sao paulo’s midnight murals and why i almost got arrested for painting a bus

i arrived here expecting chaos and got exactly that. not the nice planned chaos where everybody knows their place. the kind where a street artist shows up at 3am with a ladder and a can of spray paint. i was one of those places. let me tell you about it.

the weather? it’s 22.95°c right now. which sounds like a normal day until you realize the humidity is 85% and it smells like bread and regret. i just checked and it’s...there right now, hope you like that kind of thing. my camera battery died so i had to borrow mine from a guy on a motorbike. he was selling tamales. i hope he didn’t mind.

neighbors? forget about them. if you ask, people will say they don’t know who lives next door. which is true. most of them are ghosts. literally. i heard a neighbor upstairs whispering about a ‘demon cat’ last week. it was probably just a stray. or maybe not. who knows.

reviews? i overheard two tourists at a taverna last night saying the city’s best bread is at this tiny shop called ‘pão de'affaire.’ some locals argued. one of them claimed it was just a scam run by a former mayor. i don’t trust either. i tried it anyway. the bread was good. maybe.

let’s talk about the street art. i’m a street artist. well, i was. i got caught by this guy in a cop hat near the barranco. he screamed something about ‘vandalism’ and then left me a note that said ‘don’t paint my dog.’ it was signed with a paw print and a thumbs down. i painted over it. then i painted it again. now there’s a peace sign stuck to a lamppost. maybe that’s progress.

i tried to find a place to sleep. the hostel was booked. i ended up crashing at a friend’s loft. she’s a yoga instructor. which explains why she didn’t care when i ate breakfast in her living room with my pants off. she brought coffee. a lot of coffee. i’m a coffee snob now. i drank it straight. no milk. no sugar. just bitter and alive.

if you want to see the best of the city, don’t follow the maps. go to tripadvisor and yell at the locals. i used the app to find a ‘hidden’ market. turned out it was just a guy selling vintage t-shirts. his name was joão. he charged me in reais even though he said it was euros. i didn’t question it.%

here’s a map. it’s not pretty. it’s google.

i took some photos. mostly of the murals. one of them is this giant owl eating a taco. another is a mural of a man crying into a cactus. i’ll post them later. probably.

someone told me the city’s worst part is the traffic. i heard that from a drunk guy at a yoga class. he was yelling about how his bike got stuck in a cop line. it was probably a metaphor. i asked him if he wanted to write a play. he didn’t know what that was.

reviews again. i saw a post on a local forum saying the subway is haunted. someone claimed they saw a woman in a red dress at 2am. i checked it myself. no ghosts. just a woman in a red dress. probably a performance artist. or a crack addict. who knows.

the end? no. i still have that cop note haunting me. i might paint it again. maybe with a smiling dog. who knows.

if you get bored, other cities are just a short drive away. like buenos aires. or maybe that’s too far. i’m not sure. i need to sleep. and maybe wash my hands. the last thing i touched was a spray can.

links? try tripadvisor for the bird market. yelp for the poorly rated taxi service. google for ‘vintage clothes sao paulo’ because i’m pretty sure joão has more. and unsplash for the owl taco. it’s called ‘taco nazionale’ or something. probably not.

i left here with more questions than answers. and a lot of bread in my stomach. which is weird because i didn’t eat much. oh wait. i ate the bread. all of it.

p.s. if you see a street artist in rio de janeiro, tell them i said hi. probably.

p.p.s. the coffee was great.

p.p.p.s. i might need a shower.

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