DAY 199
We have brunch with with friends of a friend today at the "fruteria". The food is good but the dessert is about to change our life. Brazil's well kept secret (even kept from Brazilians living abroad!) is called Açaí. It's a berry from the Amazon and they make a kind of sorbet with it that you can eat with toppings or not... And it's divine! We'll add it to our regular diet for the whole duration of our stay in the country ;) It's just perfect when it's really hot (like every day) and you're not really hungry because of the weather conditions. Fresh, cool, unctuous... a taste of paradise!
We walk back to our place through the Ibirapuera park. It reminds us of Central Park with throngs of people running, biking, rollerblading or just working out. The thunder threatens us but luckily for us, it's not followed by rain. We do our Christmas grocery shopping and head back home. It's an Airbnb and we're just supposed to have a room but the guy is away for Christmas so we have the whole apartment for ourselves :D
DAY 200
Merry Christmas! We treated ourselves yesterday night of course. A meal, in a home by ourselves was the best way to spend Christmas since family and friends were miles and miles away. Everything is probably closed today but that does not prevent us from walking around town so we start with the long Paulista avenue. It use to have lots of old mansions from plantation owner but very few are left. On the 3 we saw, 2 were nice and 1 was abandoned and badly tagged but inhabited.
Then at night we hit another neighborhood, famous for its nightlife, Vila Madalena. The fear is that everything would be close on Christmas Day but when we reach the heart of the neighborhood some bars are open. Not all though so the ones open are jam-packed. There's live samba in multiple bars and it's about time for us to taste our first (it won't be the last!) caipirinha on Brazilian soil. We only do it to attune ourselves with the country of course ;) One striking difference with the two previous country we were in is the people. People here are so much more varied than in Bolivia and Peru. Which should not come as a surprise, Sampa (and Brazil) had immigration from all over the world, with big communities of Japaneses, Lebanese, Italians, etc...
DAY 201
Our first experience with online booking was a big disappointment. The website for booking our bus ticket to Paraty just doesn't work and the one for booking out hotel there either. They ask for a fiscal id to make the reservation... Only residents have that, not tourist friendly :/ So we do it old school, we go to the bus station and call the hotels directly. Thankfully Mar speaks Portuguese because don't count on anyone speaking English or Spanish. It's late afternoon when we have finally everything booked.
With the few hours of daylight we have left, we head out to see another part of the city. We steal this city tour from the lonely planet but halfway through it, the sky falls on our heads. After days of threatening lightnings and thunders not followed by any rains we were confident it would be the same again this time... We are glad to find a shelter even though it's far from perfect. Somewhat humid, we go back home as soon as the rain lets us. Dried up, we head out again for dinner. Ana recommended us a restaurant in a super nice neighborhood. It's incredible the contrast between the different parts of the city. Ironically though, the block where the restaurant is located has a power outage so we fall back to a nearby pizza place instead. It seems to be an institution (read: super crowded) and the pizza is indeed very good.