Non
Stop Erotic Bingo
Out And About In Sao
Paulo ~ By Philip Blazdell
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| ‘Ladies
and gentleman, we shall shortly be landing at Sao Paulo International Airport
where the local time is…’
Baaaaaaang...The
guy sitting next to me who was an experienced aviation consultant went
a sickly white colour and gripped my arm in what I hope was a paternal
show of support, ‘there goes the under carriage…’ Even I winced as there
was a sickening metal on metal sound which one doesn’t really want to associate
with commercial airline travel. The Brazilians all around me instead
of the traditional round of applause that greets every home coming reached
for their bibles and began crossing themselves hastily. We did manage
to taxi half way down the runway before the captain decided that his day
wasn’t going to get any better than this and a fleet of buses were dispatched
to drive us to the terminal. As I emerged into the hazy light of
a dreamy Saturday morning, I tried to ignore the large collection of metallic
fragments scattered along the taxiway and concentrated on the wonderful
feeling of being back on Brazilian soil.. |
| There are
10.4 million people in Sao Paulo with another 7.5 million in the greater
Sao Paulo area. At the time of Brazil's independence -1822- Sao Paulo had
only 4,000 houses and 20,000 people. It was the coffee boom of the late
19th century that turned Sao Paulo into the megalopolis it is today. |
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As I worked
my way through formalities, I let the old familiar sounds and smells wash
back over me and by the time I had collected my luggage and had my passport
stamped my mind had made the small jump back into Portuguese and I felt
terribly at home once again. As I looked for my friend who had so
nobly agreed to pick me after my red eye (and brown trouser) flight from
the UK, I thought back at the strange chain of events that had led me back
to the place I often feel most at home in after having left ‘for good’
a few weeks previous.
I had been
in a weekly sales meeting for my new company, sitting at the back of the
room as I normally do, idly drawing up a list of places I would like to
go and not really listening to the person giving the pep talk.
Through the haze I heard the magic words ‘Brazil’, ‘opportunity’ and ‘immediate’
and before anyone else had a chance to respond I leaped out my seat and
shouted, ‘Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.’ And then things had happened
so quickly that before I really knew what was happening, I was standing
on the tarmac under a tropical sun and remembering the old maxim of any
landing you can walk away from is a good one.
As surprising
as it may seem I had never been to Sao Paulo. I had been to the airport
countless times and had even passed through the bus terminal a few times
on the way to somewhere else, but I had never really dived into the city
to any great extent. I had always planned to go for the reason that
not only is it such a strategically important city, but the Brazilians
always refer to it as a megalopolis, which to me, sounds exceedingly cool
if not inspirational. The extent of the megalopolis, however, wasn’t
really evident as we zipped through the early morning traffic, and it was
only when I had finally checked into the hotel and stood in the roof top
bar with an early morning beer in my hand did the sheer magnitude of the
city hit me. In every direction as far as the eye could see were
high rise buildings. Some were new, some were old, some were glittering
in the light and some looked like they were about to fall down. They were
all cramped together like trees in a rainforest jostling for light.
I wasn’t sure if it was the most inspiringly awesome sight I had ever seen
or one of the saddest, but without a doubt it was certainly mesmerising.
The locals
will tell you that Sao Paulo is only the third greatest city in the world
(I seriously doubt this) after New York and Mexico City, but for my money,
and after many happy experiences in both Mexico and NY, Sao Paulo is in
a different league and the most visually stimulating place on earth.
Visually saturated I grabbed my notebook and went to see the city from
street level.
Outside my
hotel was a concrete monstrosity by Brazilian legend Oscar Neidameyer under
which I found a taxi driven by the unlikely named driver Archimedes Lombardo,
who was as insane as the name might suggest. No sooner had I told
him I wanted to see the city then we were off hurtling against the oncoming
traffic at relativistic speeds.
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| That old
claustrophobic aniexty-ridden feeling that you may never escape it. There
are 4.5 million cars in Sao Paulo which travel at the average speed of
17 kilometers an hour. 200 billion liters of fuel are lost each year due
to traffic jams at the cost of 298.3 million dollars. |
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‘Archimedes,
that light was red.’
‘Ah, don’t
worry, but did you see that girl’s bottom. Nossa.’
‘Archimedes,
this street is one way…’
‘I am only
going one way.’
‘Yes, the
wrong one.’
And so it went
on and I didn’t really see all the things I wanted to because I was too
busy trying to peel myself off the seat and keep up with Sr. Lombardo’s
conversation (most of which concerned the disgraceful state of the Brazilian
energy system and bottoms). He picked me up a few days later on my
way to a meeting at the British Embassy and managed to detain me for almost
an hour (‘don’t worry, I am sure the ambassador will wait’) because
I made the mistake of asking him about football. Like most things in Sao
Paulo he was much larger than life, completely endearing and probably unique..But
Archimedes wasn’t always a happy man and even the casual visitor would
understand why when they saw the state of the roads. In a country
where superlatives need to be redefined to fully grasp conventional ideas
like distance and population the traffic in Sao Paulo city, is simply amazing.
If you aren’t inspired to visit the city for anything else go to see the
incredible traffic jams and be prepared to be amazed. |
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The first
impression one gets of the traffic in Sao Paulo is that something like
this could never have been planned and that the roads must have grown organically.
