Observations on spending 5 hours in Guarulhos Airport

The first recognisable sight on landing in Sao Paulo are the hundreds upon hundreds of favela houses, piled one on top of the other like some kind of higgldey-piggldey lego set or those brick-like temporary office structures on large building sites, metal roofs rusting and staining the bright walls underneath a reddish brown.  They go on and on, rolling over hillsides & squeezed against motorways, stopping only at the very edge of the airport grounds.  I would imagine when a plane flies over those houses they’re more concerned with making sure their home is structurally sound enough not to fall down – the very least of their problems would be noise pollution.  Kinda puts the whole extra runway at Heathrow thing into perspective, really.

The airport doesn’t look like it’s been updated since the early 80’s – lots of dark tiling, metal walls, square shapes.  Your path to the baggage pickup is punctuated by open gates, passengers crossing your path on their way to board their flights.  There’s no separate way for arriving passengers, everyone’s lumped in together.  The baggage carousel system is basic, old and really disorganised, with a handful of young men jumping around desperately trying to keep up with the onslaught.  I can’t find my carousel, it’s not labelled so I walk up to the TAM baggage claim desk to speak to someone who might have an idea what’s going on.
“hola, fala Ingles?”
“No, Spanish?”
“Only English, I’m afraid.”
“Ok, only small…”
“Which one is for the TAM flight from London?”
“Uhhh…tres ou quatro…”
“Ah, obrigada!”

I make my way to the front of the crowd and wait.  A few middle-aged women start squawking loudly at a very stressed out 20-something who’s handling the London carousel alone with just a walkie-talkie for company, and a fat lot of good it’s doing him.
Someone has taken what appears to be a driveable lawnmower onto the plane as luggage rather than ship it.  I've seen Brazilians pack surfboards and mountain bikes before but this just takes the biscuit.

Eventually my bags turn up, I head through the ‘Nothing to Declare’ door, past an unimpressed lady collecting declaration tickets, and out into arrivals.  More grey tiles, metal columns, and a solitary central café looking rather unappetising.  I need to get to Terminal 2 and I have no idea where it is.  I head to the Information Desk steeling myself for another painful verbal exchange.
“hola, fala Ingles?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Oh good!  Could you tell me how to get to Terminal 2, I’m meeting my mother there.”
“Just go out of these doors, turn right and follow the sidewalk around.  It’s about a 5 minute walk.” All said in a crystal clear Portuguese-American accent.

Outside it’s sunny, a comfortable temperature with a cool breeze.  I see a car park, concrete everywhere, buses, people smoking and…PALM TREES.  I immediately perk up.

Terminal 2 looks a lot like Terminal 1.  I buy myself a small coffee and sit down, but not before another awkward conversation with the girl behind the till trying to work out how much I need to pay.  I can’t understand what she’s saying so she quickly writes on a post-it note ‘3,50’.  “Oh, ok” I say and count out the change.   She smiles politely as she hands me my coffee.  I look at it.  Jesus, when they say ‘small’ here they really mean it – it’s the size of an espresso and I asked for a ‘café con leite’.  But I sit down and drink it, and it’s enough to keep my very awake for the next three hours.  F*** me, they know how to make a coffee.  I think I’m going to like it here.

Two people come up to me separately and hand me Brazilian schmatters (cheap stickers & a couple of key rings) with a R$2.00 price tag attached, walk off, come back one minute later and take them back again, smiling graciously despite the fact I’m clearly uninterested.  I smile back.  Properly.  I find it a pleasantly unobtrusive way of trying to push their crap on me.

Basically I get the impression English isn’t spoken particularly well by the majority of people here, but they’re really, REALLY nice & helpful about trying to work out a way to communicate with you.  And they smile!  France this ain’t.