What’s going on here? I’m ranking my experiences in the 20 countries I’ve been to so far. Nostalgia is going to drive these explanations a bit further than #20 – 11. From there on, each country gets its own mini expose starting with #10 – France and now it’s…

#9 – Brazil

Visited: São Paulo

Brazil at #9 is the first of two quick-fire short trips that completely smashed expectations. I was only there for a weekend, but it made a huge impression.

This trip was a sort of pilgrimage for me. I’m a lifelong F1 fan, and I grew up watching the old season review tapes and playing the video games. My favourite circuit? Interlagos, São Paulo.

São Paulo Brazil is nothing like Santa Cruz Bolivia, so this was the first big city in South American city I visited. Everything was new and unexplored, then I rocked up at the circuit in a country I’d been in for less than 24 hours and I knew exactly. where. I. was. It was such a weird and wonderful feeling. I’d driven this track virtually hundreds of times. It was a weird homecoming,

Add to this the feeling of my first live F1 experience. Interlagos is a great circuit to visit for F1 because you get to see pretty much the entire track (F1 fans, I was on the grandstand on the long straight after the Senna Ss). Well worth it.

But Brazil doesn’t take #9 just because a multi-national event visits every year. No, it takes #9 for the series of fortunate events that took place as soon as I arrived.

I posted on facebook asking for São Paulo recommendations before I flew, and to my surprise, an American friend I’d met in Tanzania happened to be traveling and couch-surfing at that moment. Did I want her to ask if I could stay with the same hosts if there’s a problem with my hostel? Well, yes I did. Especially when upon landing I found my hostel had indeed canceled my reservation last minute. Brazil basically tore apart my novice-level plans and rewrote my holiday better than I could have imagined it.

I made my way through the concrete jungle to their location and found myself in a cool arty flat with three Brazilians who could not have done more to make me feel welcome. “Oh cool you’re here for the race, yeah come stay with us. We’re catering a party tomorrow night after the race- want to meet us there?”. Yes. Yes, I did. That party turned out the be a hipster takeover of 3..or was it 4 floors of an old flat. Redecorated like an antique shop, roof terrace, my hosts catering up great food for everyone, and everyone inexplicably spoke English. I didn’t get much chance to see the city, but I had some landmarks pointed out to me from the rooftop. I couldn’t have planned it better.

Brazilian friendliness didn’t just run in this crowd either. A local on the metro wanted to make sure that I knew where I was going when I really didn’t think I was giving off a distressed look. The taxi driver to the airport may have weaved all over the road and I have a strong suspicion he was half-blind, but he kept conversation going all the way. The taxi driver in the city, even though we couldn’t speak a word in common, got me where I wanted to go smiling.

I haven’t yet been back, and part of me thinks that it’s because a new holiday would have to do a lot to match this first one. When you consider how massive Brazil is and how it borders the country I live in, it can’t be long until I start thinking about it again.

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I’m doing a 30 before 30 challenge. One of the targets was to take my country count up to 20 and I thought I’d mark that with this list of my experiences in the places I’ve traveled to. Here’s the whole list if you’re interested.