SP Trip Report, Day 1, Part 1 - Logistics & Tangara.
Arrived in Sao Paulo on Sunday AM from my overnight flight. Having read earlier reports, I knew to head to the departures area to find the Uber stand, so I headed upstairs and was able to find it without any difficulty. However, the Uber app would not let me request a car using either my cell phone number or Google Voice number, presumably because those were non-local numbers. After trying to get that to work for a few minutes, I eventually gave up and used Guarocoop taxi. It was expensive (R160 to my hotel in Moema), but since I didn't have any other options, I took it. Luckily, my hotel had a room available early, so I was able to get some sleep to compensate for my lack of sleep on the plane.
I set my alarm for 2 pm so I could get to the mall Shopping Ibirapuera when it opened to get my cell phone sorted out. I found the mall rather confusing. Having read earlier posts, I was trying to find the Vivo on the 3rd floor. I ended up at the Vivo on the 2nd floor, and they just told me that I couldn't get a SIM card without Brazilian papers. I went up another floor and eventually found the other Vivo store. There was a queue, so I took a number and waited until I was called. Although the person helping me didn't speak either of my languages (English or Spanish), we got by with some of my poor Portunol and Google Translate, and I did eventually get a SIM card (R15) and a 2 GB data plan that lasts one week (R12). Including the wait time, that took around 45 minutes. I headed back downstairs and found the Banco Santander on the first floor. Again, having read earlier posts, I knew that not all of the ATM machines would work with my foreign ATM card, but I eventually found one that did (the second from the left, I believe). I then grabbed a quick lunch at the mall (there a lot of good options there).
After lunch, I summoned an Uber car to take me to Clinica Tangara. For some reason, the Uber app would not work with my credit card, so I decided to pay in cash instead, which you can do in Brazil. In retrospect, I think that's the way to go, since it costs the same and eliminates all of the small Uber transactions from your credit card bill (which at least gets rid of an annoyance and is good for those requiring discretion).
I got to Tangara around 4 pm. As others have said, the building is pretty nondescript from the outside, just a blue door and gate in a stone wall. Inside it is also nondescript but is clean enough, and the management is very kind and friendly. Although the manager and desk person that day did not speak English, they had some English-speaking regulars check on me from time to time to make sure that I was okay. Every time a new man arrived, the manager had the girls come and introduce themselves. There were around 25 girls, but because it was relatively late in the day, there were also a lot of men waiting. I'm pretty picky (especially with the face), but for me the girls ranged from 3-4/10 on the low end to 7/10 on the high end with most in the middle. There were 3 girls I was considering, but one seemed a bit cold, one seemed annoyed when she was dealing with another English-speaking client, and the last seemed to be having a bad day and was not in a good mood. So once it started getting dark around 6:30 pm, I decided to leave without taking a girl to the room. (FYI, Tangara closes at 8 pm on Sunday).
More to come.
