September, 2011: Santos, Sao Paulo, Brazil 可我不曾见过海洋

When I took the Chihuahua Pacific Express in Mexico, I couldn't go the whole hog to the Pacific coast. This time, in Brazil, I serious would like to get to the coast. But not the Pacific coast. Large as it is, Brazil does not have a Pacific coast, only the Atlanta coast of the other side of the continent. During my stay there, there was some controversy about a project to build a highway cutting through the Amazon forest from Brazil to the Pacific coast. Brazil was pouring money to her neighboring country for the project. Quite predictable, NGOs like Greenpeace were making noise about it.

I thought of going to Rio de Janeiro, to go for all the famous places there like Ipanema, and to check out the Cristo. But I was told a las minute plane ticket is going to cost me. So, I look to a nearest beach from Sao Paulo.

Sao Paulo city does not have its own coast, although the province does. The nearest city in the province with a coastline is Santos. I have heard of Santos back at both the Museum of Portuguese language and Museum of Japanese Immigrants. Santos is a port city and the very first place most immigrants to Brazil would have set food on. After their long oceanic journey, they landed on Santos. From Santos, they would then made their way inland to the jungle or plantations. When the railway were built, they would travel by trains to places like Jundiai or Sao Paulo. Well, some never made it: the diseases in the New World, those their body has no immunity against, would have kill them before they reach their destination.
It was sunny the whole week, but rain was forecasted for the weekend. I woke up to a sunny Sunday but late in the afternoon, the dark clouds were gathering. A rainy day isn't the best one to go to a beach, but what the hack, I pack and went anyway. I took the metro to the city long distance bus terminal. There was one whole row of ticket window, with a number of bus company basically offering the same services to similar destination. I pick the next bus that was leaving. And off I went to Santos.

The bus terminal was pretty close to the outskirt of the city, and a few turns within the city roads, we were on the highway. Most of the other passengers on the bus were wearing jaclet. I wondered why, then. One was actually reading a book on Acupunture.
We went past some big body of water, hill and valley, where the highway was actually above the treeline.
There was of course the favela. Favela seems to be found on every available hillside in Brazil because the hill slope they muchroomed on are quite worthless to their legal landowners. For housing development, the slope would need to be levelled, and that add cost. So landowners actually don't bother when the landless came in and squatted on the slope. As more came, favela community developed. If the landless and homeless also remain jobless, this favela becomes breeding ground of the criminal class. Rio is famous for them, the favelas that inspire movies like City of God, the ones the authority are now trying to clean up in preparation for Brazil's (the 'B' in BRIC) coming-out parties: World Cup 2014 and Olympics 2016.
The government Brazil actually has initiatives to clean up this favela, by financing the settlers to level the slopes and build highrise apartment. The condition is that these settlers would work for the projects. But, after some years, the well-meaning project now looks like flops. Settlers complaint that the apartment are too small, or they complain they can no longer rear livestock within the flats, when they could back in their favela times. Well, guess what they call such housing project?
Yes, Cingapura. I found out quite by accident. One Sao Paulo tabloid caught my attention with its front page. Not because of Justin Bieber with his lock that 'launch' a thousand teenage shriek, but because of the wrod 'Cingapura'. That Portuguese for SIngapore. With Cingapura and 'shopping' in the same headline, I assume Capitaland or Far East is in SP to build a mall (and you know if they build a mall, Charles and Keith, Old Chang Kee and Mr. Bean can't be far behind.) I check with a local. Nope, it says something like: shopping project driving old settlers from Cingapura, ie. cheap housing project for the poor. It remind me of a joke that HDB meant Highly Dangerous Buildings.
But I digress. Along the highway, the rain was gathering strenght, and the road gaining altitude. Very soon, the bus were winding up mountaneous road and ravine were right outside my bus window. With the rain coming down on the ainforest, the mist was raising, and soon the bus were shrouded in mist, and the visibilty outside my window was falling, I just hope the driver knows what he is doing.
After about an hour's ride, I started to see container on the side of the bus. We are closing in on a port city. The bus actually pass a Cristo statue with his arms outstretch, welcoming all into Santos city parameter. Too bad it was much shorter than the one in Rio, about a man's height, standing there on the road divider.
The first thing that greet you as you step off Santos' bus terminal is a wall of graffiti (actually, here in Brazil, graffiti are so well-done, they are more like mural).
This particular depicts what probably took pride of place in Santos: the favela, the tramline, the Santos football team (Neymar, one of the most promising young Samba star plays for Santos), and the beach. By now, the downpour is a drizzle, but it was cold now (at last I understand why everyone else were in a jacket). You are reminded that here in the southern hemisphere, Brazil is in its tailend of winter.
With the drizzle and the cold, I am not really in the mood for the beach, so I went in search of the tram.