The second impression, and one that is best formed from the back seat of
a taxi, is that there is no way anyone sane would ever want to drive here.
Imagine multi-lane highways, flyovers, bypasses, tunnels and ring roads
all coming together in a symphony of chaos. And then people this landscape
with twice as many cars as you initially considered possible, driven by
highly strung speed freaks who all have the radio pumped up, the windows
down and their hand on the horn. Well, that is not Sao Paulo – its
no where even close to the chaos of the place. Quite frankly, its
indefinable and even a short taxi drive across the city can leave a grown
man crying. Of course, this only actually happens on the rare occasions
when the traffic isn’t impossibly snarled up – like 3 a.m. Saturday morning
when the traffic situation can safely be downgraded to mildly terrible.
I spent more time in the back of taxis stuck on Avenida Paulista then I
did in my hotel or at meetings. The person who links each cab to
the internet with video conferencing facilities will make a million in
the first week alone judging from the number of calls I made and received
along the lines of:
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‘Where
are you?’
‘Av. Paulista’
‘Me too, the
traffic is a nightmare.’
‘Oh, sorry,
shall we reschedule the meeting for next week then.’
But, despite
its frustrations, the thick cloud of pollution which hangs over the city,
the blaring car horns and driving which makes that famous scene in Gladiator
look like a Sunday school picnic, I have to confess that I love Sao Paulo.
I don’t quite know why, it must be something with the improbable energy
of the place and the fact that I felt that I lived more in one day in Sao
Paulo, then I do in a week in the small village where I live in Cambridge.
The only real problem I have with the city is that there is much to much
to see and do, and I ended up not really doing anything, as I spent so
much time trying to work out whether I wanted to see the Museum of Sacred
Art or the Museum of Modern Art. Even going to lunch was a problem,
as Sao Paulo must have the widest selection of great places to eat in South
America. If you want simple Brazilian food then you can swing a cat
for restaurants (though, perhaps that’s not the best analogy to use) but
if you want something rather more outlandish such as Mongolian bar-b-que,
deep fried Chinese chicken, sushi, tempura, a Portuguese stew or a all
singing all dancing buffet fit for a king then Sao Paulo is for you.
I lost count of the number of restaurants I tried in the week I was there,
but I had to go out and buy a new suit half way through the trip as the
old one had mysteriously shrunk. And the Paulistas love to eat, and
eat big. My problem was that all my potential clients wanted to take
me out and force-feed me steaks the size of paving slabs, which was good
the first couple of times it happened but after the third steak in a day
even my digestive system begins to break down a little. I think its
something to do with Brazilian government officials not being allowed to
claim for any meals that include alcohol or expenses and so they try to
woo potential clients with half a cow instead of the normal bottle of decent
brandy I tend to favour. |
| Brazil
has always had a boom to bust economy. The most famous example of this
was the rubber boom of 1900-1911. The center of the boom was in the Amazonian
city of Manaus, which had been a backwater until the demand for rubber,
due to urbanization, industrialization and the invention of the automobile,
skyrocketed in the early 20th century. Manaus has one of the most beautiful
opera houses in all South America and was the first city in Brazil to have
a phone system. In addition, there was an electrification grid for
a million people, Russian caviar, Danish butter and nightlife from Tangiers,
Cairo, Baghdad and New York. All within a stone's throw of the Amazon River. |
| In 1927
the desire for rubber brought Henry Ford to Brazil in order to build his
own country: Fordlandia. Fordlandia was four times the size of Rhode Island
and styled after small-town America with golf courses, swimming pools,
schools and square dances. Fordlandia was an attempt to bring the growing
of rubber trees directly under Ford's control. But the leaf blight disease
that destroyed rubber in Brazil killed off Ford's plantation and his mini-state.
(Photo: Old Sao Paulo) |
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It was after
one memorable meal which had actually begun as a late lunch, had slowly
degenerated into a full-blown dinner, before maturing into a midnight feast,
that I had an revelation – one of those rare moments which seem to justify
all the long hours hanging around airports and having to deal with stroppy
cabin crews and being away from home so much. I was crawling along
the magnificent Av. Paulista in the back of a taxi when the driver, for
no discernable reason, decided to take a short cut and swung a wild left
down a narrow side street and after a series of deft manoeuvres onto a
relatively unclogged highway. The sun had just set and most of the
city, due to the terrible energy crisis, was in darkness. The only
sign visible along the highway was a forty-foot blinking neon sign that
said, ‘NON STOP EROTIC BINGO’. By the time I had digested this information
we were already a long way down the road and it was too late to turn back
and investigate. Later I did manage to pick a friend’s brain on this
crucial matter. She told me that indeed I had not been mistaken and
that there was indeed a chain of non-stop erotic bingo halls dotted about
the city. She seemed less keen to take me to one and rather coy when
I asked her what exactly went on there. ‘Its just like normal bingo
you know, Philip. Now please grow up and get me a beer please.’
Of course I didn’t know and unfortunately run out of time on this particular
trip in which to find out – but I am sure it wasn’t full of purple rinsed
golden agers like bingo halls are back home. Perhaps one day I will
get the opportunity to return to Sao Paulo and find out more about this
important social phenomenon. I really hope I do..
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