Sao Paulo and Curitaba (a whistle-stop tour)

Sao Paulo is a city of twelve million people - roughly double the entire population of Scotland. We stayed there just a night, and experienced none of the city`s museums or even really its legendary nightlife. What we came away with instead were a series of impressions, of a breathtaking and often overwhelming city. Brazil is often talked of in terms of the divide between its rich and its poor citizens, a divide much more evident in Sao Paulo than in Rio. We stayed in the city centre, where the streets are lined with designer shops with homeless people camped outside them. The pedestrianised boulevards of the city centre are marred by graffiti, which inexplicably crawls over the buildings up to the third and fourth storeys. We visited the beautiful art deco Teatro Municipal, and went to see the views from the city´s tallest building, the Edifico Italia - but since our guidebook was published an eight pound charge per person has been introduced for doing so. And you can´t wear flip-flops. We skipped it and snuck a picture from the window below instead.

At night the city´s bars came alive, and stalls selling bbq meat opened on the streets. We couldn´t afford to go out for dinner so it was another night of fried food - the hot dogs and burgers which are everywhere in Brazil and which are infinitely more affordable than healthier fare. The next morning it was on to Curitaba, a city which bore a remarkable resemblance to Aberdeen.

More attractive than Sao Paulo, the paved city centre glinted in the pale sunshine like the town of granite itself. We even found the Brazilian equivalent of the pound shop, complete with obligatory unsavoury element hanging around outside it! There was a nice fountain and large park to walk around, but little else to do in the city. We did however sample some excellent popcorn from a street stall, accidentally get caught up in the ´March for Jesus´ through town on Saturday (about 1000 people, matching t-shirts and loudspeakers) and see two jugglers and three mimes performing in the streets. We also observed that the typical hotel in SAmerica is like a holdover from the Continent circa 1950s - we felt like faded gentry, surrounded by peeling wallpaper, dusty floorboards and furniture that has seen better times...

Always mindful of our bank accounts, and heartily sick of fried goods, we sped on towards the Argentinian border, arriving in Foz de Iguazu on the 16th of May.