June 14-16: Bom Retiro, Liberdade, and Municipal Market

We’ve had a busy weekend, so there’s a lot to catch up on!

Friday we went to Avenue Paulista, which is a huge street in the financial district and a major focal point in the city. It’s also where São Paulo’s Pride parade was held a week before we got here, which I’m so sad we missed because it would have been amazing.

We also went to an art museum that had a big room filled with statues and paintings on free-standing easels, which was pretty cool. The acoustics, however, were terrible, proven when a group of school children showed up. They were a little wild and left to roam around on their own, but it was totally worth it to watch groups of ten-year-old boys tearing past Renaissance paintings, giggling and pointing at boobies.

Saturday we went to Bom Retiro, which is a Korean neighborhood and also the main garment district. They hold a street fair on Saturdays, so we got to wander around and check out a bunch of cool vendors and stores before going to the neighborhood park. I’m getting sort of obsessed with the trees here. The ficus elastica trees are the coolest. They drop aerial roots from their branches which fuse to the trunk so they get all gnarly and fairy tale looking.  

After the fair, we went to Minhocão Park, which is actually an elevated highway that cuts extremely close through rows of high-rise, low-income housing—the result of poor city planning. At night and on weekends, the highway is closed off to cars, so locals hang out there and sunbathe, play giant chess, etc. The buildings have also been painted with giant, gorgeous murals, so it’s a pretty clever way overall for the people to reclaim this space.  

Sunday we went to Liberdade, the Little Tokyo neighborhood, for another street fair. This one was more arts and crafts focused, with a TON of food vendors so it was very hard to choose what to eat (aside from the sushi - that was a no-brainer).

We then walked over to Mercado Municipal, which is the giant open-air food market. There are copious amounts of meats and cheeses and seafood to buy here, as well as restaurants, but the best are the fruit stands where you can sample just about anything you want to. The guys who run these are super friendly and don’t try for the hard sell. Locals don’t buy fruit here because the prices are way more expensive than grocery stores or street vendors, so I’m guessing these guys are making enough bank off the tourists so they don’t mind being very generous with their samples. There are also probably a dozen stands scattered around the market, so it’s fruta gratis everywhere you turn. 

When we got our immunizations before we left for Brazil, we were warned not to eat any street food or fruit we didn’t cut ourselves. And then they basically rolled their eyes and said, yeah, we know you’re not going to listen, but we’re obligated to say it anyway. So thank you, UIHC Travel Clinic, but if you’re not actively courting food poisoning, are you even living?

Today (Monday) we’re flying to Rio for the rest of our trip, so stay tuned for beach adventures!