Day 1 – São Paulo, Pousada Zilah

I’m on the road again and back in South America after around 12 years. Kick starting a two month trip in Brazil with none other than Original Travel Companion Helen, as is tradition. Helen is in the middle of her own two month journey through Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil and we have met in São Paolo to begin a three week trip around this huge country.

We splashed out on our first guesthouse (Pousada) to stay in a nice part of the city as we only had one day here. I arrived off of a night flight at 7am at the beautiful Pousada Zilah in the Higienópolis area. I sat next to a Brazilian influencer woman who in between taking selfie videos and doing her makeup told me she is from São Paolo and has never been to Rio as it’s so dangerous, and reiterated the Lonely Planet warnings that it’s not safe to walk even a couple of blocks at night. I cheated and took a taxi from the airport and the driver saw me safely into the Pousada where I was greeted by the lovely owner with a very strong coffee, just in time to meet Helen (who had arrived the night before on an overnight bus from Iguazu Falls) for breakfast.

Our Pousada was located close to the upmarket shopping street Avenida Paulista, closed to vehicles on a Sunday with a market going on. I needed a rest after not sleeping on the plane so Helen decided to go on a free walking tour. Sounds easy enough – until you consider the warnings of not walking through any dodgy areas, not trusting a taxi and the fact you’re better off leaving your phone in the safe – walking to the start of the walking tour proved to be a challenge in it’s own right. Eventually Helen set off having memorised the map and taking the guide book as a backup, and we agreed to meet back at the Pousada at 14.00. After a nap I decided to venture out for food – not taking a phone only proved I have no sense of direction or time. Having failed to find any of the vegan cafes I thought I’d memorised, I ended up in a shopping mall then just made it back in time to find Helen waiting for me. Really should get a watch.

In the afternoon we went on another walking tour that conveniently started just around the corner – the few photos I have are from Helen’s boyfriend’s camera which we decided it was better to have stolen than either of our phones on the first day. Tip for travel in future is to take an old phone or camera for photography purposes.

For the first part of the tour we had two guides, the bigger of the two acting more like a bouncer seeing off unsavoury types hovering around us group of tourists. The official Sao Paolo Free Walking Tour was great and I always take this type of tour where possible – it’s tip based rather than totally free and a brilliant way to get to grips with a city. Our guide Rafa was particularly good and we learned lots of facts about São Paolo, with a population of 12.3 million it makes up 5% of people in Brazil (although Rafa said 10%!) He also said this city has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan and Italians outside of Italy which I have not fact checked.

We also learned that children go to school either in the morning or the afternoon, so that the schools can double the number of students resulting in many adults going to back to school in the evenings after work.

Along the tour we saw five mansions, one of which was now a McDonald’s and one a Santander bank. Most had it’s own story of a rich family who wanted to sell them but were prevented by the local authority designating them as of historic interest. Some had been abandoned or blown up so the government couldn’t get their hands on it. There were also some creepy looking abandoned hospitals. There is apparently now a ban on giant billboards including McDonalds. The guide pointed out lots of museums and cultural centres we would have liked to have visited if we were staying longer (although they close on a Monday!).

Japanese food here comes highly recommended – unfortunately without our phones for Google maps we could not take advantage of any of Rafa’s restaurant recommendations nor take an Uber to get there. But this is how we used to travel 15 years ago and for now it feels like a bit of a novelty and nobody can steal what you don’t have?! We would still prefer not to be held up at gunpoint so after the tour we aimed to find a place for a quick dinner close to the Pousada. Unfortunately everything is shut on a Sunday evening and the restaurants in the guidebook had quite possibly closed down entirely, so we ended up in a stupidly expensive Italian restaurant that was full possibly as it was the only open place around. It was also difficult to order without a phone to scan the barcode for the online menu 🤦🏻‍♀️ We quickly learned English is not widely spoken here and Spanish is not similar to Portuguese nor generally understood. When I tried to ask what an item on the menu was, the waiter brought out a plate with a single piece of plain pasta on to show me, as if I was a pasta connoisseur who wanted to try it like you might try an expensive bottle of wine. They also insisted on serving us each time we wanted to take a bit more and I realised after eating half a bowl of what I thought was a chilli sauce that it was probably fish🤢

It was worth the £80 a night for the jungle bathroom and large private rooftop balcony where we enjoyed cheap supermarket beers after an accidental walk home in the dark. No all night partying for us as we had a ridiculously early start at 3am the next day to start the “animals” part of the trip with a flight to the largest wetlands in the world, The Pantanal ….