Update from the road

This is our second day in Sao Paulo, and I've made several interesting discoveries.

Discovery One: Sao Paulo is a really, really big city. I have never seen so many humans, and most of them are walking ON THE SIDEWALK. It's impossible to walk in a straight line when you're on the sidewalks because they are packed with people. Here is a photo of Sao Paulo from the air:

Discovery Two: The people who aren't walking on the street are DRIVING. Really fast. If there are any rules governing driving in this city, I don't think anyone one follows them. Because there are so many cars, a lot of people travel by motorcycle. Motorcycles drive between the lanes that are already packed with cars, like this:

What makes this whole thing really interesting is that cars change lanes and cut each other off constantly, with no prior warning. So you have these cars weaving back and forth and a constant stream of motorcycles driving between the lanes about twice as fast as the cars. The traffic fatality rate has to be incredible. To solve the problem, the rich business people do this:

There are helicopter pads all over the city, and unfortunately one of them is right next to our HOTEL ROOM. When we arrived yesterday at 7:30 AM after leaving Salt Lake at 1:30 PM the previous day, we checked into our room for a couple of hours of sleep. When our building started shuddering, we looked out the window to see the helipad, which actually was kind of cool, but it didn't do much for our naptime.

The good news was that our first three business visits went wonderfully. We leave for Salvador tomorrow, so stay tuned!