Trip and First Few Days
Trip Start
Aug 27, 2008
1
Trip End
Nov 20, 2008
Sao Paulo, State of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Saturday, August 30, 2008
The trip was long and we missed our connection in Sao Paulo. The lady at the airport in San Jose said that all our bags would be fowarded to Uberlandia (which was wrong). We eventually had to take a bus to the other airport in Sao Paulo, which was an hour's drive away (Roberto's mom told me that can be a 4-hour drive from one end of Sao Paulo to the other [north to south AND east to west] - CRAZY). Sao Paulo is the craziest city I have ever seen. It is huge....sprawling with lots of skyscrapers (where most of the rich people live..easier to secure). There are people everywhere and some sections have houses made with whatever material people can find. At stoplights, all these people (mostly kids) run up to all the cars & try to sell water & candy. There was some beautiful architecture in some of the buildings and bridges we saw, it was amazing. I would've taken pictures but our bus had super tinted windows, booo.
We got into Uberlandia late that day & met Roberto.....it is super fucking hot here and the landscape is a lot like the Outback. It is less sketchy and a fraction of the size of Sao Paulo, but there is still plenty of poverty. There are parrots, toucans, & mango trees which is pretty cool. There are also roosters in the neighborhood that crow all night long... Roberto says we will get used to them, but I'd rather have them stuffed and bring them home as presents, haha.
Most of the places have electrified wire on the outside, so the nicer places are built compound-style, high walls surrounding them. Roberto's & his sister's houses are very nice with lots of space inside & out.
We hung out a bit with his mom & sister...they are very hospitable & happy to see us down here. They give us help with the language and have invited me to go to club with them for swimming & yoga (and an hour massage only costs $13 US dollars, woohoo!).
We checked out the brewery & the beer is freaking awesome. There's a pilsner which tastes like Bud (lame, but it's what the locals like), a brown beer which is basically Newcastle only better because we drank it right out of the vat, and then a black beer which I guess is still a pilsner so it's heavy but has an awesome caramelly flavor and it's going to be my downfall for the next few months. Roberto just made his first sale to one of the local political candidates and he is delivering the kegs right now.
The local politcal campaigns are going on down here & it is pretty funny because the candidates advertise by hiring people to strap enormous speakers to the roofs of their cars & they drive around all day blasting music for the candidates along with messages delivered in the candidates' voices (like in O Brother Where Art Thou). They also refer to themselves by their day jobs, so it's like "Vote for Joao the Butcher", or "Vote for Maria who bags food at the grocery store". Hopefully his beer takes off... it looks like 2 other breweries opened in the town, but the beers do not look as good as his (one is a "wine-beer" & just looks gross, the head is pink -- vomitous!!).
We went and grabbed some food last night at a local Churrascaria (brazilian BBQ) place. We had deep-fried bacon (won't be eating that everyday), hearts of palm & quail on a stick.
So that's about it so far. Internet connection at Roberto's place is on the fritz, so hopefully we'll get that up soon! Que Drogas! (this is what they use on subtitles for almost any English swear word, despite the fact that it literally means "what drugs!"). LOL. We're also starting a new trend of saying "Palavra", which means "Word", and giving deuces when we outtie. Haha. Thank god people can't understand most of what we say here.
