Guarujá is to São Paulo what Brighton is to London. Except for the descent from the Paulista plateau to the coast  – in one of the busiest highways in the world as the products of the Industria Brasileira from the country’s largest town by lorry to the busiest port of the continent, Santos – this is really São Paulo-by-the-sea. In fact, one of the most impressive sights of the descent is that of tall skyscrapers touching the surf.

Yet what makes a good point break, does not a swimming beach supply. Although the Enseada beach is truly magnificent, five-metre waves made the water dangerous for even the experienced surfers. Which I’m not, so I passed the days wetting my feet on the side of red flags flying high. And they were not flying for Socialism, believe me.

The best diversion was Guarujá’s excellent aquarium, Acqua Mundo where I thought I’d spend ten minutes looking around and ended up spending nearly two hours. What made my day was the giant pirarucu. I’d eaten it in the Amazon, but I’d never seen it alive before.

So, here is a photo-essay from the surfers’ town of Guarujá with no comments.
[Click on an image to enlarge]

John Malathronas’s second edition of Brazil: Life, Blood, Soul is now available on Kindle.