Is Brazil Dangerous?! | Our first time in Brazil

Good morning, Wayfram, from Sao Paulo, Brazil. I'm Ashley, this is Josh. Welcome to our channel. We sold everything we had to travel the world and now we want to share with you the way away. So be sure to subscribe down below, give us a like and hit that bell so you can follow more of our adventures. Let's go. Today, we are super excited to be in Brazil. It's our first time in Brazil. It's our first time in South America. I can't believe we're here. And to start things off, we're going to learn the secrets of Sao Paulo and we're going to take a walking tour. Link is in the description if you want to check it out. Yeah, it's an Airbnb experience, something that we just started doing and we've had great experiences so far. Alright, let's go see what Sao Paulo has to offer. We're starting in a very important cathedral here in Sao Paulo. It is the fourth largest neo-gothic cathedral in the world and the other three are in Germany, which is so funny because we were just in Europe, but it's so beautiful and this tour specifically is historical. So I'm really excited about learning about the history here in Sao Paulo. Specifically about Sao Paulo, the city was founded in 1544 and this cathedral was commissioned, I believe, in 1944. But it was only finished in like 1999, I think, so that was a long time. That is the biggest group of people for a free walking tour I've ever seen. Our tour has eight people on it and that tour has like so many. Worth the price of admission. The first thing that I have learned that I've never even heard before after being in a bazillion cathedrals is that the Vatican is the one that decides to name a church a cathedral. So you start out as a church, they give you the title of cathedral and they give you a chair to represent. I guess what cathedral means chair in Latin or something similar to that. I've never heard that before, no idea. I always just thought the cathedral was a cathedral, but I didn't know it was like an upgrade. Yeah, so that's kind of cool. Is that like the seat where the Pope or the Cardinal would sit? Cardinal, I think he said Cardinal. He said that this is like one of the five, like top five churches for the Vatican. Like the guys that are in charge of this church, they go to the Vatican to vote for the Pope. Like that, they're that important. I had no idea. No clue. I didn't know it was here in Sao Paulo. Good on you Catholics. Just across from the cathedral area is this. It's a big shopping area. And our guide said that this is where you find all the cheap stuff. Not necessarily the best quality products, but all the cheap stuff. And if you want to come Christmas shopping, this is the place just across from the cathedral. In Brazil, I think of the Amazon. We are not even close to the Amazon right now. We're in Sao Paulo, but every time I see trees or birds, I feel like I'm really close to the Amazon and I get so excited. I've never seen trees like this before. It's like the canopy. He built a three-floor house on the top of the building and moved in with his family. So there is a mansion on the top of this building that he used to prove to people that it was safe to live there. We've come to a very busy street, to a small little spot, to get some snacks and sugar cane juice straight from the sugar cane. She just put it in there and it came right out. I've never tried this before. It's…you can't really get much fresher than this. Did they add anything? No, you can get it with different fruits and stuff, but we decided to just go all natural. That's literally sugar water. Yes. Oh, it's interesting. It's really earthy. It tastes kind of grassy, but then really sweet. This is good. It's not like sugar water. It tastes more…I guess it tastes natural. Whoa. I've got a pastel de feira. This is a bacalhau. It's a fish one. It's codfish. Codfish, he said. Bacalhau. Bacalhau, codfish. It's really good. It's like a pastry that's been deep fried. Super good. You could easily eat a ton of these. So this is like traditional street food. Yeah, this is straight up traditional street food. So we did it right. It's like the monetary 1922. The city is surrounded by mountains on the north side. So we're going to take a look at that. I'm struck by how huge this city is. In those shots, you can just see that this city goes on forever and ever. There's buildings after buildings. One of the cool things about this tour is, as we mentioned in the beginning, it's like the secret tour or whatever. So we started at the cathedral. We went down to the crypt. And you can only do that if you know about it, because you have to buy a ticket. The lights were out. Yeah, they don't advertise it. But I had to turn it on and unlock it for us, which was so cool. We got to go out through the back streets. That was really fun. And now we're at the top of this building to finish the tour. And this is somewhere that you would have no idea how to get up here, even if you read a blog on it. You have to go to the office. They only speak Portuguese. You have to talk to security. You have to sign in. So well worth it to go on the secret tour, because you do all these cool things that you wouldn't be able to do otherwise. Absolutely. These things, I didn't even know existed. Okay, we've been having issues with the