Free for all - São Paulo

No, not the kind you are thinking. A free for all of cars. The traffic lights were out for no apparent reason on Praça Panamericana, a fairly large traffic circle near me. This is when it is literally a free for all as everyone just blasts through the intersection. It is when I am happy that my car (okay BH's car) is bigger than everyone else's car. I say: come and get us, teeny-tinies.

And by the way, if you don't blast through, you are likely to be rear-ended. Welcome to São Paulo!

Country roads - Weston, Massachusetts

It's really hard to spell Massachusetts. I have never noticed before trying to find a house here. It seems to want another "s". In any case, as you can tell from my short blogs, I am running around like a chicken from one end of Boston to another to try to find the perfect house. Well, I was running until around 5 pm yesterday. Then the country road traffic got me.

One of the favorite complaints of the expatriate in São Paulo is how bad the traffic is. Guess what? It's bad everywhere. This is the view from the front of the rental car (sorry, no time to edit out my finger in the shot) as I try to get to northern Weston from Waltham. Stop and go traffic, one lane. What's the deal? A badly planned left turn stops up traffic for almost two miles. Traffic is, as they say, everywhere.

On the bright side, the views are nice in Weston.

Just another day in the car - São Paulo

Here's the view out the front of the monster truck Volvo as I take it to be fixed for the 40000000th time. 

This is on the Marginal Pinheiros, the ring road of seven lanes, more or less, depending on the region you're in. It's pretty much a normal morning at 10 am...stop-start traffic...though there is a singular lack of motoboys in this shot (not normal). 

That huge wall to the right hides the view to the Jockey Club, the large horse-racing facility that somehow hangs on to some prime real estate in spite of owing millions to the city.

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

Red Light, Green Light, No Light...GO! - São Paulo

AGH!

I am from Connecticut. Okay, so I was born in NYC and grew up until age 8 in suburban New York, but the fact of the matter is that I learned my driving skills in Connecticut. The nice part. The part where you get to a four-way stop sign and you wave each other to go first. You all four sit there and wave at each other for 15 seconds before you all start at once, then stop and wave at each other again. This can go on for hours. It is why nothing actually gets done in Connecticut. We are all sitting at four-way stops. Think of how the economy would burst ahead if we could put in rotaries.

For six years in the early 2000s, I lived in Miami. Now Miami is punk (prounounced "punky" in Portuguese) at four way intersections. You just assume no one will let you go so you go first. During the several hurricane powerouts that we had during the time I lived there, it was a complete free-for-all. So much for the Florida law that says in case of a power out of the stoplights, it is a four-way stop. No, it was a four way GO! Normally gridlock would ensue quickly.

São Paulo channels more Miami than Connecticut (shocking, right?). Yesterday we had a huge thunderstorm and pouring rain. I knew traffic would be crazy and left early with the kids for school. All of the stoplights were working except for one minor set -- meaning the cross traffic is virtually non-existent at that intersection. We got by with no problems.

On the way back from dropping the kids, I went a different route. Mostly okay except for one very busy intersection with a broken stoplight, which was unmonitored by the traffic cops. In fact, 96 stoplights were out around the city from the storm (it really doesn't matter if they are flashing yellow or just out--it means the same thing to the lunatics here--go faster!). 

So after waiting a while for my turn, I see how this is going to work. Basically one direction has right of way until the cross traffic gets fed up and all jumps into the intersection at the same time. Hopefully led by a large bus to protect your sides. When it was my turn, I cautiously stuck my nose in, some cars stopped, others skidded almost into their neighbor's front grill, and I was almost across when a Toyota Hilux (the US 4runner) barreled through at around 40 mph and just narrowly missed my front end. And beeped at me! Because clearly my cautious approach was ridiculous! Dangerous! 

Just another day living in traffic paradise.

Expect the Unexpected- Perus, São Paulo

This is the sunset near Campo Limpo Paulista (Clean São Paulo Field--seriously could there be a less interesting name for a town? Also untruthful--it's quite dusty) on our way home from the fazenda on Sunday. Yes, those are indeed dead bugs in the windscreen. Still, it's nice, right? We were coming back a little later than usual because our friends had gotten a flat tire (it rather seemed that the tire had exploded in several places) as we left the driveway. Or, as I have learned to say here: "Aconteceu um imprevisto" (Something unexpected happened")

Now just to digress a bit, I have to tell you that the "Aconteceu um imprevisto" phrase is one of my favorites. It can be used for anything: "I'm sorry I'm late to the meeting, but aconteceu um imprevisto" which in this case might be "I slept late because I drank too much last night" or "I forgot to wear clothes until I got halfway here" or any other number of unexpected occurrences. Or it could even mean "I just really didn't feel like being here." So, something unexpected happened. I personally had nothing to do with it. The speaker has accepted no blame whatsoever. It happened to me.

Sunday's trip was filled with the unexpected. About 20 miles from the city, a major traffic jam cropped up from an accident 2 miles ahead. According to waze (one of my favorite new toys), the average speed to get to the accident site and beyond was around 2 miles an hour. An hour more to home with two cranky hungry six-year olds in the back.

So we opened up the car's gps (maps unrenewed for five years) and decided to hightail it off the highway in Perus, a district on the north side of São Paulo. It's now dark, but as my husband shrugs and says to me "well, we're bulletproof." It's always nice to start off an adventure this way--"at least we're bulletproof." So we wandered about in the dark, him following the gps, and me arguing for the route shown by waze. And we ended up following neither one and visited some interesting parts of the backside of the Pico do Jaraguá, São Paulo's highest peak. Hiking that one is on my bucket list--how can you resist a mountain named "Lord of the Valley" in the Tupi language?

Sunny days at the Pico do Jaraguá

In other helpful advice, I will tell you that the Estrada Jundiaí-São Paulo does not, in fact, link Jundiaí with São Paulo. At least since the Rodoanel (Ring Road) was built. So you're going to want to trust waze on that, not your ancient gps. Or take a side trip to the mountain. Aconteceu um imprevisto...