Arriving to Brazil

So close to missing my plane to Brazil. First, I was denied to check in at the counter in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, because I didn't have a return ticket. And then the drug police suspected me of having cocaine in my backpack. But everything turned out fine and I arrived in São Paulo around afternoon.

Meeting my old Brazilian buddy

From above I already realized the extent of this mega city. One concrete block follows the next. Around 12 million people live in this city. The airport of São Paulo-Guarulhos is relatively far outside the city. My uber dropped me off in the posh Pinheiros district. There my Brazilian buddy Luiz was already waiting for me. How nice it was to see him again! We had not seen each other for almost 5 years. He has become even crazier than before, in a good way. Back then we did an exchange program together in the Serbian capital Belgrade.

By now he worked here and lived together with 2 buddies in a high-rise building with security guard.

We had dinner together in a pizzeria nearby. We divided our pizza in such a way that one half was topped like that and the other half like this. That's the Brazilian way of eating. Here I also noticed quickly that the prices here are higher than in Bolivia or Colombia, for example. But my generous buddy invited me.

A city with business character and no soul

The next day I walked through the city, and the Paulisa Avenue with its business character, many high buildings and banks reminded me strongly of New York. São Paulo lacks charisma. The inhabitants, the Paulistas, are known in the rest of the country for having only work on their minds. Whereas the Cariocas, the inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro, are in contrast to that and put pleasure instead of work in the foreground. To be honest: without my buddy I would not have been able to enjoy the city so much.

Together with Luiz I met another mutual local friend in the evening. I had also met Natalia in 2012 in the same exchange program. It was Friday night and the three of us hadn't seen each other for a long time. We had a few caipirinhas but we took it easy because the next morning Luiz and I had to get up early.

I went with him and other buddies to the Brazilian carnival! Another article tells about that. When we returned from the carnival, I took a day off in São Paulo and then left the city again for Belo Horizonte.

Celebrating my birthday

For the following weekend I returned to São Paulo. There I celebrated my birthday with my buddy Luiz, who had his birthday only a few days later. In the afternoon I was invited to a BBQ at his family's house. In the evening we rented a table in a club in São Paulo for about 80 € including some drinks. São Paulo is an expensive city after all. We were 6 people in total. Me, Luiz, his sister and three of his coworkers. That I have few memories of that night and remained quite sober proves to me that the night was rather unspectacular.

I also visited a strange museum and met a depressed Brazilian with German-Japanese roots before I left São Paulo a few days later and drove to Paraty. I left some of my stuff here with my buddy to have less luggage and because I knew I would fly back from here.

Returning to Sao Paulo

And so it was! Around 2.5 months later I flew back from Lima to São Paulo. The flight was quite turbulent, but I arrived safely. I had hardly slept the night before, but still I went to a party more or less straight after arriving at my buddy's apartment. It was Friday night and my buddy asked me to come along.

Visiting a pub crawl and brothel on my last weekend in Latin America

During the next day I rested a bit. For my last Saturday night in Latin America I wanted to do something strange again. Finally I met my buddy Juan again, whom I had met 5 years ago in Serbia. Together with 5 other guys we went on a pub crawl. And to top it all off, we went to the whorehouse. In Brazil it is quite common for guys to go there. The house was accordingly full of men, especially men my age. It is also rumored that some female students earn their money in this frivolous way. But we were all there just to look, not touching haha. The time showed already 5 o'clock in the morning and less than 2 hours I had to travel to the airport to take the plane to Salvador, my last stop of my journey!