It's winter in São Paulo. Or so the Brazilians say while they stare at me walking around in my short-sleeved shirts and little shorts. After all, blue skies and 23 degrees is not winter for a Finnish girl. It's very much summer and that means enjoying every single ray of sunshine as if it were the last.
São Paulo is a humongous city and notoriously dangerous. Naturally, I spent my first night here getting lost on the way back from the grocery store. Silly me had walked out of the hostel without a map or an address and my phone didn't work. All the streets looked the same and it was pitch dark. Nobody spoke English and nothing made sense. My legs were tired and my eyes could barely keep open due to jet lag and sleepless nights. Yet somehow, after walking around in circles for about two hours, I found my way back. Apparently, it takes getting lost somewhere along the dark streets of a foreign country to make you find that little compass of light inside yourself. And if you let it, that glimmer of hope can become something to grab and hold on to, praying that it will lead you in the right direction.
Safe and sound at the hostel, I made myself a nice cup of tea and chatted with the staff and other guests. There is something rather spectacular about the way traveling alone makes us connect so quickly and so intensely to others. The next day, a Brazilian friend came to pick me up and when he asked for me, the receptionist responded with a cheerful: Oh yeah, I know her! As if he had always known me. As if he had always known that I was coming and that we would meet. As if our lives had somehow always been intertwined.
A couple of days later I was strolling around on the streets of São Paulo as if they were my own. As if I had always lived there. As if my feet (and Google Maps) somehow understood where to go without too much effort. My favorite neighborhood looked like an open-air museum of art, completely covered in graffiti. If your life feels grey, Vila Madalena is the place to go and immerse yourself in color.
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| Batman Square in Vila Madalena |
By the way, did you know that the Brazilians clap their hands when they watch the sun go down? Every night, every sunset. There may be an applause at sunrise as well; I wouldn't know. I never managed to get up early enough to find out.
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| Sunset in São Paulo |
And then there was Rio. Oh, Rio. A city so radiant, so vibrant and so grandiose it deserves a post and a parade of its own. It's no wonder that this is the host of one of the seven wonders of the world. It's the city of a thousand lights and a thousand colors. Beautiful beaches, caipirinha craziness and a thousand other cliches.
On my last night in Rio, a couple of new friends invited me to come out with them but I was tired after hiking up hills to see statues and drinking too many caipirinhas on the beach so I opted for jomo - the joy of missing out. Staying at the hostel that night turned out to be a lucky decision as my friends told me later that they had been robbed. Their taxi had stopped at a traffic light when suddenly a man drove up on a motorbike, pointed a gun at them and took everything of value. Except, of course, the most valuable thing of all - their lives.
So yes, Rio is a city where you wake up and feel alive. Not safe, but alive. And that's really something.
On my last night in Rio, a couple of new friends invited me to come out with them but I was tired after hiking up hills to see statues and drinking too many caipirinhas on the beach so I opted for jomo - the joy of missing out. Staying at the hostel that night turned out to be a lucky decision as my friends told me later that they had been robbed. Their taxi had stopped at a traffic light when suddenly a man drove up on a motorbike, pointed a gun at them and took everything of value. Except, of course, the most valuable thing of all - their lives.
So yes, Rio is a city where you wake up and feel alive. Not safe, but alive. And that's really something.
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| Rio de Janeiro |
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| Christ the Redeemer |
