Operations Uphill, Downhill and Convoy - São Paulo

Imigrantes Highway to the beach. Photo credit: globo.

I'm back in São Paulo after a truly relaxing and wonderful ten days at the beach. Okay, all of them were relaxing until the last one which involved of course packing, and also planning when to leave. The reality of visiting the coastline of São Paulo state during the week between Christmas and New Year's means strategizing on how best to get back to your home.

During the days after Christmas, almost 700,000 cars leave São Paulo, and head to the shoreline. There are four main highways that lead there, as I think I have covered in another post--Imigrates, Anchieta, Mogi-Bertioga and Tamoios. My favorite used to be Tamoios, which is a smaller highway that crosses from São Jose dos Campos to the shoreline. We used to be able to make the trip in 2 1/2 hours a decade ago. Now Tamoios is under construction (adding two lanes) and the trip has been more than four hours on the last attempt (some other poor souls spent 10 hours in traffic there during the November holiday). 
  Mogi-Bertioga is also an older smaller highway and we decided to bypass it. So that left us with Imigrantes or Anchieta. Anchieta is the oldest of the highways (built in the 1930s) and clings to the mountainside as it heads down through the Atlantic rain forest. Imigrantes is the superhighway built in 1974, and recently expanded with gorgeous high spans and huge tunnels, also connects Santos to São Paulo. Both are frequently stuffed full of cars as it is the most direct and easiest route to the beach. 

And here is where the fun begins--evaluating Operation Downhill. Wait...not yet. No fun. I must digress.

When I lived in Miami for six years (2002-2008), five hurricanes passed over South Florida including Katrina. It is one of the reasons I will never again live in South Florida, though I have good friends there and it's a nice place. When you live in any of the hurricane territory (Texas, Florida, the Carolinas, etc), you gain a whole vocabulary barely understood by those not in the know. You know about the clean side and the dirty side of a hurricane and which one you'd rather be on, you understand the "box" and you know the NOAA website like your own blog site.  That is hurricane savvy.

Here, you become Operation Downhill (or Uphill) savvy. Operação Descida is what the traffic police create when the majority of people are leaving São Paulo and descending the coast mountains to the beach. They reverse various lanes on Anchieta and Imigrantes (and Tamoios too but rarely). So, you come to know what is a 7 by 4, or a 6 by 3 or whatever. 

All you need to know about Uphill-Downhill. Folha de São Paulo.

Above is an illustration of the operation. On the top arrow-fest, you can see that Operation Downhill is at a 7x3 for the days after Christmas. This means seven lanes are heading down to the beach, and only three lanes are heading back to the capital. Anchieta highway has all lanes heading to the beach--you cannot get back to the city by Anchieta. Three of the lanes of Imigrantes are heading down and three are heading up. 

Which side would you rather be on? Yeah, me too.

 We took one of these three lanes yesterday--the trip wasn't too bad except for a fog situation at the top. Even with Operation Downhill, the traffic on the other side was terrible--because of the fog, the downhill run was also affected by Operation Convoy.

In Comboio (Convoy), the traffic is held right after the toll booth and cars from the traffic police lead each lane slowly through the fog. It is a giant parade, and not one in which you want to participate. I can imagine that the traffic to the beach was taking more than 3 hours on a normally hour-long ride. 

Operation Convoy. Photo credit: Estadão.

We got home in about 3 1/2 hours, which is a half-hour longer than the usual (now) three-hour ride. For those leaving the beach on Sunday, your Operation Uphill is 4 x 6. Good luck!

Everyone line up! We're going to the beach! - São Paulo

Just another holiday weekend. Photo credit: blogs.estadao.com.br

Three years ago, BH's parents sold their beach house which was in Guaecá (190 kms or 110 miles from São Paulo) on the São Sebastião shoreline. It was a tough decision, but the kids were not much using it, there was a pousada seemingly starting construction next door, and the traffic to get to the beach made it tough to make it doable in a weekend. It only made sense to visit if you were able to stay a week or more. We still do visit Guaecá but only during the week before the New Year's chaos (as opposed to our freezing northern hemisphere experiences, New Year's is hot beach weather here in the southern hemisphere).

To get to the São Paulo coastline beaches, you have basically four options of roadways: Tamoios (nightmare under construction), Imigrantes (nice but very busy), Anchieta (Imigrantes' predecessor that gets reversed in direction when things get busy) and Mogi-Bertioga (take a Dramamine and expect to wait when you get near Bertioga). Now what happens when 255,000 (estimated) tourists get on the road for a three day weekend? I think you can guess. I imagine it looks roughly like trying to get to Cape Cod from Boston, the Hamptons from New York and Key West from Miami.

