This is the first post of our 2015-2016 research trip to Brazil. It is a somewhat rambling reflection on getting re-acquainted with Sao Paulo after an absence of two or three years. It talks about the things a visitor might see in the first week of experiencing the streets, walking the neighborhood, visiting the farmer’s markets, and puzzling out how to get across the street. Future post will be more focused on simpler topics, but this is my return to Sao Paulo and the first week on the ground.
Getting here: Milwaukee to Atlanta to Sao Paulo (September 2015)
After taking this route many times, this time was a remarkable but routine trip that involved three airports, two countries, and 20+ hours – remarkable in that all the camera gear arrived along with the rest of the clothing and such. No delays, no losses, and no real challenges except the 30 minute cab ride to get from the national airport (Congonhas) to the apartment where we are staying for September which is about 3 miles away. It would have been longer but we were able to show the Simone cab driver the shortcuts.
I normally expect to have to open the case of camera and video equipment, but this time the TSA only opened Simone’s bags (perhaps to check for the contraband diet supplements she brings to her parents). We normally allow extra time for airport security to skin-search me for weapons before they accept that I have steel shoulder replacements and not an assault rifle under my shirt. This search sometimes leads to conversations beginning with “cool,” or “did that hurt?” though normally they regard me as just another baggage to x-ray. Actually I did once have an airport TSA inspector say, roughly, “come over here honey so I can search you.” But I haven’t seen an inspector anywhere in the world with a sense of humor since — especially not in India where in the wake of the Mumbai terrorist attack a few years ago the airport inspectors searched my luggage to the bottom because they didn’t like the looks of my travel alarm.
In short, however, it was a normal trip.
Some useful things to re-learn about Sao Paulo driving: Don’t
Chicago has 2.7 million people. Sao Paulo city has about 11 million and the metro area about 19 million.
Sao Paulo is roughly equivalent to several Chicago’s, with all the urban kindness and gentility that implies — including the fact that it has more arcane traffic management, street flooding, rough surfaces, and special driving rules. Here are some informal guidelines for the Sao Paulo driving culture:
First of all, be wealthy. The truly wealthy take helicopters to work to avoid ground traffic. The city reputedly has the highest per capital helicopter rate of any city (though I wonder who keeps statistics like this). There is at least one shopping mall with a heliport and is also inaccessible by foot. If you can’t fly or drive in you don’t need to be there. Take note, those of you who worry about the inequity of income distribution in the United States, and the ways an affluent elite tries to shelter itself from the rest. Some Brazilians trace this inequity to the era of colonialism, but observers of the U.S. know that a country can re-colonize itself even in the 21st An interesting example of building a modern moat around the castle — much like the medieval practice to keep out enemies, the poor and the plague — are the planned communities that include housing, schools, shopping and other services. All of this creates an enclosed space that emulates a modern village with medieval intentions. Readers of Camus’ Plague remember this intention, hopeless as it is in the long run, to seal oneself off from the dangers of the outside world. The advertising for these closed villages suggest that it is possible to avoid the broader society much of the time and only visit it by helicopter, an auto blindado, or television.
Autos blindados does not mean cars for the seeing impaired. Some want increased security but still have to drive, so they will buy a $30-60k car and invest $20k more to armor it. For months I thought “blindados” in the metro station meant special services for the blind. Not so. It means that the clerk is behind bullet-proof glass. Thus, an auto blindado is one that has been prepared for extraordinary traffic problems like “lightening” kidnappers, carjacking, armed attack, and other normal Sao Paulo traffic hazards.
The internationally recognized zebra stripe that normally shows where pedestrians can walk safely has a more ambiguous meaning in Sao Paulo. Here it sometimes seems to merely concentrate the pedestrian targets into a more convenient place for speeding drivers. It often does not slow drivers down, and sometimes encourages them to speed up to show who has the most iron. This general rule is softened in residential neighborhoods where pushing a baby carriage or walking with a cane will often restore the Brazilians’ sense of warmth and sensitivity. Since I walk a great deal here I test this sense of amiability daily, though always with a heightened sense of mortality.
(This amiability, by the way, is latent to nonexistent for motorcycle riders who are anonymous behind their helmets and darkened visors. For the overactive imagination they can look somewhat like the riders in Cocteau’s Orpheus where they are the bringers of death, transporting people to the underground. (Sorry for the footnote, but we just saw a Sao Paulo dance theater last night doing a version of the Orpheus legend — though without motorcycles.)
Otherwise, in normal urban driving, drivers normally expect pedestrians to look out for themselves. For the macho and the helmeted, stopping for one means a loss of face, of time, and of nerve.
The above rule about looking out for yourself is doubled for bicycles in this least-of-all-bicycle-friendly cities (though I hear that Lagos and Cairo are worse).
Here people load their bikes into vans and take them to the park for a ride. There is even a special bicycle park where children can ride their bikes on a closed course.
My favorite park is Ibiripuera near where I am living. In previous years I rode a bicycle through the city to get to the relative tranquility there, but I was considered foolhardy for riding from home to the park (“Don’t you have a car?”). Once at the park there are miles of inner roads with an exercise course, running track, soccer fields, places to hang a hammock, gardens, statues, fountains, and a huge lake with cormorants and black swans. People ride there, then load their bicycles into the van and drive home, having experienced as much nature as they might see that day. I now understand why my mother-in-law looked at me with such a sense of pity and farewell whenever I took out the bicycle for a ride to the park.
