This city is a MONSTER!
24 hours ago we left Rio to spend a weekend in SP, home to around 29 million people and the world's third biggest city.
It is so vast that I can't begin to get my head around the place. And so far it has shown to us a face that only a mother could love.
SP has many, many times more skyscrapers than any other city I know - in all directions are 30-40 storey towers as far as you can see. The view from Skye Lounge, last night's restaurant, was something else: across the treetops, a wall of massive skyscrapers and a million lights that went on for miles and miles. Manhattan cannot be compared.
And in this city, wealth, where it exists, is crassly thrust in your face. If I hear another roaring Lamborghini...
There is even a luxury department store, 'Daslu', which is so far up its retail an*s that it does not allow you to arrive by foot - but instead by car, taxi or helicopter. (As the city's roads become increasingly choked with traffic the super wealthy are taking to the skies. SP now has more private helicopters than Manhattan).
Our hotel, the beautiful Fasano, is an exception to this madness and possibly the finest city hotel I have ever stayed in. Discreet luxury is the name of the game here and the place is, thankfully, a calm oasis amid the chaos of this mega-city (see above).
Sao Paulo will be a difficult city to get to know at all, particularly in four days. But we're not really here to be charmed by the place, but instead for the superb food and legendary nightlife - supposedly some of the best on the planet. The Paulistas do not hold back.
(When the rain stops, pictures of the city will follow).
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