Following the Beat—
From Rio to São Paolo
Ipanema and Leblon beaches at sunset
David Bergman
Brazil is a country destined to be forever exotic to the
foreigner’s mind. It is a country the size of a continent
American traveler. Both highly attractive and deeply
with almost 200 million people. Culturally connected
intimidating, it is an undeniable pleasure to most peo-
to Portugal, it has moved far beyond it to become the
ple who visit it, and most visitors anticipate a return.
locus of the Portuguese-speaking universe. It is modern,
I went for the first time this past winter and spent two
dynamic, tropical, and powerful. It is industrialized
weeks in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo, two
and growing richer, but it is also poor and emerging.
tremendously different
Comparisons are problem-
places that together with
atic as Brazil does not look
their respective states oc-
to follow other countries. It
cupy a sliver of the
creates its own point of ref-
Brazilian coast and
erence and follows its own
leave the rest of the
beat, exuding its unique
country a virtual tropi-
culture with every breath.
cal wilderness.
Its warmth and music,
Yet Brazil is not a
wilderness except in a
São Paolo cityview
tastes and stories easily enchant and encourage you
to want more.
Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro has been around long enough to occupy
a distant place in our consciousness: it was founded in
1565 as an outpost on Portugal’s South American possession, intact and separate from the half of the continent owned by Spain. Some say it is the most beautiful
natural setting for a city, with its oddly shaped mountains,
lagoon, urban rainforest, and endless beaches. Maybe it is.
But to that you have to add its old colonial architecture
and futurist strivings, from the 1960s legacy of the modern to an accommodation with the twenty-first century
present. It is one of the great cities of South America.
The national capital until 1960, it continues as an industrial metropolis obsessed with soccer and beach culture.
Rio is a city of many assets, heart-wrenchingly beautiful
and endlessly compelling—a favorite tourist destination
for Brazilians.
Ipanema Beach and the Arpoador Rocks
which is bordered by the Lagoon district, the beach, and
the world-famous Copacabana beach. Ipanema boasts
some of Rio’s best restaurants and a good mix of accommodations; it is cosmopolitan, safe, and full of
friendly locals. Ipanema’s beach on a hot sunny day may
also be the best place to be in the entire city, if not the
hemisphere. Imagine a vast stretch of beach, full of all
sorts of people who are endlessly catered to by all types
of itinerant traders with all manner of food and drink,
often with unique and exotic flavors.
The Tijuca rainforest is the largest urban rainforest on the planet at
more than sixty-five square miles.
The city is serious about its music and musical history.
Many of the streets of Ipanema, a beachfront district, are
named after Brazil’s musical icons who developed truly
Brazilian musical forms like bossa nova and samba—
artists such as Vinicius de Moraes, who wrote “The Girl
from Ipanema.” Music and intellectuals and tanned bodies stirred for generations through the streets of Ipanema,
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An example of Beaux Arts architecture in downtown Rio
Copacabana is next to
Ipanema and, with its
massive crescent beach
fronted with a succession of hotels, is the
tourist showcase of Rio.
It is an exotic Miami
Beach that is so much
more entertaining as a
result of its intriguing
sights and sounds and
open people. Altogether, it’s a bit of a different crowd than
Ipanema’s, with more
Brazilian and international tourists and families. A day at the beach
in any of Rio’s southern
Christ the Redeemer atop
districts is always fun,
Corcovado Mountain
and you are once again
catered to endlessly. The network of streets behind Copacabana’s hotel strip offers some fascinating shops,
restaurants, and eateries. It is a district that will definitely
fill your senses. There are a number of other districts in
Rio’s fascinating southern zone that are well worth a visit,
such as Santa Teresa, Botafogo, the center, and Lapa,
with its lively samba scene every Friday night, all under
the watchful eye of Christ the Redeemer, the statue that
sits atop Corcovado Mountain and has become an icon
of the city.
is how easy it is to get to São Paolo. For a large city, it is
not unwieldy. As you drive along its hills, across its countless suburbs, and through its vast sprawl, it appears prosperous. The city’s favelas (slums) are very far away, ringing
its outskirts or tucked away, but they are there nonetheless. This is where Brazil as a leading industrial nation is
thriving. People work hard in São Paolo, a seriousness
that often contrasts with other parts of Brazil. They shop
a lot, their Portuguese is crisp but friendly, and they love
their nightlife. São Paolo is reputed to have the world’s
best nightlife, likened to that of New York in the 1970s.
It is also the cultural center of Brazil with countless theaters that dot the city.
The Jardins district and surrounding areas are the most
popular destinations for visitors and seem large enough
São Paolo
Looking down Avenue Paulista, Jardins district, São Paolo
São Paolo counts itself among the world’s top five most
populous cities, with more than 17 million people—perhaps 21 million when the greater region is considered. It
is huge, and it sprawls over rolling hills with three financial districts and growing. The city is very exciting, and as
one friend said to me, the best thing about living in Rio
to be cities in themselves. Avenue Paulista, a boulevard
reminiscent of Fifth Avenue in New York, cuts a swath
through the district. It is lined with restaurants, shops,
and malls, as well as interesting side streets with more
shops and restaurants and ultimately the spectacular
THE BAR ASSOCIATION OF SAN FRANCISCO SAN FRANCISCO ATTORNEY 61
In São Paolo and Rio, if not most large cities, you can
find just about any type of cuisine. However, given
Brazil’s unique flavors and traditions you may not want to
bother with the rest and just indulge in a purely Brazilian
culinary fest. Brazil comprises many regions with their
own unique cuisines. All draw on the foods available in
the country, from those harvested by European immigrants to a cornucopia collected from the Amazon forest
and fished from the Atlantic and the Amazon. Chefs
from the melting pots of culture in each of Brazil’s vari-
An elegant mansion in São Paolo’s Jardins district
MASP—Museu de Arte de São Paolo. São Paolo does
not begin and end with the Jardins, however; it has many
districts with unique and different characters, from the
old centro, with its colonial and modern buildings, to
Liberdade with the largest Japanese community outside
of Japan. And then there is the rich, lush, and tropical
Parque do Ibirapuera, a huge and magnificent urban park
in the middle of the concrete jungle.
Once you step back from São Paolo’s mass, industriousness, and the thought that it is one of the planet’s
largest cities, you realize that it is a terrific place. It’s no
wonder that almost every Paulista you will meet would
rather live there than anywhere else.
In between Rio and São Paolo lies a universe of colonial towns, beaches, and islands that are among the most
spectacular in all Brazil. The colonial towns are historically significant, and their settings are invariably beautiful
and exotic. Many coastal islands are run by the park service and are practically empty, but some, like Búzios, are
very popular. Compared to the rest of Brazil, the distance
between the two cities is small, say three hundred miles,
but it may take months to see it all.
Lagoa from Corcovado Mountain
ous regions are continually discovering new dishes from
their own land and experimenting to invent new ones. For
a traveler, the variety of new flavors and dishes to experience is as enticing as the beautiful bodies on the beach.
Brazilians are very warm and genuinely nice people,
and the streets and places where people congregate are
hospitable. I was lucky to experience two aspects of the
Brazilian character: the soft, enticing sensuality of tropical, beachfront Rio and the crisp, urban, progressive, and
postmodern São Paolo.
David Bergman is the director of advertising and publications for
The Bar Association of San Francisco. He can be reached at
[email protected].
Photos by David Bergman with the exception of Christ the Redeemer
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