A wonderful family connection meant a luxurious first night in Sao Paulo. Pepe works for United Nations FAO Brazil and so I was invited as guest at the Blue Tree Morumbi hotel where he was speaking at a world conference on Bio Fuels. Brazil is trying to export its model of sugar cane to fuel production to african and asian countries.
Despite having already taken several taxi rides that were the ´most direct route´ I do not comprehend the city. At this point in time the only word I have is: endless.
Yesterday I took the Metro to the Sao Paulo bus station and a bus to Curitiba. The self proclaimed `Ciudad Ecologica´ is indeed an amazing place, although my introduction was rather ironic. Curitiba is a world wide model of urban planning and co-ordinated transport systems. I arrived at a Hostel (which costs a shocking 1/10th of the value of the Blue Tree Morumbi hotel) and soon met a Brazilian traveller with a car. He was rather undecisive regarding resaurtant choices so my introduction to the city was 1 hour driving around the centre in the dark getting lost and trying to find a safe spot to park.
Central Curitiba is a terrific place to walk - there are many pedestrian streets and beatiful plazas. After walking and exploring the centre I met up with Borghetti, a friend of Pepe´s that I had been told I must call. Him and some friends picked me up in their flashy car and took me out to lunch and then gave me a full tour of the city´s parks and sights. However, walking wasn´t their thing so the longest we spent strolling around this city´s beautiful green space was 5 minutes.
Next step is to actually tackle this city´s transport system and not rely on the car...
1 comment:
looks awesome ben! looking forward to reading more.
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