Three weeks in this alluring cultural melting pot. Amazing! I started off my stay by visiting the chaotic city of São Paulo - a traveler's nightmare and my new best friend. I fell in love with the city immediately. It's quite possible it was because I had a fantastic guide to show me around as well as incredible house and unbelievable food at my friend's family, but I think there was another aspect to my appreciation of the 7th largest city in the world. The beauty of the chaos: the elegant quadrille of the thousands of cars changing lanes at impressive speed and at exactly the right moment, the choreographed dance of public transport passengers who without a word manage to avoid any confrontation and the symphony of metropolitan sounds: dogs barking, car horns honking, cell phones bleeping and vendors calling out the latest deals. The result is breath taking and that is not the smog doing the work.
São Paulo is incredibly clean for its size. I really do believe it has received an undeserved bad reputation of pollution, crime and chaos. But then again, I did see the city from its best side. Even the graffiti is beautiful. In many countries graffiti is simply tags or some random funny character, but here it's an art and a respected one as well. The most amazing works of art are kept free of "overtagging" or other graffiti artists trying to steal their thunder. Everyone knows a great piece when they see it. So far I haven't seen anything quite of the same satirical caliber as Banksy (http://www.banksy.co.uk/) but it truly is amazing works on display around the city. Regular Brazilians are finally starting to appreciate the art form and exhibitions showing the street art are popping up everywhere. People from all over the world come to praise the artists and their creativeness.
Unfortunately some of the most amazing pieces are located in a tunnel where you zoom past in your car and they're quite impossible to get to by foot. I did not get a chance to photograph these which means there are even more impressive pieces out there than the ones I have for you here.
For more information on graffiti in São Paulo please check out World Hum's pictures and articles on http://www.worldhum.com/photos/slideshow/sao-paulos-graffiti-20090318/N4/
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