I don’t have photos of that, because when the flight attendant invited me up I really had no idea I was heading for the cockpit. In general, miscommunication happens a lot when you don’t speak a foreign language fluently. I find that when you nod, smile, and go with the flow, things tend to work out at least in a somewhat interesting or humorous way.

I said my goodbyes to the flight crew, and looked for my ride. I was excited because a Brazilian friend, Maira, that I had initially met in Rio back in the day was supposed to pick me up. I called her on one of many expensive brazilian pay phones at the airport. Unfortunately, she had assumed I was at the other major city airport, so the initial plan was in pieces. I also have to say Sao Paulo was frigid, about 50, in comparison to the Fortaleza heat. It was impossible to get used to. I ended up taking an executive bus to a central station, eating stale popcorn, and borrowing strangers’ cell phones to coordinate where she would pick me up exactly. Not exactly my idea of fun – but eventually she made it, and we made it to an excellent sushi house in the Japanese district.

On Monday, I met up with a long lost “Atowner” Flavia Fernandez. If you aren’t from Arlington MA then you won’t know about Flavia. She went to high school in Arlington and then moved back to Brazil before she even thought about applying to US colleges. I had her information because 3 years ago, I visited Rio, and contacted her at the time only to find out she was in Sao Paulo. As she is an emergency room nurse in a public hospital, her schedule was two days on one day off, which allowed her to come hang out with me. She took me to the “best” Acai place in Sao Paulo – as you can see, those mounds of Acai are in sorbet form – and damn was it good.. some acai with some fresh bananas and granola… yum. I spent a lot of time trying to convince her to come to the states again to make a decent wage. She’s got a boyfriend (-1) and is also studying more (-1) so the move doesn’t look good. I told her I will run a hospital one day so she’s always welcome though.

Night falls over Sao Paulo – imagine this view in all directions, including the high rises and antennas, and you begin to get a feel for what most of Sao Paulo looks like.

Flavia and I, putting down some large towers of Acai!

On Tuesday, I wandered around the Park of Ibirapuera in the Jardins? neighborhood of Sao Paulo, admired the Afro Brazilian museum/modern art center within the park, and took the sweet photo below with two other people from the hostel. We also tried to go to the Hotel Unique, certainly a very unique hotel (shaped like a boat) with a supposedly gorgeous view from the cafe on top. I say supposedly because when we arrived at 4 pm, the sky cafe was closed (until 6 pm). We settled for $7 real fruit juices/beer in the downstairs bar.

Sao Paulo building skyline from Ibirapuera park – a beautiful park in the Jardins? neighborhood of Sao Paulo.

Praia do futuro (Future Beach); Morro Branco; dune buggy rides; Pirate bars; a “common” latin american market experience; fresh lobsters; dune plank riding and more!

English point; aqua movement music concert with Claudia Leite, my new love; and hanging out in “VEEPS” with Morgana

See me land, admire interesting airline food, explore hostel beach surroundings, a message for Carolina (you won’t get it if you can’t speak portuguese, or more specifically, if you’re not Carolina), clubbing with live country music, and some other random city beach videos.

Looking the other way down the beach… yes, it’s still beautiful.

Add Boggs in shiny red sunga, and the beauty is just brought to the next level!

Take a fun ride on a Catamaran; see a Blue sunset a la my quality video camera; spend a night at a Brazilian watering hole with some Brazilian friends and Jacob; watch Brazilian teens give karoeke a shot. Good stuff. By the way this all happened in one day.

See the beginnings of the clown car voyage from Salvador de Bahia to Velenca and then Morro de Sao Paulo island; witness the moon party pre-game ceremonies on Second Beach near the fruit stands; see a sunset and dolphins that look like rocks on my camera; take a walk along the beach and recap.

Come take a look at the American forro music adventure in Pelorinho – the rustically ghetto tourist area of Salvador de Bahia – then escape with me to eat some traditional Bahian food with new Brazilian friends on Guarajuba beach.

I´ve been experiencing some problems with uploading video to this blog.. in addition, Im using computers in Latin America that have particularly low bandwith, so they take extra long to upload.  I promise, however, that they will all be up before I head out from brazil.  Keep your eyes focused on Sunday.

In any event, a week ago SundaY marked a fairly rainy and ugly day in Salvador.  What better than to agree to drive with 3 other fellow backpackers (2 americans and 1 Danish guy) and 2 random Salvadoran girls (no, not my friends) to Morro de Sao Paulo? I couldn´t think of anything quite so tempting.

Morro de Sao Paulo is an island about 2 hours south of the city of Salvador by catamaran.. by car it was a little bit different.  We ended up taking a very indirect route to the pier where a larger ship would first take us to Iticare, another island first, because we listened to the “locals” give directions.  It was then we realized they were about as smart as a pile of rocks.  Finally, we made it to the pier by asking enough locals who werent as dumb as rocks where to drive our tiny Fiat.  And yes, fitting 6 people into a tiny fiat invariably makes it a “crazy clown car” i have been told.  So we take this boat first about an hour and a half to iticare, and then drove south to the town of valencia.  We left the clown car in valencia and headed by smaller boat to Morro de Sao Paulo. 

Morro itself is covered with 4 beautiful beaches and by locals who will not stop harassing you as their “friend” to either eat food or buy handicrafts.  Unfortunately, we arrived in low season, and in low season i think gringo radar is particularly effective.  That night we arrived, we were followed by locals all the way to a pousada abot 15 minutes away from the dock.  What was extremely annoying was the fact that an israeli guy was helping the locals to translate our english conversation.  I felt punching him would not have made things any better.  The night only got worse when we met the owner of our first night pousada, Marcos, who also made money crooning horribly at one of the beach front restaurants.  Marcos took us to the Pousada Tranquila, but it was far from tranquil.  I spent the whole night batting around mosquitoes, and even tried designing a fort to protect myself.  I finally tried reverse psychology “hey mosquito, try to eat me, see if i care!!” to no avail.  I ended up getting up at 6 am for a morning jog on the beach, accompanied by 2 of the islands many stray dogs all of the way.

Everynight after the first was better.  While the two Americans and their random aquaintances moved along, Jacob and I decided to stay on for a few more days.  Given that Morro can be considered a place for couples, we did suffer some jokes, but we made the best of it.  Everyday, we spent on the beach, and 1 day took a boat tour all around the island and the island of Boepiba with an assortment of slick italians and middle aged argentine women.  The highlight was definately Boepiba- never have i been on such an idyllic beach.

Nights were filled with full moon beach parties, 3/4 moon beach parties, and 1/2 moon parties.  Around 8-9, we would head down to the second beach, and run a gauntlet of restaurants and fresh fruit drink “barracas” or stands.  These barracas also made fine caipirinhas, and I was able to bargain down to 2.50 reales per caiparinha.  Around 12 AM, we would wait for beautiful mermaids to run or flop out from the water to join what became the beach party (all backpackers and some couples), but they never came.  The same music from an assortment of speakers would blast every night, my favorite being “Creu!” which is a hilarious “funkie music” of brazil.  On Thursday, we made our way back to Salvador by catamaran.