After a short night with very little sleep I arrived in Sao Paolo at 8:30 am. I had completely forgotten about the 2 hour time change, so a comfortable night on the plane was replaced by only 4 hours .... not enough. My friend Vlker picked me up at the airport and we drove through the city to their house in the gated community of "Chacara Flora". Volker and me go back over 15 years. We both started as trainees at a big German pharmaceutical company in Freiburg. While he stayed in pharmaceuticals I somehow switched to consulting and softare development. He is now the President of Brazil for Boehringr Ingelheim, a privately owned German company. Volker and his family live in a beautiful house, but the entire complex is surrounded by walls with barbed wire fences, security guards, cameras ... the whole deal. Even within the exterior walls pretty much every house has its own wall or fence and secuity cameras and guards. The stairs to the bedrooms on the upper floor can be secured with a special gate as well. The whole neighborhoor reminded me somehow of a "Golden Cage".
Volker told me all kinds of stories about peope being robbed at gun point in their cars, at traffic lights (nobody Stopps at a red light at night), at the super market, bus Stopp …. Even in front of their houses …. Jeez, it really sounds like a pretty dangerous town.
The first couple of days I used to relax and get over a really bad cold that I got during the ice cold nights on Lake Titicaca. Of course I also used the time to catch up with my blog, to do laundry. We spent the days shopping, exploring, taking the kids to their horse back riding lessons …. It was interesting to see how they live in Sao Paolo.
On Saturday (9/2/2006) we went to the beach in Santos. After sevral days of really bad , rainy and ice cold weather it was a welcome change to walk on the beach in the sunshine with temperatures around 90.
Sao Paolo is an amazing city. High rise next to high rise next to high rise, there is lots of construction everywhere, of course more high rises …. The city itself has approximately 25 million people, the state of Sao Paolo about 35 million. The poverty is quite significant. Poor people that came from the country side to find work in illegal settlements called “Favellas“, they use pretty much evrything to build their houses and shags. There are also many squatters who simply occupy space and camp out. Despite all the stories about the crime in the city it really starts to grow on you. We hve been to Japan Town and the center of the city (of course always with the driver), but there seem to be many nice corners and as long as you are not affected by robbery the thought is kind of fading and you do not think about it all the time anymore. Would be great to explore the city with a local, might be pretty interesting. I believe that if you know your wy around it has quite a lot to offer.
On Sunday (9/3/2006) we went at first to a small town called "Ebunim". It has a very nice arts and crafts market on Sundays. The streets are closed for trafiic and there are lots of little stands where you can buy paintings, carvings, jewellery, handy crafts and all kinds of stuff and .... of course food. It waskind of nice to simply walk around and look at things .....
Later we went to the weekend house of friends. The have a little farm outside f Sao Paolo with chicken, cows, horses .... lots of green (lime and orange trees, palms), very quite and relaxing. In the evening we went to a typical churascaria for dinner (a restaurant that specializes in all kinds of barbeqeued meats). They serve you meat until you tell them to stop ... yumm!
Volker told me all kinds of stories about peope being robbed at gun point in their cars, at traffic lights (nobody Stopps at a red light at night), at the super market, bus Stopp …. Even in front of their houses …. Jeez, it really sounds like a pretty dangerous town.
The first couple of days I used to relax and get over a really bad cold that I got during the ice cold nights on Lake Titicaca. Of course I also used the time to catch up with my blog, to do laundry. We spent the days shopping, exploring, taking the kids to their horse back riding lessons …. It was interesting to see how they live in Sao Paolo.
On Saturday (9/2/2006) we went to the beach in Santos. After sevral days of really bad , rainy and ice cold weather it was a welcome change to walk on the beach in the sunshine with temperatures around 90.
Sao Paolo is an amazing city. High rise next to high rise next to high rise, there is lots of construction everywhere, of course more high rises …. The city itself has approximately 25 million people, the state of Sao Paolo about 35 million. The poverty is quite significant. Poor people that came from the country side to find work in illegal settlements called “Favellas“, they use pretty much evrything to build their houses and shags. There are also many squatters who simply occupy space and camp out. Despite all the stories about the crime in the city it really starts to grow on you. We hve been to Japan Town and the center of the city (of course always with the driver), but there seem to be many nice corners and as long as you are not affected by robbery the thought is kind of fading and you do not think about it all the time anymore. Would be great to explore the city with a local, might be pretty interesting. I believe that if you know your wy around it has quite a lot to offer.
On Sunday (9/3/2006) we went at first to a small town called "Ebunim". It has a very nice arts and crafts market on Sundays. The streets are closed for trafiic and there are lots of little stands where you can buy paintings, carvings, jewellery, handy crafts and all kinds of stuff and .... of course food. It waskind of nice to simply walk around and look at things .....
Later we went to the weekend house of friends. The have a little farm outside f Sao Paolo with chicken, cows, horses .... lots of green (lime and orange trees, palms), very quite and relaxing. In the evening we went to a typical churascaria for dinner (a restaurant that specializes in all kinds of barbeqeued meats). They serve you meat until you tell them to stop ... yumm!
The skyline of Sao Paolo. I have nevr seen that many high rises in one place before.
Another view of the skyline.
The farm we visited on Sunday.
Georg would have loved to see all this pork tender loin running around :-)
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