Por Ricardo Carreón   

Last Saturday, I was walking and taking photos in São Paulo’s upscale fashion district, the Oscar Freire Street.  Oscar Freire is basically a city street turned into a mall that hosts the most exclusive boutiques in town.  In many ways, it is not different from NYC´s Fifth Avenue or Beverly Hills´ Rodeo Drive.  The people’s behaviors are not different from those in other upscale fashion districts either: you see lots of well dressed men and women carrying bags with the most famous luxury brands in their hands.  The people seem to be trying to imitate fashion show models as they walk through the street.  They are serious and somehow arrogant.

But all of this was suddenly interrupted this last Saturday, June 14^th 2008.  The street was suddenly filled with cyclists participating on the global event, World Naked Bike Ride.  The event, also known as WNBR, it is an ecological protest against car usage in which its participants all ride bikes naked through the city streets.  It has been a very successful event in cities such as London, Chicago, Amsterdam and many others.  

In the case of the São Paulo version of WNBR, people were not allowed to ride naked. The police actually used violence against demonstrators at the start of the event.  Participants ended up riding their bikes on swimsuits. 

But coming back to Oscar Freire Street, the serious attitudes of the people in the district, all of the sudden changed.  People stopped to watch the parade of bicycles.  Most people laughed and made gestures of surprise.  People that were working in the stores went out to look closely with their own eyes.  In summary, the tight attitude was replaced by a very relaxed, Carnaval-like atmosphere.

Here are the photos of the event.  Click on any of them for its flickr page.  On my flickr account you can also find many more shots of the WNBR Sao Paulo 2008 event.

Ricardo es Director General de Intel para America Latina. Ricardo es Mexicano y reside desde Julio de 2005 en Brasil. Ricardo viaja constantemente por toda la region latinoamericano y ofrece su perspectiva sobre temas de actualidad en los distintos países.

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