Two big cities in 4 days, Lima, Peru and Sao Paolo, Brazil. Tricky little sods because with some many people (in combination well over 20 million) and such large areas - Sao Paolo is spread over 30k square kilometers - it is so hard to get to the real city. The way we tend to do it is twofold - firstly shanks´pony - nothing like banging out 15km in a day around a city - and/or the open top bus tour.
Lima - we did both. The first thijng to say about Lima is its amazing location - whilst the weather is very pleasant all round the year - c 23 degrees centigrade it is surrounded on three sides by desert - on the other 200 foot cliffs and then the Pacific ocean. The city itself gaves us a very good feeling - quite clean, not too many drunks/homeless and by and large a very friendly and polite population. We did not really push the city´s boudaries very much - we did the posh suburb of Miraflores and the old historic center. Miraflores was like the nicer bits of Marbella (without the laddish nightlife) and the historic center is another fine example of spanish colonial architecture. We popped our heads in the churches, toured the franciscan monks convent (and catacombs - with the bones of 20k people!), ate at a locals restaurant for lunch (guinea fowl soup, chicken in white sauce with potatoes and rice and a refresco (fresh fruit soft drink for only GBP2.5 each). Without a local guide we struggled to really delve into the nightlife, but as we were only there a couple of days - its hardly to be expected. One other thing to note is that as is very rarely rains the whole city has a very dusty/grimey feel to it - strange to think of somewhere not having rain as being a bad thing - but all of a sudden I realise the UK always looks so fresh and inviting is because it gets a good shower 3 times a week.
Sao Paolo
We flew in for a connection, but as Nicola had heard goods things we decided to stay for 3 nights. Sao Paolo has a strange reputation - its studied as a example of a lack of town planning, immigration and over-crowdedness. It is also the finacial and industrial heart of Brazil and so along with the problems are lots of nice people, good restaurants, bars, lots of young people and a very vibrant nightlife. As we have not done too much staying up late in our first couple of months and as New Year is fast approaching we have been making a forced effort to stay up a little later. We managed to find a couple of good bars - again local ones rather than back packer type places - lots of chat, not from us as the portuguese language is not one either of us has really focued on and to be honest sounds like complete gobblegook to me! We walked our legs off in Sao Paolo. We were staying in the youth hostel in the north of the historic (read dodgy) centre - but walked all day - just sticking our heads in doorways and keeping our eyes peeled. It paid of as well - we spotted a poster advertising a silent disco. There do have them all over the place now, but this is the first one we went to. It was in a park with all the tree lit up with xmas lights, you enter and are given a set of headphones and then the music and the chat from the DJ is pumped in to the headphones. We danced around like idiots for a hour or so and then went for dinner. Great fun if slightly surreal - we do have a video clip of the scene - which we should get to upload pretty soon. The food highlight of stay in Sao Paolo was - eating nothing all day and then splurging at a nice reataurant - called Boa Bistro (if you ar every there on Pedro J Manuel ont he right (towards the bottom) modern brazillian food with a european style - absolutely delicous, duck confit with a rum and coconut sauce with rice. We also tried a very a bottle of brazillian wine - was the cheapest on the menu - all in just under 50 for a swanky meal.
On our final day we managed to hook up with an old friend (steve dyson) - who we are spending New Year with in Rio - who flew in to Sao Paolo from Dubai that night. We just touched base over breakfast before we had to catch our 6 hour bus trip to Parati - on the brazillian coast, half way between Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. 6 hours bus trips are now such a walk in the park - our bums barely touch the nylon before we are getting off the other end.
Just a catch up really - dont really want to miss out 2 big cities, one capital and 25 million people! And for anyone that wants to know the weather on the brazillian coast this time of year - about 28 degrees from 9 in the morning to 2-3 and then it rains. It some times keeps raining all the way through the evening, but sometimes not. We are starting to go a nice shade of pink though, so the sun is definitely working.
Merry xmas to one and all, we will be thinking of you all over the festive period - lots of love Steven and Nicola xx.