Recently the city has painted bicycle lanes to be used on Sunday only. It is possible to get to Ibipuera Park on these lanes (as long as you remember that not all drivers approve of, or and feel obligated by, this one-day-a-week bicycle-friendly policy). Getting to the bike lanes is still fraught with the everyday problems of navigating among cars, utility vehicles, construction of the new metro stop, rain grooves (bike traps), and other normal hazards. However, once in the park you can ride fairly peacefully, drink fresh coconut water, and sit with the black swans.
By the way, even the bicycle lanes are a source of political controversy. A recent newspaper article showed a potentially dangerous deviation in a city bicycle lane — bicycles have to turn across a busy traffic lane to continue on the path. Apparently the deviation was an alteration to the original plan — allegedly by the responsible transportation director in order to route the bicycle riders past his parents place.
Some other challenges: Rain grooves: Some predatory drivers joke about scaring bicyclists, but they are no more dangerous than the rain grooves cut in the pavement to carry off the flash flooding of streets. The grooves are about 5” wide and angled to defy you to get across them while you are dodging other traffic. You can be successful in avoiding cars, service vehicles, other bicycles, and the ever-present “motoboys” — and then catch a wheel in a rain groove.
More about the “motoboys:” an urban species with a hazard rate roughly that of lumberjacks and sawmill workers. Because of the turgid pace of traffic and the general lack of parking in the city, the fastest way to get documents and packages across town is by motorcycle messenger. This is roughly equivalent to the bicycle messengers in San Francisco, but astronomically more dangerous. There are thousands of young people on motorcycles darting in and out of the clogged car lanes, totally ignored by the drivers who consider them an annoyance or prey. They are paid by the delivery, so speed is the key to any profit they make. I think for relaxation they must do something like shark hunting or skydiving.
This motorcycle culture is so ingrained that you find riders with a passenger on date night darting through heavy traffic at speed. Date night is probably more exciting if you have to risk your life to get there.
This practice is unrelated to the American-style Harley Davidson riders. There is a nearby “biker bar” where you can find up to 20 Harley’s parked on a sunny Saturday. Having a Harley here is a major economic proposition, so the riders seem a bit more like the executive Harley riders in the U.S. These priceless machines do not veer and race about in city traffic, they park at a nice restaurant.
Another tip: Signalling other drivers with your headlight works in a way that might be unexpected for North American drivers. In the U.S. a driver may flash the headlights to invite you to cross or take the right-of way: “go ahead, I’ll wait for you.” In Sao Paulo it often means the opposite – “I’m coming through, and my car is more blindado than yours.”
Sometimes it can also mean a polite invitation to go ahead, but there is no way of knowing this without making eye contact with the drivers and making a guess about their intentions. Like many rules in Brazil the actual custom in practice is contextual and individual — it seems to require some deep-level intuition that may come with practice.
Lacking this special intuition, the basic tactics of timidity, concentration, and a bit of luck seem the best bet for the new visitor.
In spite of the traffic, I love the city when I am not actually hating it
In the Sao Paulo spring (which is autumn in the Midwest of the United States) you can sometimes hear unusual birds calling from somewhere in tropical trees that have been preserved in spite of the massive concrete of roads and sidewalks. Many are boxed with concrete borders that allow water to reach their roots and sometimes an old, struggling tree still pokes out through the side of a building wall where a space has been left for it. Others seem to be a century old and spread their roots wherever they like, crumbling the asphalt and showing the power they can still muster against the concrete of the city.
In many ways, trees are safer than bicyclists or motoboys. There are also amazing occurrences of tropical bird calls. In this area which was once indigenous territory, the streets are often named after birds of flowers in the indigenous language A nearby street is named Bem-te-vi, after the cry of a forest bird. The name mimics the greeting in Portuguese that means “good to see you.”
Drivers and motoboys don’t hear this ancient invitation of nature.
The weekend markets. The concrete and rough sidewalks and streets eventually eventually lose their disconcerting character and become a simple fact of daily life. Then you notice the respect for old trees in the neighborhoods, the congenital politeness of most Brazilians, the richness of the city life around you, and even the city markets.
These markets shut down whole streets with lines of kiosks and tents erected for the day. If you can get through the dizzying array of streets and their unusual names, the markets are a wonder. The city of Sao Paulo is surrounded by the federal state of Sao Paulo which has rich agricultural lands. The area was once a primary coffee-growing center in Brazil, and what land is available is very productive. There is some sugar cane in the interior, but the farm products of fruits and vegetables are a culinary wonder. Those accustomed to farmers’ markets in the United States will find many things they have never seen — huge piles of mangoes, papayas, herbs without English names, mounds of tofu from farmers of Japanese descent, and unimaginable tables filled with fresh fish, dried cod, and parts of animals I’d rather not know about.
After bicycling in traffic, visiting the market is one of the most exciting things to do in the outer neighborhoods of Sao Paulo. Like the open markets in, say, San Francisco, there are occasionally tents with boutique cheese, nuts and condiments, but the real business is for picky shoppers looking for fresh avocados, melons, and a dizzying array of fruits and vegetables.
The only serious assault on nutrition here are the tents selling pastel (pl: pasteis)– envelope-sized pockets of thin dough containing cheese, meat, or various mystery substances. . For the finicky there is also a “vegetarian” option with escarole and cheese — deep fried in the same pan as all the rest. It’s very popular, but to eat it you need to catch it between the moment it is too hot to eat and when it cools and becomes to slippery to hold.
These tables of papayas are everywhere in the market, so you can amble about comparison shop for exotic fruits.
