1.) Beautiful, beautiful scenery! This view is from a restaurant overlooking the Bay of Paraty. To get to this magnificent lunch spot on the bluff, we took a 30-minute boat ride from the town.
2.) Christmas is the time to visit São Paulo. Normally a city of over 11 million people, most of those people leave the city for the holidays which makes it a wonderful time to visit - absolutely no traffic congestion!
3.) São Paulo has numerous beautiful parks and we walked, hiked and climbed through a few of them. Unusual animals we saw in one of the "wild" parks included capybaras, monkeys, iguanas and black crickets.
4.) Bring your own "Kleenex." I had to use toilet paper for cosmetic purposes and everything else for which we normally use tissues.
5.) Delicious tiny coffee expressos were served everywhere - in homes, hotel lobbies, gas stations and restaurants. I don't usually drink much coffee, but those little cups were fun to drink.
6.) Graffiti on nearly every building and wall in the city of São Paulo. The vandals seem to pounce on any clean wall or new building.
7.) Signs in many restrooms (including the international terminal at GRU) asking that you do not put toilet paper in the toilets as the plumbing is old and cannot take it. They keep small covered trashcans next to the toilets.
8.) Weather is moderate. It feels great and windows are always open, unless it's raining.
9.) The people speak Portuguese and I don’t. Thank goodness we were with hosts who spoke both Portuguese and English. I couldn’t even pronounce the words correctly. You certainly can’t try to use English or Spanish pronounciations as you will be wrong every time. Some of the English menus were quite comical as it seems they were having as much trouble with English as I was with Portuguese. I think "Espagueteal Suck" is supposed to mean "spaghetti!"
10.) Hubcap hills and right angle turns. The roads down to the coast were two-lane and cars were bumper-to-bumper. The roads seemed to go straight down with complete right angle turns to slow you down. There were hundreds of hubcaps lining the roads at these turns.
11.) A busload of Columbians - Actually a busload of any nationality usually means disaster. The Columbians had rented out the whole top floor of our hotel in Campos do Jordão which meant that all of us guests on the first floor were kept awake most of the night.
12.) The toll roads in the state of São Paulo didn't seem too crowded until we got to the only fuel, food and bathroom stop on the road. The "Roasted Chicken Express" (English name) was so crowded I couldn't believe it. Cars just had to circle around the whole property waiting for another car to pull out for a parking place. And, this was not even considered a crowded day!
No comments:
Post a Comment