microphone, so Ashley was doing an audio check for us. And she was insulting my mother. You cannot leave that in. Yes, we're leaving that in. You can't. That's what she's laughing about. She insulted you, Stacey. Anyways, hello. We just got done with the tour. It is getting really dark out. That's why we have the lights on. That's why we look all yellow. It's like 6 p.m. now. Yeah. In England, we were above the equator, and so we were fairly north, and it stayed brighter longer. And now we're very south. And it's 6 o'clock. It's pretty much dark. Yeah. So no more filming today, because, you know, it's dark out. And we aren't super acquainted with Sao Paulo, so we don't want to be out at night. But we had a really good time. Talk about, like, what our first impressions are of Brazil, because, like, we've never been to South America before, and I really didn't have that many expectations. I didn't know what to expect. The only thing I know about Brazil is that everyone seems to tell us it's really dangerous. Yeah. If I'm honest, like… Like stereotypical things. Right. Because that's what we've heard. But then again, people have said the same thing about Mexico, like, oh, don't go to Mexico. It's really dangerous. And we felt like no problems. But there's a big economic downturn recently is what we heard. A recession. Yeah, a recession. There you go. So that has something to do with it. So we don't know a whole lot about the political climate or the recession or about any of the supposed dangerousness of the area. We're just going to share our actual impressions of what we've experienced so far. We've been here for a week. We just haven't filmed. This is the first day that we filmed, because we were, like, working the rest of the day. Yeah. We haven't done anything in a week. Except for that sweet tour we did just today. Yeah. Outside of our apartment. Yeah. But the cool thing is, like, so first impressions of Brazilians in general is that they are so friendly and so nice. Literally every single person that we've interacted with has been extremely friendly. Yeah. Even if they don't speak English. Yeah. They'll speak to us in Portuguese, like, forever and really, like, animated. But we have no clue what they're saying. So in some cultures, like, if they speak to you and they recognize that you don't understand, they'll move to, like, hand motions or different things. They'll, like, stop talking. So far, not in Brazil. Like, if they don't, like, if you don't understand what they're saying, they'll just talk more. They don't get more animated. They don't use any more hand motions. They just continue talking and think, oh, maybe they're rewording it. I don't know. But they just keep talking and they hope that you'll pick it up, I guess. I don't know. And they're really friendly. Like, really, like, wanting to be helpful. But, like, so that brings us to the second part. Uh-huh. Portuguese is freaking difficult. Oh, my gosh. We've been to so many countries and I feel like this is one of the most difficult places. Yeah, okay, so if you know me, I can sometimes pick up the language a little bit, enough to understand context and a few little cues. And people say that Portuguese is similar to Spanish. Like, if you speak Spanish, you can kind of understand Portuguese. We know Spanish a little bit, but I do not understand Portuguese at all. No. I have no, I can't pick out a single word when they're talking. They are similar, but in the way that they're spoken or said, it's completely different. Like, okay, like, queso is the word for cheese in Spanish. We actually just bought some cheese and it looks like it's spelled queso. Like, that's what it looks like it's spelled. Like, I don't know if that's how you pronounce it, but it just, just hearing someone say queso, I wouldn't know that they were trying to say queso. Yeah, yeah. You know, which is obviously a very American sounding version of the Spanish word for cheese. But it's, I just, it doesn't compute. And so we're in one, the biggest city in Brazil. I think it's, Sao Paulo is the biggest city, I think, in South America. I believe so. And it is massive. It's massive. It's so big. And then the other thing is that. It reminds me of Bangkok, because Bangkok just goes on forever. Yeah. Well, like on the tour today, we went to the top of the building and you could just see skyscrapers. You couldn't see anything but skyscrapers. Everywhere. Yeah. It's crazy. But what I was going to say is that it's like a large city, a very economical city, but it seems that a lot of people don't speak English. Yeah. And so we're, like, some people do and they speak impeccable English. Yeah, and they always say, I'm sorry for my English. And we're like, no, you sound great. But after coming from Europe, where a ton of people speak English, aside from their first language, here it's been a lot more difficult to communicate. Yeah. So here would be sort of like the New York of South America. And as you're going along the streets in normal everyday life, most people that we've interacted with don't speak English. However, we're in an area called Jardin. Jardins. It means garden. And it's sort of a nicer area. And pretty much everywhere we've been here, like, 60 to 70% of the people we've spoken with speak English. But, like, the cashier at the grocery store doesn't necessarily speak English. I mean, every cashier we've seen, like, six or eight times now, no English. They always ask us something and we have no idea what. Yeah, they always ask us, and we're always like, no. Yeah, last time, he was like, blah, blah, blah, blah. And now she goes, no. It's just, yeah. But the coffee shop we go to, everyone speaks English there. