Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Chili

From the time we left Brazil until Friday night there has been little time to do much but arrive at airports, bus to hotels (at which two we arrived after 1:30am), but to schools, and then back to the airport.  Since we are always in major metropolitan areas, the cities (and hence countries) look and feel pretty much the same.  As such, there ain't much to show from each one.  The first few are from the bus on the way to/from schools, hotels, or the airport.  The last few are over the weekend when we visited a Chilean winery (Santa Cruz.) and the very last one is of our hotel in the city of Santa Cruz.  Off to the bus and on to Lima, Peru!

Sao Paulo - Day #2

 Subway to Mercado Municipal...interesting but not huge or particularly varied. 

 

  Seems olives and olive oil are big commodities....

 Then a walk through the financial district...

Past some kind of string instrument store...

To St. Paul's Cathedral...

Tonight we have a group meeting, dinner and the the fun starts with a 7:00am check out,

Greetings from the first of 12 countries I will be visiting in 17 days.  Arrived this morning in Sao Paulo, Brazil after an uneventful overnight flight.  Unfortunately, one of our colleagues on the flight did not make it through customs so is going to meet us in two days when we arrive in Paraguay.

Sao Paulo is the largest city in Brazil, the largest city in the southern hemisphere and Americas, and the world's sixth largest city by population. The metropolis is anchor to the São Paulo metropolitan area, ranked as the second most populous metropolitan area in the Americas and among the five largest metropolitan areas on the planet.  In other words, it is a really, really big place.

Found a neat coffee house and sampled coffee from four different regions of Brazil.  Also enjoyed a common Central/South America appetizer called Cerviche.

Coffee and Cerviche

Then wandered around and came across a topical jungle like park that also seemed to serve as "make out park" - for all genders.

Leaving the park was an amazing young boy playing a recorder with what appeared to be his family on back-up.

So far the city has felt like NY but with smaller streets and cars.  Lots and lots of nationalities and plenty of friendly smiles.

...and, of course, the ubiquitous "Bob's fill-in-the-blank"