In Rio and São Paulo, Go North
Clockwise from top left: in São Paulo, looking across trees to the skyline from Serra da Cantareira Park; “Workers’ Samba” at Renascença Clube in Rio de Janeiro; Yet when my pal Oliver texted a friend to join us, the response was curt and dismissive: “I generally don’t frequent those parts of the city.” “Those parts” means the Zona Norte, or North Zone, roughly the regions of São Paulo north of the filthy Tietê River generally ignored by tourists and wealthier residents who haunt restaurants and bars in the tonier south and west.