I have had a couple of requests:
Where exactly am I?
Can we have some pictures.

The first is easy: just click here. which will take you to Google Maps. You can zoom in and out by clicking on the + and – signs on the left. You can drag the map in any direction to see the surroundng area. Double click any point on the map to zoom in with that point in the centre of the new map.

The camera has not been out of the bag much but I have taken a few snaps and ran the Photoshop “Make my crappy picture look great” button. I will try to get some better pics.

In the meantime here is Flavia’s apartment and the beach a couple of minutes away.

If you want to see some much better pictures take a look at this page There are a lot of quite good quality pictures so do not bother to try if you do not have broadband.

So often when you have known a person or a place for a long time you forget what you thought about it at the beginning. I am going to try to capture my first impressions here and then try to see how valid they are at the end of four months when I go home.

The first thing that I noticed is that not much is different from what I am used to in Spain. It is modern, mostly people live in apartments, parking is difficult, the roads are pretty good except where they are very bad. There are lots of familiar names like Telefónica and Banco Santander. The cars tend to be the smaller European and oriental models although I have not seen any large expensive status symbol cars. It may be different inland but there is very little sign of the third world.

The people are not what expected. I imagined excitable, emotional, hand waving latins with a tendency to exaggerate and to start dancing a samba whenever they can. Flavia is the only one I have found (apart from the samba). Brazilians seem to be very polite, a bit formal, smile a lot, drive well, and wear shorts and t-shirts. There seem to be lots of rules and regulations, often just social customs, which mostly are observed.

There are fewer black people that I was expecting. They tend to look less prosperous than the white people. It is hard to work out the origins of many but a lot seem to have a little bit of everything in their blood. Flavia says I am wrong but I have not noticed much mixing apart from the children. People socialising seem to be with those of a similar ethnic background.

Praia da Costa is part of Vila Velha and is a very nice seaside area which has a lot in common with Fuengirola. The main difference is that the beach and seafront is used mostly by locals which means that there are not many hotels and restaurants. This does not mean that the beaches are empty – the Brazilians are fanatical about going to the beach. They have built high rise apartments blocks close to the beach which block the sun by mid-afternoon.

Vitória is 15 minutes away across a very large toll bridge. It is an island and the State Capital of Espírito Santo. The centre looks like a tired old lady. I could see that it was once an important city but it seems to be in the process of being abandoned. Residents and businesses have relocated and the city centre is decaying gracefully. I guess that it is more profitable to develop virgin land on the mainland than redevelop.

Other quick thoughts:
We rich Europeans cannot afford to have a maid, have your car washed by hand, have an attendant in an elevator, employ a petrol pump attendant, repair a TV etc. All these things are common here with Brazil’s much lower wages.

On the other hand so many things seem to be very expensive – far more than in Europe. Cars, computers, internet, any luxury item and anything imported. There seem to be plenty of shops with extremely expensive home furnishings, kitchen equipment and branded clothing. I think that those who are poor are very poor and those with money have a lot.

Supermarkets only sell food and cleaning stuff. I have become used to buying clothing, electrical goods, shoes, computer peripherals, DIY materials etc and find it a bit strange to visit a dozen shops to achieve what I can usually do in one.

Bikinis are very small indeed Topless is illegal

There is an unpleasant black dust everywhere. The export of iron ore is a major industry and there are seven pelletising plants in Vitória that pollute everything.

The weather is wonderful. Hot without being oppressive and not too humid. Of course it is winter here.

The University here is a privately owned business. To a European that seems very strange.

So, I am off to Brazil. Half an hour to get to Woking station, an hour on the bus to Heathrow Terminal 5, 20 minutes to get a shuttle bus to terminal 4, 45 minutes to check in and go through security and over two hours to wonder why British Airways make you check in three hours before the flight.

The flight started on time at 21.45 British time and 11 mind-numbing hours later we were over São Paulo. We could not see much as Guarulhos Airport was closed due to fog. 90 minutes later it was clear enough to land. Customs and Immigration was a breeze and my case came out in record time and I was back on schedule to catch my connecting flight to Vitória.

Check-in was easy and there was no problem with my vast amount of luggage and duty free shopping. Unfortunately there was a problem with the flight. Ten minutes after departure time they announced a four hour delay.The regulars reckoned that it was because there were not enough bookings and that they were merging two flights. Nobody bothered to tell me that the new flight was from Congonhas Airport an hour away by bus.

Looking up from my crossword I noticed the passengers drifiting away. I asked what was going on and was told to collect my baggage and go to the coach to Congonhas. This was an interesting ride as it was my first sight of Brazil and I was in Brazil´s biggest city. Greater São Paulo has a population of nearly 20 million and is the third biggest Metropolitan area in the Americas (after Mexico City and New York).

My first impressions were that it looked quite prosperous, the driving was disciplined (apart from the motor bikes), crash helmets are worn by all motor cyclists, the roads were good, there were no dangerous looking wrecks on the road. In fact if I had been told that I was back in Spain I would not have been surprised.

So another check-in and the fight was on time – well that is what they told me. Ten minutes after departure time they announced a one hour delay which, in fact was 90 minutes. I spent the time trying to invent a better Acronym for the TAM airline. Twist and manipulate. Terrifying Accident M?? Travellers are martyrs. TAM are misanthropes. I settled for Take-off a miracle. Seriously, the flight was OK, the food dreadful and my main concern was the very poor communications with the passengers.

28 hours after setting out I arrived in Vitória where Flavia was waiting at the airport. She had had the same difficuties tryng to find out what was happening. Ten minutes after I left the plane we went to the car park. I like small airports.

4PM local time and I had to stay awake as long as possible to reduce jet lag. Not hard to do with Flavia, we went shopping.