Festa Junina

June 22nd
Today was the first real Saturday we had to explore the city. Roxanne (an MA from New Mexico) and I decided that we wanted to explore one of the popular weekend feiras in the city. We decided to go to the feira, or market, at the Praça Benedito Calixto in Pinheiros which is a well-known flea/antique market. It was pretty close to where we live, only two stops on the metro, and a 10 min walk. I wrote down the directions from google exactly and we decided to meet outside of the Consolacao metro station, a bit of a daunting thing when you do not have a cell phone. We actually did manage to find each other fairly easily at the station and, for the most part, our directions were correct to get to the praça. It was definitely one of the more successful outings that I’ve had in São Paulo so far! The market was very cool! It was much more upscale than I was expecting, almost like an outdoor antique store. There was lots of mid-century furniture, old books, jewelry, artisanal products (leather, beads, and clothes) as well as silver tea sets and glassware. In the center of the market were the food stands. There was actually quite a variety of foods; natural/organic, Italian, Japanese, from the Northeast, food from Bahia and lots of local sweets. Roxanne and I ran into others from our group at the food tents and we all decided to try something different. I went for the natural food place and got an amazing chicken stew empanada type thing and fresh passion fruit juice. Roxanne was more adventurous and she got the food from Bahia which has a strong African-Nigerian influence; a cornbread/manioc base with ochre sauce, and another sauce I didn’t recognize topped with shrimp. It was very interesting to try, but I really am not even sure what it was! In the desert category we tried a super sweet banana fruit pie topped with dolce de leche and jam, and we got some fried coconut covered in raw sugar. The coconut was my favorite, it was crunch and warm and the sugar still had a lot of the molasses flavor in it.
After lunch several members of our group returned home to take naps and prepare for their all night dance-a-thon in a town two hours away. It’s called a Jongo and it’s the traditional Afro-Brazilian celebrations of the second biggest holiday here which is the Festa Junina. I had decided dancing from midnight to 6AM then riding a two hour bus back was not for me, and that I would just attend a traditional Festa Junina in São Paulo that night. After they left the remained of our group went to one of the many relaxed outdoor bars surrounding the market since it was such a nice day. While we were looking around I heard someone playing the song “Wagon Wheel” in English at the market and I immediately began singing along, sort of freaking out the people around me… after the musical excitement we found a neat bar that had very cool mosaics walls and live music. We stayed and listened to a few sets before going to watch the Brazil-Italy futbol game at Rozanne’s apartment; Brazil won!!
In the evening we returned to the Praça Benedito Calixto to go to the Festa Junina at the local catholic church. For the church the festival was their main fundraiser and they went all out on the decorations. Those of us who went attended the festival with our Portuguese professors so we did not have to pay the entry fee only for our food and drinks inside. The Festa was very popular and it was packed with people. One of the first things we did was go to the vino quenche booth to get the festival drink of hot spiced fruit wine (quintão is another typical drink of hot sugared and spiced cachaca). After we were set up with our amazing drinks we looked around for food. The festa had many options, food from Bahia, Portugal, Italy and fair foods (roasted nuts, corn, sweets). I got an Italian meat pastry and chocolate covered strawberries. While we were eating our food we watched the quadrilla and listened to the live music that was doing an odd mix of 1960s/70s American music and Brazilian Forró music. We left the festival around 10:30 to go home but it was still going strong and people were still in line to enter even as we left!

This is part of the mosaics that were in the music bar near the market

This man is pouring the vinho quente in a traditional fashion

This picture is looking down at part of the crowd from the cathedral steps