Sao Paulo, Day 1

Day 1
Long, long journey, and as boring as any other so I'll leave it alone, accept to recommend Lufthansa airlines who were great.

Arriving in Sao Paulo at 5.25am wasn't great preperation for our first day in a huge city, but even with three days of sleep before coming I doubt we would have been able to cope with this place on arrival. I have never seen anything like it; a sprawling riotous mess which bewilders and surprises you at every turn. There are no high iconic landmarks, no squares, no sensibly planned roads, we took a wrong turn at every opportunity and got lossed literally everywhere we went.

I have never been anywhere so dirty in my entire life. On the airport-city connection the pink grey fug formed a dense blanket over the sprawl, dramatically backlit by the rising sun. If I was here long I'd have to adopt the type of face mask I saw one poor woman struggling with today. To demonstrate, and this is not in any way an exaggeration, I saw and tasted smog forming at head level on one road, and we only walked in the 'historic centre' of the city.

On one particularly misdirected jaunt Rob and I stumbled upon a market that ran through various streets, arcades and open spaces. Everyone was shouting, rushing and generally selling the same tat as the person three stalls down. I'll have to get some photos, it perfectly sums up my first impressions of Sao Paulo as a nonsensical, staggering, sweltering but weirdly endearing mess.

Day 1 - Post Siesta + Dinner
More thoughts on Sao Paulo. To be honest earlier today we were becoming frustrated with the place. We had barely slept on the plane and I suppose we weren't really ready for the experience of this city.

In a calmer, cleansed post-siesta mood we are now starting to appreciate the place more. Language was initially a real difficulty for us (*edit - and has been since). I suppose part of our mentality was influenced by the 'they always speak English' school of thought. I kmew the very basics and can make myself understood, but understanding others is virtually impossible for both of us. At least we know we have to work on it now. However it will probably take a few more weeks of humiliation with the natives before I can hold a conversation.

I postscripted a small remark about poverty in Sao Paulo onto the end of my first entry. Poverty is striking everywhere here; the motionless bodies, of all ages, at all hours on the streets sleeping, the people who's job it is to seperate rubbish bads in the streets, the old woman collecting and crushing aluminium cans. But poverty here is also dignified. Rob notices that despite the number of desperate people here only one has begged for money, unlike most cities. We stand out like sore thumbs, especially at 9am in the Praca de Republica with our bags, but apart from the odd look or offer of a stolen Ipod we haven't been bothered.

All it took to really pick us up was a conversation and a caipirinha. We were waited on by a man learning English who was probably only marginally ahead of our Portuguese. For a trip that we felt was all about meeting different people we had been slightly isolated up to tyhat point. Suddenly we saw a softer side of the city. One caipirinha later and I'm ready for bed. Sao Paulo is an intriguing city, and almost perversely a captivating one, unfortunately though I think we won't have the time to unlock its charm completely.