This extra day at Sao Paulo was used to visit the Afro-Brazil Museum, the huge Japanese section of town and the Botanical Garden, plus meals, of course. From the museum, we find that some 11 million Africans were transported to the Americas with 4.5-5 million each to the Caribbean and Brazil. Only .4-.5 million went to the US and an equal number to Mexico, Central America and other parts of So. America. They were put to work mainly in plantations, as they were able to cope with tropical diseases, unlike the indigenous people. Their full legal emancipation in Brazil was in 1888. There is no overt (legal) discrimination in Brazil. Nevertheless, on the drive to the Botanical Garden, the homeless people taking shelter under bridges and between the highways and rivers were mos
tly black.I am charmed to hear clearly Japanese descendants speak Portuguese. Sao has the largest Japanese population outside of Japan. We had to see it in honor of Kuni Murai. The grocery stores carried excellent looking produce. We had “ramen” or in an experimental “lamen” restaurant. We could have been on Sawtelle in West LA.
The highlight of the botanical garden was the long walk through the undisturbed rain forest that preceded Sao. See pictures. We were hoping to see more on the Umbrella pines, but this garden featured more Amazon & international flora. It was very peaceful.
The lengthy drive through Sao with a fluent English speaker was most informative. The Cayenne arrived fully repaired and clean with just a minor scratch on top of the rear hatch. It has been a pleasure being stranded here. We met Mina & Chris after dinner at the fabulous Figueira
Rubiat Restaurant and with a lot of laughter we drove to “Vipiteno” for the best gelato I have had on this trip. We came up to our suite for tastes of Glenroth & Bunnahabin 18 yr old single malts. I am adding Minas to the single malt aficionado list, right along with Eduardo Sr.
No comments:
Post a Comment