fresh n juicy chunks of oyster :: RTW travel blog

Sao Paulo is crazy. It is the city to end all cities. It is a hulking metropolis with what must be the highest concentration of bank central offices in South America. The sprawling behemoth stretches for miles in all directions, taking hours (at a bad time) to drive through and housing (or 'shacking' in the case of most favelas here) some 20 million or so people. In short, it's urbanisation gone haywire, concrete replacing trees and people going jogging on the thin green patches running between two 3-lane carriageways. Seemingly neverending multi-lane roads, jammed full of cars, cut through the city above and below each other and multi-story condos and offices rise up everywhere you look.
Concrete jungles may be dead on one level but of course the great thing about a city is that it is populated by human beings. Sao Paulo has everything (even pedestrianised zones to get you away from all the cars), the city's nightlife is said to be the best in South America and a lot of people are hip and young.
However, the people (the Paulistano) are a race apart from the native of Rio (the Carioca), for instance. While in Rio everyone and their dog walks around in flip-flops, lives to go to the beach to relax and works only if necessary to enable said activity, in Sao Paulo people seem to work first and then party if there's time (usually enough), and generally only wear flip-flops in the privacy of their own home (or don't have a pair).
But seriously, stereotypes about the people of the various states of Brasil are amazingly accurate. When moving North to South in Brasil almost every state you enter could be a different country altogether. They almost all have different music, foods, ways of speaking, living and having fun. However, in the end there is still that weird intangible link, that indefinable mix of the essence of Brasil inside everyone.
Anyway, getting back to Sao Paulo, yes, I've had fun here. But the problem with all metropoli (?) is that to some degree they are all similar and you've seen it all before somewhere. Of course all have their unique character but concrete still looks and feels like concrete no matter where in the world you are. In other words (how many ways will I find of saying this by the end of this trip?), I feel the need to move again.
The Iguacu falls will be the next stop and from all I've heard about it you don't need to see another waterfall once you've seen the Iguacu. Which is good because it'll later save me time on this trip and let me stay in Buenos Aires for longer... Ummm, what was that thing I said about cities again...? ;)

[Pics from Rio (statue of Christ) and Sao Paulo have been uploaded to albums Brasil 4 and 5.
Note the dangers of a large capacity memory card and the number of random shots taken... I think I soon have to start editing a little more... :)]