Sao Paulo revisited: 13-16 Aug 12

Imagine … you’ve got an international flight from the main airport of the biggest city in one of the world’s leading economies. You’ve been told to go early because there’s some sort of industrial action which will slow your progress through security and immigration. You get to the airport and the desks are not yet open but you get a boarding pass from the automatic check in and head off to wrestle with immigration. But the lady who checks that you’ve got a valid boarding pass sends you back to check in to get a stamp. As you’re walking back you see someone walking deliberately towards you brandishing a mobile phone. You recognise him but cannot place him. What goes on?

You realise that it’s the taxi driver who dropped you off 15 or 20 minutes ago and on the phone is a business colleague whom you met that morning. You’ve left your phone in his office. No panic he says, he’ll whistle up a motorcycle courier and get it to you in plenty of time for your flight. It takes more than the promised 30 minutes, nearer an hour, but then you find out that there are no delays through either immigration or security after all and you’re through and into the departure lounge in plenty of time for your flight.

But how is this possible? Fact is that Guarulhos is the main airport for Sao Paulo which is the biggest city in Brazil which is of course one of the BRIC economies with a population of over 200 million and it’s more of a bus station than an airport. Expecting the taxi driver to find me under similar circumstances at Heathrow is unthinkable. I’d have been lost in the crowds and anyway where would he have left his taxi? Even Stansted would be a big ask. So thank you South America for having limited intra regional flight networks, thank you Sao Paulo for not investing in a spanking new airport 2 hours from the city centre, thank you to my colleague for taking action and to the motorcyclist for delivering, but most of all: thank you to the taxi driver for meeting what was still a fairly massive challenge and finding me!

I had been back in Brazil, first time for 8 or 9 years. As I told my friends and family Sao Paulo is not a city which I would normally enjoy visiting but the people are brilliant, there’s good food and excellent beer and in August it’s winter which means sunshine and mid 20s temperatures. And there was a bonus: to meet 2 good friends from my inkjet days.

Good friend number 1 is Tercio and I made the mistake of asking for his help to set up some meetings for me. He went out of his way to arrange 2 excellent days and then insisted on driving me around. The calls themselves were very successful from a business point of view and I was pleased to note that Tercio who runs his own business appeared to benefit from the contacts as well. But what made the business so much better was the windscreen time and the fun we had reflecting on old times, debating the folly of current governments and appreciating the opportunities that life has given to us.

Wagner was good friend number 2 and he took us to Rascals in the Higenopolis shopping centre (anyone who has any doubts about the existence of a Brazilian middle class with money to spend should visit such shopping centres). It’s a chain and the formula is fairly simple but the food was good and the service excellent.

The formula is a comprehensive salad and starter bar, the Brazilians do salads rather well and for some reason there’s always a choice of olive oils but you have to hunt for the vinegar, followed by a limited choice of freshly prepared pizza and pasta. We ate well and washed our meal down with bottles of GOLD beer, despite the dominance of the big global brewers in Brazil there are several smaller brands which enable the discriminating beer drinker to pose!

Sao Paulo was much as I expected but we didn’t spend as much time in traffic jams as I had feared, perhaps that was down to the skill of Tercio’s planning. The weather was pleasant but one day it suddenly cooled by 5 degrees or more early afternoon and then when it warmed up again we experienced the pollution which is sadly endemic.

But it is a city of contrasts. We didn’t see much of the favelas of course but there are certainly very pleasant neighbourhoods with tree-lined avenues, detached houses and small shops and restaurants next door to block of flats and busy highways. And at lunch time the Brazilians who are otherwise so frenetic stop for lunch and they do it sitting down and in a restaurant. And it’s a pleasure to listen to Portuguese which is one of the softer languages and although I understand little when it’s spoken it’s not too difficult to make sense of the text.

I returned to the UK, with my phone, and have good news and bad news to report. First the bad news: when you buy a ticket for the Heathrow Express from a machine it doesn’t tell you that if you bought a Connect ticket which you had chosen because it includes the underground connection which you need it doesn’t entitle you to travel on the Express itself and it doesn’t give you the option of taking the discount to which you’re entitled if you’ve got a railcard life some sort.

But the good news is that the improved attitude to travellers which seems to have grown out of the 2012 experience meant that the conductor on the train told me that she should really charge me more but since I had not been able to take my discount, she saw my card, she would take no action. Three cheers for common sense!