From the spy cameras at DER. This is the return on Sunday, much lighter than the Friday traffic

It is easy to find yourself in a traffic nightmare on any given weekend you spend on the litoral norte (the north coast of São Paulo state). As I mentioned in a previous blog, a trip that used to take us 2 1/2 hours from Guaeca to São Paulo took us 4 1/2 hours on a regular two-day weekend. And you don't even want to think about a holiday weekend like this past one--Friday was Proclamation of the Republic Day, a day celebrated apparently mostly by the military, since I did not see anyone "celebrating" what the day meant (the overthrow of the monarchy in Brazil). Much like Memorial Day is celebrated by very few, in any meaningful way, in the US.

Now as an aside, I suggest the Brazil try to make a more fun holiday out of the Proclamation of the Republic Day. Instead of borrowing Halloween, why don't we have everyone dress up as their favorite monarchist? Dom Pedro, or Carlota or maybe the Bragança e Orleans folks (yes, we have some of the descendents still around in Brazil) don't even need to dress up! Maybe we could make it even international and we could have some Queen Elizabeths and King Wilhelms wandering about.  Then we could have a reenactment of the military overthrow (don't worry, it was peaceful, no one gets hurt like those Civil War enactments) and then hand out candy. It could work.

Anyway, digression done. It turns out that you have to be insane to try to go to a "nearby" beach on a holiday weekend. On our way out to the fazenda on Friday morning, we heard that some people had left at 3:30 am on that Friday, and at 11 am were still only 115 kms from São Paulo. This was on Radio SulAmerica, possibly the most-respected traffic source. And now coming back from the fazenda (there is no TV or internet there), we were hearing of people stuck in 5 hours or more of traffic on a normally one hour route.

As I sat down to my computer last night for the first time in days, I saw that prevailing advice was to leave at midnight or later if you were coming home from the beach. It's just not worth it. 

From today's Folha de São Paulo front cover: stuck in the tunnel from the beach

Hanging out on Rodovia Tamoios

The Way Life Should Be - Guaecá

Guaecá at low tide...the view towards Ilha Bela

I have to write this blog post hidden from my husband. He would not like people to know about the best-kept secret on the north coast of São Paulo state. Imagine a beach, 3 kilometers long with soft fluffy sand, no commercial business (that means not even a pousada/inn) and with views of Ilha Bela, the Alcatraz archipelego (now a national park) and the beach mountains that drop into the waves before the next more-famous beach of Toque-Toque (knock-knock). A family beach where he and his cousins run into each other unplanned, where summer friends of 30 years meet again, chubbier, wealthier and with onward generations of offspring. It is, my friends, a tiny paradise.

For thirty years my husband's family has had a beach house or vacationed almost exclusively at the beach called Guaecá, one of the beaches of São Sebastião municipality. At the risk of being accused of bad translation, I will comment that the name Guaecá seems to be from the Guarani Indian word for seagull. Please share any unhappiness with that translation here with another blogger.  There must have been more seagulls in the past because they are pretty hard to find now.

This past weekend which was the Independence Day holiday on Saturday we drove down with three other couples and our kids ranging from 18 months to 8 years. We shared a house of five bedrooms in one of the grassy "quadras" or blocks of Guaecá. And it is because of these quadras (and other delights) that Guaecá will always be the definition of São Paulo's most beautiful beach. Oh okay, Toque Toque people may apply for a tie, but only at sunset. Otherwise, we win.

Guaecá at sunset. Bring it, Toque-Toque (just beyond this mountain)

Here's what you do when you have a beach house in Guaecá. You get up, you wander out your back porch and onto the "gramado" or grassy area. You get dive-bombed by happy singing birds--the same ones that tried to wake you up at 5 am. Oh, okay, time for breakfast. Send off one of your crowd to Barequeçaba, the next beach down, to the famous padaria (bakery) to buy some still-warm French bread. In the high season, the line for bread stretches out the door and down the street.

One of the grassy quadras - in this case, Quadra 3

Sooner or later it is time to grab the beach chairs, beach blankets and the umbrellas and head out. The trail to the beach is paved with grass--at least in the middle section of Guaecá where there are 13 quadras laid out. This is the oldest part of Guaecá--once a large fazenda, these quadras were laid out in a miracle of effective beach planning. I say it is a miracle because you will note many São Paulo beaches are unplanned and even have illegal houses on the mountains, or invasions of roadside areas with small slums. The homeowner's association here is strong and resolute.

