Good morning and welcome back to São Paulo here, biggest city in the Southern Hemisphere.
Today we're leaving São Paulo, we're going to head up the coast towards Rio.
But we're going to be stopping it, in fishing settlements, things like that.
But just before we go, I just flew the drone,
we went closer to one of the biggest favelas in São Paulo, and we flew the drone over,
and I think it's really interesting because you can see these super rich neighborhoods around
with swimming pools and really kind of extravagant luxury apartments
and then next door you have the huge sprawl of favelas which is informal housing.
We'll get on the road and drive towards the coast.
Really beautiful to be in Brazil, you can see the sky, sun is shining.
We've come to the airport, we're picking up a rental car,
we're heading south, to a city on the coast, like a fishing...
I think it's the main port of Brazil actually, so we're going to see who we can meet there.
We're picking up a little... Cute little rental car with my buddy Diego here.
So let's go!
We're heading towards Rio today, so we'll see how far we get,
we might spend a night somewhere, but just going with the flow
Super cute.
So, we've been driving from São Paulo, we've gone through some big tunnels
and we've just pulled off because there's this valley here and it's actually got a nickname, Valley of the ——.
In the 1980s, as you can see this huge chemical power plants around here,
in the 1980s this was one of the most polluted cities on the planet and it was known, being called, Valley of the ——
because there were many —— children being born here from chemical pollution and infection and things.
And is this place famous in Brazil, Diego?
It is, for the pollution.
Pollution, right.
It's, quite famous.
And they spent 1.2 billion dollars apparently on trying to decontaminate,
but there's still thick pollution here right? Like the soil and the water systems.
Yeah, apparently the pollution in the air has improved a lot.
Right.
But the soil and the water, not as much as needed.
But they're still running all the factories and things? Yeah.
So, in 1984 on the 25th of February a huge explosion —— over 500 people here,
many young children were included in that number.
It was said that the —— count was actually much higher than 500
because so many bodies were essentially cremated in the explosion.
So this is basically the Latin American Chernobyl
and it happened two years before Chernobyl happened in Ukraine.
Approximately 9000 people had set up, makeshift homes on land that was owned by Petrobras,
a company still operating in this area, owned by the government.
Gas pipelines operated by Petrobras ran next to the slum,
when workers opened the wrong pipeline on February 24, 1984
highly combustible octane gas poured into the ditches of this neighborhood.
Soon after midnight an explosion was sparked, a fireball ripped through this favela,
some homes were literally thrown hundreds of feet into the air, others were instantly incinerated.
The temperature at the heat of the fireball was estimated at 1800 degrees Fahrenheit.
A day later only 86 bodies had been recovered, none of the remains were children below the age of seven.
Investigators later found that more than 300 children aged three to six
had enrolled in a local school prior to the explosion
and that only 60 were known to be alive.
Because entire families were wiped out, there was no one to report the children's —— or disappearance.
It was believed more than 500 were ——, possibly more.
The place definitely had a strange air to it, you could feel, it was quite a dark energy.
Explosions have happened again in more recent times, in 2017 another explosion took place.
Huge atmosphere here, and there's this kind of strange old memorial here
and they've got depictions of the Indigenous people fighting the Portuguese.
And so, this statue here is it considered something positive
or is trying to shine a light on something that was a dark times?
Hard to tell. Right.
That's the feeling I get, I'm not sure if it's a good thing or not.
It's quite hard to tell.
Brazil has heaps of oil?
Oh, it does, it does, but it's hard to extract because it's deep in the ocean.
Right.
And far from the shore, but Petrobras has a lot of technology for extracting deep water oil.
So all this stretch on the East Coast of Brazil is full of oil.
So, we've just arrived in Santos, which is the...
Actually, you can see the port buildings behind me,
some big cranes and then some older buildings there.
This is actually the largest port in the whole of Latin America, so it's quite a substantial landmark.
But the streets are very interesting, you can see that looks like a tram
from Lisbon or something and the buildings are very, very Portuguese.
What are these eggs all about, Diego?
They refer to two common expressions in Portuguese,
the one on the left "Tamo Frito" means we are in trouble
and the one on the right "Tamo Cozido" means we are drunk, really drunk.
Some of the buildings are really beautifully maintained, you can see they've got fresh paint
and then, other ones are just the shell of the building with drunk eggs on them.
So, we've come to this vantage point and you can see how huge the port area is here.
There's dockyards over there, and then these massive ships and apparently that's an island over there.
This ferry here goes between here the mainland and then the island over there.
Biggest port in Latin America.
So, this is the terminal of a huge orange juice company,
here Brazil is the largest producer or the largest exporter of orange juice,
so, these pipelines are flowing with orange juice to be exported.
That's a lot of oranges juice.
Yeah, it is.
And where does it mainly go, Europe, US?
Mainly Europe, not US because Florida in the US, they grow a lot of orange, right
so they have a non-trading kind of law that...
So, there's like orange juice gangs and then they're like,
this is my turf and you can't sell orange juice here.
Okay, so it's actually the following morning.
Yesterday we went a bit deeper into Santos, here's a few clips of it, so you can see,
it's actually got an extremely bustling beach scene, it was absolutely packed,
so I think that's a lot of local tourists and things going there.
But then I didn't film too much more because we had to drive six hours
and we didn't get to this location which is Paraty until after midnight.
