Going Native in São Paolo

I haven't written much recently as hotmail erased all of my old e-mails and contact information. That has actually worked out alright for me since I have had more time for myself to get more acclimated to Brazil and its culture. It continued to rain for a quite a while after I left Curitiba, leaving me wet and annoyed. I already have a rip in the crotch of the rainpants I bought in southern Brazil but, at least, the rain isn't cold like it is in the Andes. I can get wet and not worry about frostbite and hypothermia like I would in the mountains at 4,000 meters.

I am nearing the end of my journey. I have ridden through countless mountains, deserts, and jungles to get to where I am now. I have endured tempurature extremes, both hot and cold. I have dealt with lots of water and little water. I have endured weather of biblical proportions. Cycle touring is the best training available to prepare for the coming apocalypse. Rio de Janeiro, my final destination, is only 350 kilometers away from São Paolo. Many Paulistas look at me in amazement when I tell them that I am going to ride my bike from here to Rio de Janeiro. In response, I can only shrug as 350 kilometers seems like nothing to me. I could cover that distance in less than a week while relaxing. I have been on the road for over two years now. After thousands of kilometers to get to this point, 350 kilometers IS nothing.

That being said, as ready as I am to get to Rio de Janeiro and establish a base camp, I keep on getting sucked back into the seductive embrace of São Paolo. I have always been in love with the massive cities of the world so São Paolo is no exception. How large is São Paolo? It is the largest city in South America and one of the top five largest in the world. There are around 20 million people living in the São Paolo metropolitan area.

One of my very favorite things to do is wander around aimlessly on my bicycle. The city is filled with graffiti. In fact, I would venture to say that São Paolo is the current graffiti capital of the world. The graffiti here is unique in style to the graffiti of other large cities in Latin America and it is pervasive in this labyrintine city. I am constantly discovering art that is hidden in a shaded corner or nook of one of the thousands of buildings that sprout from the ground here. Throw in the highway under and overpasses and there is still a lot of blank space just waiting for art. Despite the pervasiveness of art in the city, I get the feeling that São Paolo hasn't even come close to fulfilling the public art potential in its walls.

There have been a number of famous graffiti artists from São Paolo. Two of the better known artists are Os Gêmeos. These two identical twins, as their namesake implies, have painted their art in cities all over the world. The largest of their pieces rival the murals of Diego Rivera in size and complexity and the work of Salvador Dali in their surrealism. They have achieved such a mainstream success that the Brazilian national art museum here in São Paolo has a free exhibition of their work until the end of the year.

Aside from exploring all the nooks and crannies of this massive city, I have been sampling the flavors of Brazil. After being in this country for a couple of months I have began to figure out which foods I like the most. The fresh fruits feature strongly in the food of this country. I have probably been averaging about two liters of fresh juice daily here. The juice can be as simple as fresh squeezed orange juice or as complex as coconut water blended with fresh mint and ginger. When I get a smoothie with my meals I have to choose from a dizzying array of choices for what I want to put in it. If you are having trouble figuring out where to get juice you can generally judge a juice place by the amount of fresh fruit they have hanging over their counters.

I have also developed a fondness for empadas which is the Portuguese way of saying empanada. The truth is every country in Latin America has their own version of empanadas, usually being quite different from the empanadas in other countries. While the Argentinan version is made with a bread dough, the Brazilian version is made with a pie crust and it is like a little miniature pie filled with yumminess. At my favorite empadaria, I like the shrimp empada which is really filled with more of a shimp étouffée than just shrimp. I also really like the empada which is just filled with palmito which is the center of a small palm tree cooked up with butter and garlic.

São Paolo is filled with lots and lots of restaurants of varying quality with notable contributions from its sizable groups of Lebanese and Japanese immigrants. One can find both good sushi and good hummus in São Paolo. The immigrants' contribution to the food of São Paolo, obviously, goes beyond sushi and hummus. You can find many more obscure and authentic recipes as well. I am completely addicted to the middle eastern desserts made in a restaurant close to where I am staying. My favorite is baked in a filo dough pie crust and filled with pistachios and other nuts and then covered in a really thick and complex tasting apricot jam. I often spend my days following my stomach to my favorite restaurants in this city. I'm spending a lot of money at restaurants but I am really enjoying it.

One of the things that I try to do in every country I pass through is learn more about its music. I have discovered so much beautiful and wonderful music in my journeys thus far. I finally had that spiritual and orgasmic experience with samba that I had been searching for since I arrived in Brazil when I went to a free samba show in the basketball court at O Beco do Batman, a park in the Magdalena neighborhood of São Paolo which is a well known graffiti gallery. Not only was the music beautiful and rythmically complex but everyone there was rocking out. Brazilian women seem to have a special gene which allows them to shake their booty at astonishing speed while dancing to samba. I saw an old-timer at the edge of the music, with a huge smile, singing along to almost everything as most of the songs the group was playing were classics. The look on his face was one of complete, unadulterated joy. Up until this point, I had only experienced momentary flashes of the good samba, the stuff that foreigners know nothing about. I kept on wondering what was making the crazy monkey sound in the sambas I liked the most. At this show I finally found out what was making the sound: an instrument called the cuica. At first glance it looks like a drum but then you notice it is not played like one. On closer inspection, one can see that the cuica is played by rubbing a wet cloth on a stick that is attached to the inside of the drum. It has quickly become one of my favorite percussive instruments.

I left the show at O Beco armed with the name of Clara Nunes, the queen diva of samba, though that isn't the only type of music she recorded. The problem with looking for music on Youtube is that you have to wade through a lot of muck if you just type "samba" in the search box. When I typed in "Clara Nunes" I discovered a whole world of amazing music I had never been exposed to. I have placed her in the heirarchy of my musical gods, deified after their deaths and immortalized by their music. How important is Clara Nunes's music to me? If I had to rank influential musicians from my most favorite to least favorite, I would place her above both the Beatles and Michael Jackson. The truth is that I am not apeshit crazy for either the Beatles or Michael Jackson but Clara Nunes rocks my world.

In my time here in São Paolo, I also had the opportunity to attend a rehearsal of one of the samba schools here in São Paolo. Rio de Janeiro is not the only place that has samba schools. The rehearsal was full of good positive energy. With percussionists numbering about a hundred, the music was a joyfully thunderous cacophany under the bridge where the Aguia de Ouro, or Eagle of Gold, samba school meets every Sunday to rehearse for Carnaval. The school itself is made up of more than just percussionists as there are dancers and flag holders strutting and dancing in front of them. As this is parade music, the whole samba school is mobile. Some of the dancers had the air of true divas, strutting and dancing with such confidence that they would challenge those who just idly watched to start dancing by dancing in front of them. My favorite thing about the samba school is that the gay community seems to have found an acceptable outlet in the samba school for all of their flamboyance. One of my very favorite divas at the rehearsal was a tranny who looked like she could dunk. Her six-inch heels only exaggerated her height even more. I could only sit back and absorb the atmosphere but I am already thinking of joining a samba school after Carnaval this year. Soon enough, I will be strutting around in one of the parades like the most flamboyant of flaming queens.

I am feeling right now that my decision to live in Brazil was a good one. At this point, I think I am going to have a really good time here in Brazil. There is good food and good music here. Did I mention that the nation is populated with Amazonian goddesses that bless us mere mortals with their presence. I am not sure that I am coming back to the U.S.