These 13 quadras form a closed community with no access to the public--and the only address you will ever use is "I'm in quadra 5, fourth house on the left, it's yellow. Or some long-time houses have nicknames: the academia (a modern structure that looks like a gym), the pousada (an enormous beachfront house--not actually a pousada), the Corinthians house (once owned by a Corinthians player and frequently filled with gorgeous people). 

Guaecá is unfriendly (geographically speaking) to day visitors who must use public access paths at either end of the 3 km beach, or at the "Avenida" which is the u-shaped parking area behind the police station that leads to a small but busy area of food and clothing vendors. When it gets to be the high season, you may have to wait a while for a pastel (fried yummy) filled with shrimp or palm hearts as the small tented vendor area is the only official "commerce" at the beach.

Which doesn't mean you go hungry, of course. If you sit around long enough in your beach chair, any number of vendors will venture by. I'm talking about high season--this past weekend we only got the peanut vendor, the cold coconut guy and the ice cream guy. But in high season, people will come by selling sandwiches, skewers of shrimp, delicious queijo coalho (that will take another post to cover, but it is basically charcoal roasted white cheese on a stick), corn on the cob, the ubiquitous ice cream, beer and any number of other yummies. You don't even need to move from your chair.

If you feel a burst of energy, you can do like the Brazilians do and play some fresco ball. I guess we would translate this as "smash ball" or "paddle ball." Two wooden racquets and a ball slightly bigger and squishier than a squash ball. Then stand three meters from your friend and smash a ball at him with a force that would definitely hurt if you got hit. Or you can kick a soccer ball, smack around a volleyball, play the Brazilian version of cricket, or go for a walk. 

Brazilians love to walk a beach. There is a constant stream of couples and girlfriends and teens and all kinds of groups walking up and down the long curved beach. Ah, I forgot to mention the curve. The delightful horseshoe curve of Guaecá--a curve that most people know will make Copacabana forever more beautiful than Leblon (cleanliness of water aside). 

Fresco ball, Havaianas, beach chairs and kids in the waves in the low tide calm. LOVE it.

Now I could go on forever about Guaecá and its history and my inlaws history there and our experiences trying to buy a house there and everything. But I've got a limited amount of time before my husband finds out I am telling people about this place. So let me tell you about Rocha. Some of you may think you know Rocha, but you don't. You know Rochinha, which is the brand that has made it farther into the interior of the state. No, Rocha lives on the São Sebastião coast line--and has just a couple of inroads into Ubatuba (also coastline) and Ilha Bela (that giant island off the coastline).

Rocha sells picolés on the beach (and scooped ice cream in its few stores). I really hesitate to translate picolés as popsicles because that brings to mind the American style popsicles with their chemical additives and unreal colors. No, these are different. They are made from water, fruit and sugar. That's it. Okay, the avocado, green corn and strawberry and guava have milk as well (maybe coconut has milk too, hmmmm). They seem like they might even be healthy. And that is why we eat four hundred of them in a week's time (big family). I even won a free one this time--once in a while the stick will show a "winner" of a free picolé!

Kids at the Rocha cart. We all scream for ice cream!

Rocha has been around since 1948. A family feud broke off Rochinha in 1994 and I suggest not getting confused between the two if you ever find yourself talking with the Rocha band of brothers. Most of the Rocha ice cream carts are yellow and red and my kids can see them approaching from 1 km distance. And they know the different ice cream men by name, as these guys know our kids. Our favorite ice cream guy is Ivã (Ivan), and he has been the ice cream man for our family for 35 years--my inlaws know him from when he was a skinny kid selling coconuts. Ivã is a smart man, friendly and patient with lunatic kids, and has gone from owning his own cart to owning eight of them and renting them out to other ice cream sellers. Some other time I will tell you about this franchise business--it's amazing.

Love and Devotion. My picolé of coconut, with pieces of coconut--yum!

Ivã was not there this past weekend--he now works only during high season. His brother João was also absent, so we had to make do with a "new" guy called Afonso. We started a "conta" or account with him, and he would just note down the quantity of picolés our group consumed and we would pay up at the end of the day. When we are at the beach at the end of the year, Ivã will sometimes keep an account open for days, not worried that we will pay him. That is what it is to have a beach where everybody knows your name.

Guaecá will be back in my blog. It is a magical and fun and wonderful place. I have many stories from my 15 years visiting there, not to mention stories of my inlaws from before that time. Now I want you to all forget what I have said and never ever visit there and fill up this quiet beach. It's terrible. Truly it is.