MY BRAZIL I: My São Paulo

Even without knowing the facts about the population and the dimensions of the city, you just need a glance through the window in the plane and everything will be clear. I had the luck to choose São Paulo as my first destination, and the view on the city from above is literally INDESCRIBABLE. An immense surface covered with concrete, intersected with snake-like roads. What is even more beyond words is the view and the feeling if you are landing or taking off at the airport Congonhas. When built the airport was situated outside the city but with the fast growth of Sampa it became an airport among buildings… and São Paulo is the third city in the world in number of buildings, the largest city in Brazil and second largest in Latin America with around 12 millions inhabitants. The heliopads on the top of the buildings are unmissable, since Sampa has the largest helicopter fleet in the world. And opposite of what is commonly presumed, the helicopters are not used because of the crime threat, but because of the traffic.

However, the view from above is not the only thing that would make you conscious about the vastness of São Paulo. It is a city where most of the population lives in the buildings, and where houses have become shops, designer show-rooms, cute craftsman’s spaces etc. There are some beautiful shops in the houses in Vila Madalena (one of the trendiest neighborhoods in Sampa) that seem like museums. Almost every building has a guard and huge fences, so if you want to go in you have to explain to the guard who you are because even the people who live in the building do not have the key to the front door. It is one thing that remained from the 90s, when São Paulo was a very dangerous city to live in. Today it is much safer, but still you have to know where to go and when and which places to avoid, a common practice in almost every big city. For example, the places you should avoid at night and where you should be careful even during the day in São Paulo are, sadly, the most beautiful and historic places, like Praça da Sé, the Pinacoteca, Estação da Luz etc. All around these places there are homeless people, drug addicts, crazy people.. it stinks and it’s dirty. I don’t know the reason, but it must be because the favelas in Sampa are outside the city, so these people just stay there not having the means to go to the outskirts of the city. It is such a pity!

Speaking of the places to see in São Paulo, there is one saying that São Paulo is famous for its ugliness as Rio is for its beauty. My impression did not confirm this. Rio’s beauty is undeniable, but more obvious, more commercialized, more on the outside. Sampa is beautiful on the inside, its beauty is more subtle and it is something you have to discover. São Paulo is beautiful for its vastness, for its diversity, for its offer of places and things to do, especially if you like discovering different restaurants, bars and clubs. In São Paulo there is the largest Japanese community outside Japan, so there are a large number of good quality Japanese restaurants. One thing you have to be very conscious of is that São Paulo is not a cheap city. Everything costs more than anywhere else in Brazil. But it corresponds with how much money people make, because São Paulo is the commercial center of Brazil and obviously people make more money than anywhere else in Brazil. 

Among the most important things worth seeing in Sampa are: Avenida Paulista (the most important landmark street you can see in almost every postcard of the city), Museu de Arte de São Paulo –MASP (a beautiful building on Avenida Paulista, not exception to the rule of gathering gloomy people), the Jardins district (one of the most luxurious districts in the world, Rua Oscar Freire after Fifth Avenue in New York is the most luxurious street in the world), Teatro Municipal de São Paulo (a cake-like building), Edifício Itália (the highest building in São Paulo, the view from the 41^st floor is spectacular, there is free access to the terrace from 16 h, so you don’t have to pay a fortune to sit in the bar).

View from Edificio Italia

Next to Edifício Itália is Edificio Copan (a residential building designed by Oscar Niemeyer), Catedral da Sé (the main cathedral in the central point of the city, sadly, taken over by drug addict, homeless people and lunatics), Pátio do Colégio (the place where the city was founded by the Jesuits, the school where they converted the population to Catholicism), the beautiful shopping centers, Galeria do Rock (an “alternative” shopping center dedicated to rock-culture), Mercado Municipal (the city market, where the thing to try is Pastel de bacalhau), Parque do Ibirapuera (the largest park in the city, where you can see the Museum of Modern Art - MAM - Museu de Arte Moderna, the Auditorium – an Oscar Niemeyer building and Oca – also from Oscar Niemeyer), the street 25 de Março (a street full of cheap low quality goods; the strange thing was that everyone I met asked me if I’d been to this street which I never understood why, being overcrowded, and not very enjoyable to walk through). The new IN place in Sampa is Mocotó, where you will wait for at least an hour to get a table but it’s worth it; you will surely enjoy every bite of the specialties from the Northeast of Brazil they prepare there. Something not to be missed during a visit of Sampa is Maria Brigadeiro, a lovely small place where they prepare brigadeiros, small but delicious sweets. Also not to be missed is Vila Madalena, the district full of small designer shops and graffiti.

My very own favorite place in São Paulo was Livraria Cultura in Conjunto Nacional at Avenida Paulista. It is the largest bookstore in the country. The vast space on three levels with a nice coffee shop is very enjoyable for reading, drinking coffee, meeting people.. There are more than 3 millions books and José Saramago called it a “cathedral of the books; modern, effective and beautiful”. One thing I didn’t like was that of all the Brazilian literature there were only translations of Paulo Coelho’s books and only two books from Jorge Amado (I bought “Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands”).

There are two major problems São Paulo is facing. The first one is the pollution. It is a city that developed very fast. It is the impelling force of Brazil, and when people started with the industrialization little attention was given to the protection of the environment. In the state of São Paulo there is one of the most polluted cities in the world – Cubatão, in the 80s called the Valley of Death where the consequences are seen in the life span of the people and the children born with deformities. The tap water in the city of São Paulo is undrinkable, the two largest rivers are deeply polluted, and what they do is pollute even more. They buy water in plastic bottles and in the supermarket they give you a plastic bag for almost every item.

The second problem is the rain. At least, it was the problem I encountered being there in February and March, the period with most rain. The problem in São Paulo is that the whole city is hills and valleys so when it rains (and they are usually rains that last for half an hour to hour but are very intensive) the lower parts of the streets become full with water. This is how the city looks after an intensive rainfall. The positive thing is that it almost never rains in the morning, so you are lucky if you are a morning person, which I am not J

Beside all, the positive things about São Paulo prevail. I enjoyed every minute spent there and wouldn't hesitate to go there again.. if I had the chance I'd go immediately, I don't need to pack, I can find everything in São Paulo!!