Jose’s Sampa cycle and footy tour

I’ve been staying with another fantastic Couchsurfing host Luiz but while he’s been at work I’ve spent most of my two days in Sampa (aka Sao Paulo) cycling around with José Renato Bergo, a very cool local guy with “fifteen years of experience in directing, producing and coordinating audiovisual media projects”, and currently that means making a documentary about city cycling in Brazil. So as well as showing me around with some fun biking, he’s been filming me and Luis (that’s my bike, for the new blog followers) in all the best looking places in the city centre!

We also went to the Estádio do Pacaembu on Weds night to see Corinthians play, and yesterday afternoon visited the Arena de Sao Paulo which will host the opening match of the World Cup as well as England v Uruguay, amongst other games, provided they finish building it in time!

I’ll let the (many) pictures and (couple of) videos tell more of the story…

Weds 5th:

Sampa street art

Following Jose

We stopped at the Pacaembu to buy footy tickets

Aro 27 Bike Cafe

A Pashley – from England!

They have showers so people can commute into the city and leave their bike here during the day

From Aro 27 I walked to the nearby British Consulate to meet Barbara Taborda Reis who’s the Communications & Public Diplomacy Manager and she and colleague Beatriz Correa took some photos and video of me for a press release, more on that when I get it.

Las Magrelas Bar e Bicicletaria

The bar upstairs

Crazy bike that this guy designed & made!

Me and Jose outside the Pacaembu

Thurs 6th:

View from the roof of Luiz’s apartment building

Time for a morning swim

After lunch and more filming with Jose we locked our bikes in a metro station and headed to the WC stadium…

Locals surveying some of the ongoing building work

Arena de Sao Paulo (view from the metro station)

We walked across part of the building site to get a better view of the stadium

Wherever there’s people there’s someone selling drinks, this time from a car boot!

Similar to Curitiba, there’s a LOT still to do here

The England/Brazil shirt in Sao Paulo

Spot the damage where a crane collapsed back in Nov

I got onto the pitch! Not. It’s a poster in the metro station.

PS. I’m heading to Santos today but sad to say I’ll be getting bus rather than cycling since recently there’s been several bike thefts on the road I’d need to take, and so it’s just not worth any risk.