One in Eleven Million

We had Thursday and Friday off for Easter this past week, so I decided to go to São Paulo over the break. There’s a big rivalry between cariocas (people who live in Rio) and paulistas (people who live in São Paulo), so São Paulo always gets bad-mouthed around here. Cariocas say that paulistas are workaholics, while paulistas accuse cariocas of being lazy beach bums. It’s hard to hear anything good about São Paulo in Rio, so I was a little reluctant to spend the time and money to go there, but as it turns out, I’m really glad I did.

São Paulo is six hours away by bus from Rio, and lots of buses travel back and forth between the two daily. Taking a bus meant that I had to go to Rio’s rodoviária (bus station), which is a rather sketchy place. It’s run-down and dirty, and if you want to keep your stuff, you have to keep a very close eye on it. When the bus that I’d taken to the rodoviária pulled up to the station, there were several street kids milling about, clearly up to no good. Sure enough, as soon as I stepped off the bus, one of them, who was perhaps fourteen, started following me. He called out to me, but I ignored him, joined a group of people, and tried to put as much space between us as possible. He continued to pursue me, however, to the point where I could no longer ignore him. I didn’t expect things to end well, but there was no way to get away from him. Turns out, all he wanted was the bottle of guaraná (a Brazilian soda) that I had in the outside pocket of my backpack. Not my iPod, not my digital camera, not my money, and not my debit and credit cards, all of which I had with me, though hidden out of sight. Nope, just a half-empty bottle of somewhat-flat guaraná. I was more than happy to oblige and, looking back, found the whole episode to be pretty comical. If only all interactions like that in Rio could involve nothing more important than a bottle of soda….

Luckily, I made it onto my bus without any other such incidents. The buses that run between Rio and São Paulo are of about the same standard as tour buses in the US. The bathrooms even have running water and soap, two things I was sure they wouldn’t have. I had no complaints about the buses, and the road that runs between the two cities is smooth and of good quality, so the trip really couldn’t have been more pleasant. We even stopped for a lunch break at a food court about halfway between Rio and São Paulo, which was another unexpected perk.

Unlike Rio’s bus station, São Paulo’s rodoviária is really quite nice. There’s a shopping area attached, and everything is clean, well-kept, and reasonably safe. As I explored São Paulo, I found that the descriptions of the two bus stations can be applied to the two cities in general, as well.

I was reminded of Chicago as I walked around São Paulo. Things in Rio have a tendency to look run-down and dilapidated, even in the better neighborhoods. On the other hand, I was impressed with how tidy and well-maintained the streets and buildings of São Paulo seemed overall. Granted, São Paulo is a city of more than 11 million, so I certainly didn’t see all of it, but I liked what I did see. Sections of it were about on par with American cities. Though the city sprawls over a huge amount of land, parts of it are fairly open and there are lots of nicely-kept green areas, so it didn’t feel overwhelming crowded or stuffy. Like Rio, São Paulo has favelas, but unlike Rio, the favelas in São Paulo are mostly on the periphery of the city instead of right in the middle of it. This helps to make the main areas of the city safer. It was nice to be able to let my guard down a bit, since I’m rarely able to in Rio. I don’t want to give the impression that São Paulo is perfect, because it’s not. There are still a good number of homeless people on the streets, in addition to the thousands of poor people who live in the favelas, and at times there would be mounds of garbage just piled up along the side of the street. Some of the buildings are pretty run-down, and others are defaced with graffiti. Overall, though, I think it’s a nicer city than Rio. (Though São Paulo doesn’t have Rio’s beautiful beaches!)

downtown São Paulo

São Paulo is a pretty hilly city. Rio has mountains and hills rising up out of the middle of it, but for the most part the buildings and roads are built on level ground (with the exception of the favelas). In São Paulo, on the other hand, the hills in no way impeded the growth of the city – things just expanded right over top of them. Though São Paulo has a few mountains and hills that are too big to easily build on, the hills are generally of more manageable size, and from a distance, São Paulo appears to simply be flat. It isn’t until you’re actually in the middle of the city that you discover riding a bike would be a nightmare there.

The reason both São Paulo and Rio have such uneven terrain is because they are both located in a mountain chain that runs along the eastern coast of Brazil. For nearly the entire six-hour ride, there were nothing but mountains and huge hills in all directions. Somehow the road generally managed to remain fairly level, but building that road must have taken lots of work, since there didn’t seem to be any flat land to be had. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before. Wisconsin certainly has its fair share of hills, but where there would be one in Wisconsin, there were four or five in Brazil. The terrain reminded me of an upside-down egg carton – the hills were that tall and that closely bunched together. It was hard to tell exactly where the hills ended and the mountains began because everything looked the same, just with varying altitudes. At one point, however, I looked out the window and saw that we were hugging the side of a mountain with tiny cars moving about in a valley far below. The road had sharp curves, and though there was a guardrail, it was low enough that one missed curve would surely have sent us plummeting over the edge. Thankfully, the bus driver seemed to know what he was doing, and we made it home in one piece!

a roadside town

there are pieces of construction machinery at the bottom - use them to get an idea of the size of the hill!