Return to Sao Paolo - Aaron's 3rd Post

Early saturday morning, the green family departed their villa enclaves to drive 4 hours back to Sao Paolo - home of the Geld family residence (our very kind and hospitable hosts). We packed our bags and loaded our volvos for the long drive home. BTW - tinted volvos are quite rare down here, most cars are very small and their an inordinate number of old school vw bugs...perfect for entertaining Danielle and I with the punching game "insert color of vw'' and state punch bug no punch back while punching your partner.

Danielle slept most of the way while I stayed awake to enjoy the picturesque scenenry - a perfectly sunny day so you could actually see the mountains covered in rain forest. The traffic back was horrific, but the slow ride provided ample opportunity to enjoy the scenery including golden coastlines backed by mile high mountain tops covered in rainforest lush green. The surfer crowd was out and about well represented and the waves were pretty killer...am thinking next summer, if take some serious time off, to learn how to windsurf...looks awesome..only one problem is the people here are so tanned they dont even need sunscreen....where i am practically an albino incapable of tanning...i would be burnt to a crisp...will have to think about how to manage....any ways, i digress.

We hit the mountains, and two way tiny passage wrapping like a snake up the 7k verticle foot mountain...the old cars in front of us were holding up traffic as they perpetually over heated. Once over the crescent, we meandered down the softer hills and i slowly fell asleep for about an hour.

We arrived into Sao Paolo, a sprawling city reminiscent of my travels to mexico city. On the outskirt are slums and shanty towns, similar to those portrayed in the movie "city of god' but in person they look much more ominuous, depressing, and saddening especially when contrasted with the pure wealth of inner Sao Paolo. You feel small, and it becomes very clear why you are told not to walk around alone should you wander into the wrong neighberhood. When we arrived at the Geld's residence, centered in an extremely affluent portion of town, you understand that security is no laughing matter. The houses are all enclosed by 10-30 foot fences, depending on the importance of the resident, most fences are topped with electrified wiring so no one jumps, and each block has a guard & booth monitoring the neighberhood...some houses even have private security guards standing outside wandering the premise. But like much of brazil, wealth is often hidden behind walls. What look to be small, narrow, dark homes in fact open into brightly lit palaces with large terraces and gardens that remain removed from the eye of the passerby weather because they are enclosed by walls or have immediately adjacent properties that conceal the beautiful treasures that lie from within.

Today, Ezra and Richard showed Danielle and i through Sao Paolo, taking us through the various business districts, parks, residential areas etc. The city simultaneously extremely eye opening, but stare too hard and it can be very harsh on your corneas. Many of the buildings and avenues are styled in American and French grandeur but the buildings are an absolute hodgepodge of glistening glass against harsh soviet era concrete towers and edifices. However, you don't grasp the 22MM plus people in Sao Paolo until you go to the 50th floor of a fancy restaruant (forget name) and look out at the panoramic views that are Sao Paolo. The city center is surrounded by lush mountains, similar to those scene in RIO pics, but smaller and with no water. the mountains are probably 30 miles outside the city. However, for as far as the eye can look, even beyond the mountains, spans the city, skyscraper upon skyscraper, town upon town...it literally goes on for as far as the eye can see. Imagine looking out from the empire state building and seeing into brooklyn, and NJ...now put the skyscrapers of Manhatten in brooklyn and NJ for as far as you can see and that is Sao Paulo - truly amazing that so many people can live so closely together and still function...well sort of.....

Dani and I then went to dinner with Ezra and Richard and enjoyed a wonderful Asian brazilian fusion meal....Im still waiting to have a true brazilian meal that consist of something other than rice and beans which is claimed to be native. As i write this message now, dani and I are monitoring the Eagles game....fly eagles fly on the road to victory.....who knows...miracles occassionally happen...for Philly to win to championships in a single year...it could be too much to believe...for both Philly and Boston alike....

Tomorow we depart for the ranch and hopefully we will be able to add more pics at that point....until then I hope everyone is having fun from your respective homes on the world wide web....take care.

-Aaron