver and then went into the hotel.

After that annoying exchange, it was nice to come into the hotel and be greeted by some really friendly people, who put me right into my room at 9:30am. Most places make you wait until 1 or 2pm, but here they were very nice about it. This meant I was able to get a shower, which is always nice right after a long bus ride, and then take a little nap.

I got up around 12pm and headed out to meet up with my friend Andrea who I had met on Easter Island. She met me near her work, and it was only a 15 minute walk from my hostel, so it was easy enough to get to. It wasn’t the nicest area I had to walk through, but I didn’t feel too uncomfortable so it was okay. We had a nice walk through the Japanese neighborhood or Liberdade, and into the city center. We had a pretty good lunch at a per-kilo-buffet, and it was excellent. This is exactly what it sounds like. You take all the food you want, from salad to pasta to meat, and then they just weigh it at the end and you pay by the kilo.

We had a really good lunch, then took a walk through the Wall Street of Sao Paulo, which is the financial center for all of Latin America really, since Sao Paulo is the biggest city in South America. There are over 20 million people here, so the only bigger one in Latin America is Mexico City. We then walked through the main cathedral in the city, which is beautiful, and then had to get the metro back to where Andrea works. It was just a couple of stops, but it was interesting to see the metro there.

At the point where you have to buy a ticket to get onto the metro, it was full of homeless people. They would just come up to you in line and ask you for money, but I never felt endangered by any of them. We got the metro over to Sao Joaquim station and I walked back to my hostel from there. The way I took back to the hostel was much more comfortable than the way I had gone before lunch.

I didn’t do too much in the afternoon. I walked up to Paulista Avenue which is the main avenue in the city with all the big banks and malls on it. There was some sort of protest going on and it included all of the police in the city. I think it had something to do with pensions, but I’m not 100% sure. I grabbed a bite to eat and then went down to the hostel again. I’m hanging out here for the rest of the night because I’m not too sure what the area is like at night. After all of the people I’ve talked to told me that Sao Paulo is really dangerous, I’m not going to take my chance walking around at night on my own for no reason.