We were driving through crazy thunder and lightning storms and it was raining torrentially.
This town is really beautiful, it was founded in like 1600, so it's super old.
Very, very beautiful, very quaint.
You can see the cobblestone streets or even rock streets.
Just spent the night here, but we're going to go up the coast, we're going to Rio today.
It's going to be amazing, it's a lifelong dream to go there, I think for many people.
On the way, we're going to stop into some settlements, try and meet some locals,
maybe some fishermen, some people going about their daily lives and find out what it's like to live here.
So, let's go!
Okay, so we've just come down to the fishing area where all the fishing boats are lined up
and we've met a nice gentleman here.
He was born and raised in here, he was a fisherman, but he got injured,
he fell, he can't work anymore, so he comes here to hang out.
Does he miss fishing a lot?
He misses fishing, he said his problem is his back, if his back was okay
he would go back fishing because it's good for money.
What's the best part about living in Brazil?
The best of Brazil is Paraty, he said, this place here,
when you take a boat and you go visit the beaches and see the dolphins,
the fishermen villages, you fall in love and you end up staying.
And what's the worst part about living in Brazil?
The worst of Brazil are the big cities, Rio and São Paulo,
life is just easy if you come to small places like this.
That's what he was saying, but in big cities you get —— and it's just bad.
So, Manuel what are you... what are you doing today?
That's his boat, he's finished fishing for today.
Okay.
And he's taking care of it.
So, he doesn't fish fish, he fishes shrimp.
Shrimp?
Yeah.
And did you catch many shrimp today?
Not so much, it's almost at the end of the season for shrimp.
During the off season they receive a benefit from the government, it's one minimum wage per month.
The quantity of shrimp is still the same, what has changed is the quantity of boats fishing.
Are you happy and content in Parity here?
The best place in the world is here, everything is so easy, everything is...
He has access to everything, because there are people from everywhere,
so he meets people from all around the world here.
He used to live in an island, but 40 years back he moved
to the main city because he didn't have electric power there,
that's why him and his family immigrated to the island.
All right, electricity?
For electricity, yeah.
Beautiful.
So, something very interesting about Paraty is it was actually isolated for a hundred years.
So, in the 18th century the port of Paraty was an important outlet for gold and precious stones
brought on horseback from other areas of Brazil to be shipped to Portugal.
However, constant pirate attacks led to abandoning this gold route, resulting in great economic isolation.
So, lots of the buildings, the culture and the lifestyle in Paraty was somewhat isolated.
So, it's got kind of its own thing going on, it's very unique and special,
you can see the roads and the colonial buildings are very much quite well maintained.
They've got local dances and culture, that is very, very unique to this area, absolutely beautiful.
Back to the beautiful car, the kwid.
So, we've just pulled off the side of the highway on the way to Rio here
and we've stopped in this beautiful little bay area,
like a quaint little kind of fishing village.
So, we're gonna meet some of the fishermen.
So, Carlos, what time did you start?
Yesterday, 6pm.
All night fishing?
So, he fishes shrimp as well and he's selling over there, that's what they're doing over there.
All right, good catch?
250 kilos, so it was a good catch.
He lives near Rio, the city.
Okay.
And he travels here, to fish here.
Usually he doesn't fish on weekends,
during the weekend they do barbecues with the family, they rest, they go to waterfalls.
He fishes since he was 7 and now he's 44, he says he lives in the sea and he takes vacation on the land.
Okay.
So, is this your boat here?
That's his boat over there, the blue and white one.
He has had boats in multiple places.
So you travel all around Brazil?
Before he was a truck driver, so he has traveled entire Brazil as a truck driver, and now as a fisherman.
What's better, fishing or truck driving?
He likes both, but lately the truck driving is not giving him much money, so he prefers the fishing right now.
If you could say one thing to the world about Brazil, what would that be?
It's a wonderful country, it's a wonderful land, some people are not that wonderful
or not that nice, especially the politicians.
So, we finally made it to Rio, here we are in Copacabana Beach, world famous.
The city is something I wanted to see my entire life.
Several hours later after the fishing villages, we've arrived.
We tried, I really wanted to finish it on the Jesus Christ statue,
up near Sugarloaf Mountain which is over there.
We got there like three minutes after they closed the tram up to the top,
so came here, it's not too bad, finishing the day here.
Amazing driving from São Paulo to Rio, the two biggest cities in Brazil.
Meeting people along the way, seeing the different aspects,
we saw nice parts of the country and then also the kind of more rugged parts,
like the power plants there and the chemical plants.
I hope you enjoyed that video, in the next video we're going to be going into the favelas actually
the famous Rio favelas, which is like, I think the biggest in Latin America, one of the biggest in Latin America
and I was in Petare in Caracas, Venezuela, that's also one of the biggest
but this is another bigger one and this is probably the world famous favela.
So, it's going to be intense but I hope you'll join me for that and this country is insane,
driving into Rio, very rugged on the outskirts and then the closer you get to the inside
it's really nice and beautiful buildings and things, so here we are, unbelievable really.
You know, it's one of those places you always think of and one day you'll get there
and that moment's happening right now,
it's really quite beautiful, so I'm absolutely loving Brazil so far.
I'm falling in love with it, it's only been a little while but incredible.
All right guys, thank you so much for watching and in case I don't see you
good afternoon, good evening and good night from Copacabana Beach.
Cheers man.
Cheers.
My future is now!