Saturday, August 11- Arrival in Sao
Paolo
Our flight path out of Nova Iorque took
us
over the Atlantic, toward Bermuda, then south over the lesser antilles.
Overall flight time was 8:30, so we made Bermuda in 1:15.
Yes, they do speak Portuguese.
Headed for San Juan?
I slept for a while and woke up over the Amazon. Unfortunately it was overcast and the sun shone right in my window so I didn't get any real pictures of that.
We headed right for Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
You can see the overall route we took here. I believe we flew over Guyana before entering Brazil.
This is some of the better pictures of the rainforest areas approaching Brasilia - there are some lakes and straight lines which I think are indicative of irrigation ditches for farming.
This was a relatively major city/town northwest of Brasilia.
There were quite a few fires burning in some of the woods - clearing land for farming, perhaps?
Here are some shots of Brasilia. Look for the very tall apartment buildings & skyscrapers.
As we turned south, you could see pivot farming practices in use.
I just thought this was a cool shot, with the cloud front delineation.
I know this is blurry, but as we got close to Sao Paolo the flight tracking application crashed and displayed debugging code on screen.
Things started to get a lot more inhabited near Sao Paolo
Here's the city, there are some 20 million people in the area.
On final to Guarulhos airport, runway 9L.
After landing, we cleared customs without too much trouble. We had heard they fingerprinted US entrants but we did not experience this. My traveling partner found that his luggage went to London instead, so we were not free of problems. Here's the main building at GRU:
On the road north we passed many US and European industral concerns. Here's one. There's an animal laboratory next door. We presume it is easier to do testing here than in the US.
In the city there are many very tall apartment buildings. Here's a few:
I liked this picture because it shows 3 things that Brazilians seem to really like: Soccer (stadium), Jesus, and Churrascaria (barbecue).
An overpass over a river with more apartment complexes in the background:
Many of the commercial hauling trucks had these tubes attached to their wheels. We asked the driver and he said it's part of a system to regulate tire pressure, to allow increasing and decreasing as necessary.
An amusement park.
A way tall antenna and microwave relay tower.
A favela, which is a set of squatters buildings inhabited by the poorer people.
The roads are very well maintained, as you can see this is a 4-lane highway each way. Many American car manufacturers are represented, along with VW, Audi, Nissan, Fiat. Also saw a truck hauling a Ferrari 355.
Almost to the hotel...
Some farms outside of town.
At the hotel/resort it's very nice, the weather is beautiful, though it was somewhat cloudy on Saturday.
The electricity is 220 I think, and the outlets handle the US and Euro plugs just fine without an adapter:
Since CJ lost his luggage we went to the mall, and I got the price of gas for you guys, way expensive:
We ate here, well at the "express" version in the food court, while we waited for his clothes to be tailored.
The food court had a guy playing nice piano music. It all looked and smelled great.
The name of the mall is on the red sign, pronounced ee-gua-te-me.
I should have taken a picture before I ate, but we were hungry. It was 2 filet mignon medallions which had been wrapped in bacon before broiling, excellent white rice, fried polenta, salad, a pepsi, and a pureed fruit dipping sauce. CJ had another kind of steak and had beans which he said were outstanding. Each of these was about $10 (R$18).
We walked around the mall which had very high prices in the clothing stores. We didn't eat here, but I thought the idea of a mobile fondue kiosk was cool.
That was it. We took a taxi back to the hotel and had no ill effects, either from the travel, security, or the food. You can drink the water. So far, happy times in Brazil. See you tomorrow.
Overall flight time was 8:30, so we made Bermuda in 1:15.
Yes, they do speak Portuguese.
Headed for San Juan?
I slept for a while and woke up over the Amazon. Unfortunately it was overcast and the sun shone right in my window so I didn't get any real pictures of that.
We headed right for Brasilia, the capital of Brazil.
You can see the overall route we took here. I believe we flew over Guyana before entering Brazil.
This is some of the better pictures of the rainforest areas approaching Brasilia - there are some lakes and straight lines which I think are indicative of irrigation ditches for farming.
This was a relatively major city/town northwest of Brasilia.
There were quite a few fires burning in some of the woods - clearing land for farming, perhaps?
Here are some shots of Brasilia. Look for the very tall apartment buildings & skyscrapers.
As we turned south, you could see pivot farming practices in use.
I just thought this was a cool shot, with the cloud front delineation.
I know this is blurry, but as we got close to Sao Paolo the flight tracking application crashed and displayed debugging code on screen.
Things started to get a lot more inhabited near Sao Paolo
Here's the city, there are some 20 million people in the area.
On final to Guarulhos airport, runway 9L.
After landing, we cleared customs without too much trouble. We had heard they fingerprinted US entrants but we did not experience this. My traveling partner found that his luggage went to London instead, so we were not free of problems. Here's the main building at GRU:
On the road north we passed many US and European industral concerns. Here's one. There's an animal laboratory next door. We presume it is easier to do testing here than in the US.
In the city there are many very tall apartment buildings. Here's a few:
I liked this picture because it shows 3 things that Brazilians seem to really like: Soccer (stadium), Jesus, and Churrascaria (barbecue).
An overpass over a river with more apartment complexes in the background:
Many of the commercial hauling trucks had these tubes attached to their wheels. We asked the driver and he said it's part of a system to regulate tire pressure, to allow increasing and decreasing as necessary.
An amusement park.
A way tall antenna and microwave relay tower.
A favela, which is a set of squatters buildings inhabited by the poorer people.
The roads are very well maintained, as you can see this is a 4-lane highway each way. Many American car manufacturers are represented, along with VW, Audi, Nissan, Fiat. Also saw a truck hauling a Ferrari 355.
Almost to the hotel...
Some farms outside of town.
At the hotel/resort it's very nice, the weather is beautiful, though it was somewhat cloudy on Saturday.
The electricity is 220 I think, and the outlets handle the US and Euro plugs just fine without an adapter:
Since CJ lost his luggage we went to the mall, and I got the price of gas for you guys, way expensive:
We ate here, well at the "express" version in the food court, while we waited for his clothes to be tailored.
The food court had a guy playing nice piano music. It all looked and smelled great.
The name of the mall is on the red sign, pronounced ee-gua-te-me.
I should have taken a picture before I ate, but we were hungry. It was 2 filet mignon medallions which had been wrapped in bacon before broiling, excellent white rice, fried polenta, salad, a pepsi, and a pureed fruit dipping sauce. CJ had another kind of steak and had beans which he said were outstanding. Each of these was about $10 (R$18).
We walked around the mall which had very high prices in the clothing stores. We didn't eat here, but I thought the idea of a mobile fondue kiosk was cool.
That was it. We took a taxi back to the hotel and had no ill effects, either from the travel, security, or the food. You can drink the water. So far, happy times in Brazil. See you tomorrow.