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, so those are, like, first impressions. Like, I think that after being in Brazil for a longer period of time, maybe our opinions will change. Maybe our impressions will change. But from the very beginning, like, yeah, those are our impressions. And specifically in Sao Paulo, I think that it would change from place to place. Brazil isn't... It's massive. I heard someone say it's bigger than the U.S. Yeah, me too, and I didn't know that until I... Okay, YouTube Warriors. Is Brazil larger than the United States of America? Because we heard that offhand somewhere, and I was like, what? No, I heard it on a YouTube video that we were watching about the politics here. Okay, I've heard that before, too. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me. It's massive, but... It is. And, like, when you look to go somewhere that looks fairly close on the map, it takes, like, a lot of hours to get there. Well, not only that, but the map that most of us use in the Western world is, like, skewed to make certain places look bigger. Just the way they've drawn the map. I don't know if there was an agenda there, but it does sort of... It skews the sizes. Yeah. Another thing, like, specifically with this city is that it's a big city. It's not a tourist destination. Like, when people think of Brazil, they think of Rio, I think, and that is created around tourism. I think that they are... Well, there's a lot of tourism there. Yeah, more used to it. This is a working city. I think so. So, when you visit Sao Paulo, you're getting people's actual lives. You're getting, like, an actual city where people are hustling and bustling and going, you know, having lunch breaks and things like that. And so, it's a different feel. Yeah, because there's certainly nice places, but they all feel like living and working places. I haven't seen anything that seemed overtly touristic or designed to just really impress visitors, which I kind of appreciate. I enjoy that. And we're not saying that's bad. No. It's a different take on a city. Then again, we haven't seen a ton. This is first impression. Yeah. Another thing that I have really liked is that, like every other place that we've gone, if it's either a little bit upscale or like a chain, they all have the Apple Pay or the Android Pay, so you can pay with your phone. Our credit cards have all worked fine here, pretty much everywhere. Most places take credit card. The bus, however, takes only cash and you should have small bills. Yeah. And so, the bus and the metro are the same price. It doesn't matter where you're going on the line. It's 4 real, which is about a dollar. So, really cheap, but another option is Uber, which is also really cheap. And we were talking to our tour guide today and he was saying that… Uber is the largest market, or Brazil is the largest market. No, Sao Paulo is the largest market for Uber, period. Because it's such a giant city, but like even the guys on the tour were saying they haven't waited more than like three minutes for an Uber to show up. Yeah. So, it's a great way to travel around and it's not dangerous to use Uber. Right. I'd say, on average, you spent about five to six dollars to drive for around 20 to 30 minutes. Yeah. If the public transportation is not in your area, Uber is the definite way to go, but public transportation, because it only costs one dollar each way, is definitely the cheapest option. So, you can think about it, we'd spend two dollars and twice as long, or spend five dollars and take less than half. Yeah. So, sometimes we do the math in our head and we're like, it's worth it. I want to go home. Okay, well, I think that's good for first impressions. Have you guys been to Brazil? Have you been to South America? What are your impressions of here? I'd like to hear from you guys. Did anything we say strike you as like, whoa, that doesn't sound right? Yeah. Do you think any of our first impressions will change later on? I'm curious if you think that as well. Yeah, because I know some places we go, like in Paris, people are like, did you like Paris? Were the Parisians kind of rude? And I was like, no, everyone was amazing in Paris. And people were like, really? So, I wonder if it's like, no, I wonder if people are like, oh, people in Sao Paulo are really rude. I don't know. I'm curious. Also, the green of everything. It's so lush. I just love it. I mean, that means it rains a lot because it needs to keep everything green. It was raining today. I just love it. Yeah. And I'm so excited to see more of the green and the water and like birds and yeah, so cool. Well, as you can see, we are sitting on a lovely couch. We have an apartment that we rented through Airbnb here. We will show that to you in a video coming up soon. But for now, we just want to sign off and say good night. Buonanoche. I think it's Buonanoche. Good night. Bye. From Bora Brasil. Sao Paulo. Brazil. Sao Paulo. Goodbye.