São Paulo at last

The time between leaving NZ and arriving last night at the Pousada Dona Zilah in São Paulo is a bit of a blur really.  The LAN Chile flights were fantastic, the best economy class airline I've ever had the pleasure of travelling with (great cabin staff, leg room!!, good food, and an astonishing array of new and old movies, music etc. on the entertainment system), but getting to South America from the Antipodes is just long which ever way you slice it :-)

This morning I feel much better after some sleep in a bed ... this one.

São Paulo is noisy and busy, quite exciting really.  There are birds everywhere - the first I saw and identified were House Sparrows and Feral Pigeons, but hey it's a big city.  The first real bird was a Rufous-bellied Thrush (sabiá-de-laranjeiro) singing away on a powerline out front (ubiquitous I suspect), and there were flocks of small parrots of some kind roaring around over the traffic on Avenida Paulista - swallows, and various other LBJs.

Breakfast at Dona Zilah was excellent.  If this is the Brazilian standard, I like it.  About 10-15 kinds of bread, cakes, etc., with fruit, yoghurt, scrambled eggs, linguiça ... spiced coffee.  Last night I had a fish dish called Rudá with a kind of moqueca and banana farofa - fantastic.

I had my first foray out on to the Brazilian street this morning, and soon I'm off to the bus station by metro to get a bus to the conference venue in Campos do Jordão.  Next report from there ...