Iguacu Falls

Breathtaking!

Ouro Preto

SOME THOUGHTS LOOKING BACK

Bud and I went back to Rio at the end of the trip. Those extra days gave us the chance to go to the Sangueiro Samba School and explore new areas like Niteroi and Santa Teresa. 

We left Rio on our 1st cloudy day in Brazil- a signal it was time to head home. 

We had a charmed trip- every hotel was great–every plane was on time– every day was sunny–every city exceeded our expectations and captured our interest- and we had engaged and fun traveling companions.  

Rob Eastwood’s work leading the trip was amazing. Standouts were the terrific people we met who gave us invaluable insights into Brazil. Also, there were the adventures that Rob discovered and invited us to join. The soccer game in São Paulo, the rock sliding and waterfall swimming in Parity, the bike riding to sample soccer bars in Curitiba -all helped us understand and enjoy what adds gusto to Brazilian life.

HIGH RISE LIVING

I will be thinking about the planning aspects of this trip for a long time. Seeing high-rise residential towers far into the horizon as we flew into São Paulo made a powerful impression.

Brazil's experience with housing so much of its population in high-rise buildings is instructive. We know that there are many environmental and economic advantages to increased density.  It works well in Curitiba where the high-rises line the transit corridors and there is a vibrant street life.  The long lines of gated high rise complexes in São Paulo that kill street life and the high rises in Brasilia’s satellite cities far from jobs are more cautionary examples. 

EXPERIENCING GREAT BRAZILIAN ARCHITECTURE

And then there is Oscar Niemeyer, who is still working at age 104, and designed many of the best buildings that we visited - the Cathedral and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs buildings in Brasilia, the Oscar Niemeyer museum in Curitiba and, of course, the Brasilia Palace Hotel where we stayed.  All are stand alone, iconic modernist buildings with great ramps and curves, wonderful proportions, and extraordinary use of windows and glass.  It was a treat to have the chance to experience them and to see how Brazilians use them.

We saw dancers and musicians using the plazas of the Curitiba and Niteroi museums as performance spaces-a contrast to the lifeless plaza of so many American buildings. Niemeyer’s great public buildings add to the image and life of Brazilian cities. And show the impact one person can have. It was impressive.

Curitiba BRT

The model for bus rapid transit! 

Brasilia

Oscar Niemeyer, cloverleafs, symmetry galore!

Sao Paulo Purgatorio

(by Peter Hartman)

Sao Paulo is big. Shanghai-Tokyo-New York Big. Flying in at dawn, over the fertile highland plains below crisscrossed with tilled fields, grazing pastures and rain forest, over the Serra do Mar SP suddenly bursts into view, a forest of gleaming white high rise towers – over 5,600, third highest in the world - dominating the landscape to the far horizon.

Twenty million and counting in the metropolitan region. Brazil's business, industrial and cultural center throbs with life, swept along by the crowds on the street, crawling in traffic along the city's extensive freeway system, flying overhead in the world's largest private helicopter fleet, or packed underground in one of the most impressive metro systems I've seen.

The metro consists of four primarily underground lines that crisscross the central city in all directions. Although limited to central Sao Paulo the metro is complimented by nine lines  of the interlinked regional CPTM aboveground train network that reaches most of the peripheral areas in the city as well as many suburbs. The system carries over 5 million passengers daily. The state has plans to extend the network to the poorer precincts on the eastern periphery, where a human tide of 4 million ebbs and flows into the central city for work each day.

I was finishing up a day of wandering through Sao Paulo's brand-new fourth (!) CBD in the SW, stretching along Av Faria Lima from the Pineiros district into the Itaim Bibi district. Exhausted from marvelling at hundreds of sleek new commercial and residential high-rises and dozens of construction sites I followed an after-work crowd figuring they were going to some major transit connection that I could use to get back to my hotel.

Sure enough, I found myself in the V Olympia CPTM station as the crowd serged in from the surrounding streets. I bought a special CPTM ticket – a transit guard said my regular metro “Unitario” tickets weren't good on this system, but still the same price of R$3.00, about US$1.50 – and went to the embarcation platform which filled up fast in the approx. three minutes between trains in my direction.

I squeezed in and rode back to the Pinheiros CPTM station at the north end of Faria Lima where I had begun my trek wondering if I could transfer to the #4 Yellow Line metro at its station also named Pinheiros although about two blocks from the CPTM station. The transit maps which I scrutinized in the station didn't show a transfer between the two.

I flowed with the crowd off the train at Pinheiros, up an escaltor and down a wide passageway where I saw a sign that said “Metro.” Looks good. Moving with the growing crowd, I continued over and above a couple of streets, shuffling slowly, shoulder-to-shoulder, as more people joined from the sides.

Then I saw it below – the brand-new Pinheiros metro station. More people were coming in through the gates from the street and as we flowed down the escalator I realized that we  remained seamlessly in the paid area. Then we turned, and descended another level to turn on another level and descend again. Now the crowd had grown to completely pack two escalators going down each level, while equally packed escalators ascended across from us. The movement up and down was constant, although no one individual could budge. People flowed down, up, past each other, each one unable to move, standing still while moving with the flow. I was completely immobilized during my descent and lost all count of the levels. Maybe six. Maybe eight. We kept going down in a dizzing procession. Mesmerized by the constant motion I felt as if Giovanni Piranesi, fresh from his fever dreams of ruined ancient Roman carceri, had designed this marvellous 21^st century transit station.

Finally hitting bottom at the metro platform and feeling disoriented – just why was this so deep anyway? - I jostled my way forward through the railings that funneled the crowd into doors of the arriving trains and crammed myself in. I changed again at Paulista into another equally jammed train on the #2 Green Line, extracating myself at the Paraiso station near the hotel. 

This trip was reprised in part two days later when I elected to take public transit to the airport for my 10 pm flight back to the US, again during the evening rush hour. I fought my way on the #1 Blue Line with my bags and was feeling very self-satisfied until I changed to the #3 Red Line at Se. As I approached the platform my heart sank. I may never have seen so many people spilling over a platfrom and swarming each arriving train. I joined the scrum and pushed and shoved my way forward until finally reaching the edge of the platform after at least five or six trains - at one minute headways - had stopped, loaded up and left. At least my fellow passengers were in good humor with their new up-close-and-personal neighbors on the ride. Hard to imagine just how the system can increase capacity. Maybe as the city extends ever upwards the metro can keep extending down.     

O Samba

In Rio, some of us decided to tough out the next day on just a few hours' sleep, in order to check out the very late-night gathering of the Salgueiro Samba School.  The major samba schools, which are more like large dance/social clubs than schools, spend 10 months of the year preparing for the next Carnival.  They meet one night a week to work on their moves and music, and to test drive tiny but elaborate costumes.  During the day our tour guide took us to the vast empty linear stadium where the samba schools compete during Carnival.  They are judged on choreography, costumes, and original music, and points are deducted if they don't proceed through the stadium in the allotted time limit.

The Salgueiro Samba School draws a huge crowd of friends and fans; many attendees are also very impressive on the dance floor. There's a band on the stage, and a precise percussion section of thirty or more performers jammed into the mezzanine balcony.  We witnessed a few dazzling routines where the lovely young dancers' feet were moving so fast that they were almost a blur, amazing given that they were wearing sky-high platform heels.  There were also presentations featuring large flags, and a special troupe consisting of mature women, proving the inclusive reach of the samba "familia".  The moves, the beats, the colorful costumes and social excitement were pure joy.