My last full day in Brazil was market day for me. I went down to the Centro and into the Mercado Municipal de São Paulo. Well, first, I had to fight my way through. I got off at São Bento Metro, and ran into the masses of São Paulo. Think Oxford street at Christmas, just much, much busier! Well, 20 million gotta shop and go to the market, I get it…

The market is in a beautiful old building, in a somewhat run down part of town. Houses a bit old, neglected and covered with graffiti, holes in the street, a bit dirty… and full of people. It was nice, but I don’t think this would be a place to be in the after-hours…

The Market building itself is impressive, somewhat church-like, with a big dome, and has some major stained glass windows. High glass ceilings let in the light. It’s airy, not cramped. A second floor hosts a number of restaurants for those who cannot wait anymore, and want to have a views on the bustling down below.

Well, as usual in any market, the stands line up and sell everything from fruit to meat, fish, spices, wine… As such, nothing special, but the size, smells and colors of it all were fantastic. I could have spent a day there.

I had my first real pineapple, ever. I never had a better one. Nothing like the imports I knew in Europe, plucked green and sometimes so acidic it burns off the skin in your mouth. This one was so sweet and ripe it literally melted in my mouth. Had a second one right away. Ok, a second slice, not a whole pineapple.

I wandered around, I wish I could have gotten some spices and food, but with that being the last full day in Brazil there was no point in buying stuff that would not fit in my suitcase…

But I finally had a Pastel de queijo, a kind of oversized, fried doughy crunchy Ravioli, filled with melted cheese. Hot, but actually not too greasy, lightly salty… it was yummy and you can have all different sorts of fillings, pizza, meat, chicken….

On to the next market, Praça Benedito Calixto in Jardim Paulista neighborhood, which I visited on the first night, only that on Saturdays it hosts a flea market. From old furniture, decoration, clothes old and new, records, art, pictures… you can find anything there. It’s the meeting place of the São Paulo hipster 20-somethings, beards, tattoos and weird haircuts galore.

The best thing however was again the food… African-inspired from the Bahia region, Caribbean, the typical pasteís, freed fish or meat balls…. but the smell drew me to the stand with the candies peanuts, cashews and… coconut! Still warm, soft on the inside and covered with caramelized sugar. Heavenly.

I rounded off the visit with a beer in São Benedito bar, a nice little restaurant with lots of people just standing outside on the sidewalk, drinking their beers. Towards the end of the afternoon the crowd becomes sexually inconclusive…

The area also seems to serve as Brazil’s epicenter for music instrument shops. I passed over two dozen shops selling guitars, drums, sheet music… all covered in street art and graffiti.