Sao Paulo

After a couple weeks at the beach, it was nice to arrive in Sao Paulo. The climate is for sure a bit cooler, around 80degrees when we arrived, and wearing jeans was actually in the cards for the evening! You can feel the enormous concentration of population especially on the metro which is super clean, fast and efficient. They have a sign that proudly claims 3 million passengers served daily in the metro system! The first highlight of the trip was seeing Zeca Pagodinho at the Credicardhall. It was so fun to get to see him again especially at a much nicer place than Brasileirinho where we had seen him in 2007. The band was big with 18+ musicians, and Zeca of course with his cervajinhas throughout the entire show! He even sent a beer back between songs because it wasn't cold enough, and announced it to the crowd!
The next highlight was playing in the roda do choro at Contemporanea on Saturday afternoon. I wasn't planning to play, but Arnaldinho called me into the roda, and I got to play a couple songs with his cavaquinho since I didn't have my instrument. It was unbelievable to get to play with these masters in Sao Paulo city with a pretty good size crowd.

Engenhoca

The one beach I kept hearing about in Itacare that is great for longboarding is Engenhoca. We decided to go with one of the tour companies because the taxi option wasn't that great from town. The great thing with the tour company is that you go in a Sprinter van, so I could take my SUP board inflated inside the van. It was another "20 minute" hike in to the beach from the parking, but this was not very steep, so no problem with the board inflated. The trail goes past a small waterfall, and winds past another small beach called Havaizinho. This is beautiful beach with an added bonus: Ice cold coconut water vendor! When we got down to Engenhoca, the tide was pretty low, and the waves looked great, so I headed out and had an amazing session. It is a beach break, but mellower than the other spots, and not as crowded, so it was for sure worth the travel. We also explored around by foot, and enjoyed the the Atlantic Rain Forest munching on ripe caja and other local fruit. On the way back we regrouped with the tour who were at Itacarezinho and stopped at Cachoeira da Usina to rinse off, swim, and get some beers. There is a restaurant right there at waterfall to get services!