Sao Paulo, Brazil Aug 1 - 5, 2010

This week’s blog is about my trip to Brazil. Now Brazil is one of my all time favorite places to go. Let me first, before I get into Brazil, pass on a comment from one of my readers, Jim says: “David, regarding authors, I recommend Vince Flynn and the series of books he has written featuring Mitch Rapp. There is a chronological order to the books which I can get for you. Very good reading if you are into CIA / espionage type books. You've posted another great blog on your travels.” I too, along with my wife, are big fans of Vince Flynn books. I think Mitch Rapp is one of the all time strongest characters fighting for the USA against the forces that want to harm us. The books are very good reads.



Brazil is an eight hour flight from Miami but only one hour ahead of Eastern Daylight Time so you don’t get screwed up by time zones and if you sleep on the plane it is like any other day. I flew down on American from Charlotte to Miami and then Miami to Sao Paulo. Each of my planes was on time and I arrived into Sao Paulo at about 8:30 am, about 15 minutes ahead of schedule. Getting through immigration took about 15 minutes, very fast for Brazil. To go to Brazil you have to get a Visa, which is a time consuming process. It takes about 15 days (3 weeks) to get this Visa from Brazil, which includes surrendering your Passport for this period of time. If you have been following my blog you know that this is a very difficult thing for me to do because I go somewhere almost every week. I solved this issue by getting a second US Passport. This is something I did not know was possible until I talked with a guy in our company that has been traveling internationally for a lot longer than I have. You have to apply for a 2nd Passport like you do for any Passport and write a letter describing why you need it. The best reason is: That you fly to countries that are not friendly with each other and cannot have a stamp of one in your Passport when you visit the other (as in Israel and Saudi Arabia). Anyway, I secured my 2nd Passport and used it to get my Visa while I continued to travel internationally.


The people that were meeting me were waiting on me outside of Customs and we went direct to a place in the airport called Fast Sleep ( http://www.fast-sleep-guarulhos.com/ ). It is place to take a shower and rest for a couple of hours so you don’t feel like crap for the rest of the day. Since I arrived on time and the people that were also coming on this trip from our company were late (They were on Delta), I actually got a couple of hours sleep. The rooms at Fast sleep are just big enough to take a shower and a small bed. But it is wonderful when you have been on a plane all night. All the planes I was on during this trip (American) were early, all the Delta planes used by the people that went with me, were late.


We left the airport and drove into Sao Paulo. If you have never been to Sao Paulo it is a huge city. It probably has 14 million people in the city and a total of 20 million in the surrounding area. And of course has the traffic of a big city. This was a cloudy day in Sao Paulo (It is winter now in Brazil, south of the equator) and about 60 degrees F the whole time we spent in Sao Paulo. This is fairly chilly for people that are experiencing a very hot summer in the USA. But I had brought my windbreaker and was comfortable. I advise before going anywhere is to check the weather on the internet to make sure you bring the right clothes.

Cloudy Day

As we drive in I am reminded of the Motorcycles in Sao Paulo. Because of the traffic in Sao Paulo a lot of companies use Motorcycles to deliver goods, so you see a lot of these while driving on their freeways. A Sao Paulo freeway consist of 3 lanes. Each lane is jammed with cars, trucks, buses, etc. The motorcycles use the distance between the cars in the 2nd lane and the 3rd lanes for travel. While the cars are going anywhere from 0 mph to about 40, the motorcycles going about 60 mph. It is an accident waiting to happen. This week saw several close calls and the people there talk about several of the guys on motorcycles get killed every month.

Motorcycle playing Chicken with cars

We spent the day at the plant and a competitor. We drive on one of the main streets of Downtown Sao Paulo (it starts with an I, can’t remember, I’m sure some of my friends in Sao Paulo will let me know). But it is a beautiful street with lots of people, nice looking buildings, an old train station and a grave yard that was originally built outside of town but now is part of downtown. People 100 years ago never thought the city would get this big.

Old Train Station

Old Graveyard

We turn onto Ave Pauilsta, which is the Avenue where most of the commercial banks, etc. reside. This is the business side of Sao Paulo, beautiful large buildings and lots of people.

Ave Pauilsta

Downtown

This night we go to a traditional Brazilian Restaurant, Fogo de Chao ( http://www.fogodechao.com.br/ ). This is the original of the popular restaurants that have several locations in the USA. It is the restaurant that has different cuts of meat and will continue serving you until you say enough. They usually have a Red and Green card on the table, green is “I want you to come by with food, the red is stop”. In Brazil they also serve a special drink called “Caipirinha”. It is a drink with a lot of lime (lemon in Spanish or Portuguese) mixed with a lot of sugar and Cachaca ( a liquor distilled from sugar cane). Pretty strong drink.

We end up at the Sheraton World Trade Center a very nice Hotel in Downtown Sao Paulo for our stay in town. There are a lot of beautiful buildings around the hotel and the hotel has attracted a lot of customers. Because I am a member of Starwood (The Sheratons loyalty Program) they put me on the club floor which includes a little better room and free drinks from 5 till 7:30, a nice touch the first night I am there.

Out my Hotel window

Hotel lobby

Sheraton WTC

The next day we meet a guy we want to get to know for lunch at “a bela Sintra” (  http://www.abelasintra.com.br/ )on a street called Bela Sintra. The restaurant was a nice location just off the really ritzy part of Sao Paulo. The main course was not anything to write home about but the desserts look great. Didn’t have any, but they looked wonderful.

a bela Sintra

Desserts

That night we met with a lot of people from our office and went to a really great restaurant called Figueira (I think it means Fig Tree) ( http://www.rubaiyat.com.br/ ). There is this huge tree growing in the middle of the Restaurant. We were there on a Tuesday night and the place was packed. I took pictures of the massive Dessert Bar which Jorge modeled. I also took a couple picture samplings of a dish or two (Seafood, Jorges meal and a Steak, can’t remember). We had several of our group there are dinner and the conversation we as good as the meal. This is the second time I have been to this restaurant and it was even better than the first. We got to the restaurant by taking Brazil Ave, turning onto Venezuela. Venezuela turns into Bela Cintra (where we had Lunch) then right onto Oscar Freire (this is the street in Sao Paulo that is most like Rodeo Dr) lots of name brand stores (Gucci, Tiffany’s, Hugo Boss, etc) and then turn onto Haddock Lobo where the Restaurant is. A beautiful part of the city.

Bar at Figueira

Jorge presenting Desserts

Guests at dinner

Jorge's Seafood Dinner

Steak Dinner

As in any big city (doesn’t have to be big) there are a lot of areas of beauty and signs of progress. There seemed to be a lot of construction of buildings (Condo & apartments) and roads and bridges. There is a lot of people walking the streets, shopping, going to restaurants etc. I think Sao Paulo is bustling city with a lot of upside. There are also those areas of the city that poor and the houses a constructed poorly and look as though they are built on top of each other. The future for this part of the world is very bright. Brazil is one of the hot spots for business and sports Olympics in Rio de Janerio in 2016 and World Cup in 2014 . I think it is a wonderful spot to visit.

As always in Brazil, had a great time but was too short. Hope our business there will grow so that I can go there more often. I really enjoy the people and the city. Look forward to going back soon.