After a 24 h travel time I was pretty happy about finally being in São Paulo. I don’t want to complain, some of my colleagues even had to travel for about two days. And leaving cold and rainy England and arriving at sunny 25 °C, and ahead a promising week of science and meeting a lot of new people, definitely made it worth it. On the trip to the hotel I got my first impression on how bad traffic in São Paulo can be. In the hotel it was pretty easy to identify other participants – the poster tubes were quite obvious. We were accommodated in the Caesar Business Hotel in one of the most important avenues of São Paulo, Avenida Paulista, famous for its financial and cultural institutions and extensive shopping malls. The avenue is always very crowded (not to say messy) and there is always a lot going on attracting attention like artists or street sellers. In particular I was impressed by the massive Christmas decoration everywhere at that time. It almost seemed like there was a Christmas decoration competition going on between the different banks, shopping centres, etc.. During that week there was an additional attraction: A group of about hundred weird people walking around with name badges and poster tubes…

The broad field of Astrobiology was perfectly covered by an abundance of lecturers (30 in total!) with all kinds of scientific backgrounds. The school was divided into three core subjects covering the areas of Astronomy, Biology/Chemistry and Planetary Science/Geology, going from the Big Bang to the origin and evolution of life. Each area was covered in the form of short-courses by one or more specialist(s) namely Lisa Kaltenegger, Lynn Rothschild, Norm Sleep and Steven Benner. Individual lectures covered more specific subjects and showed research opportunities and recent results.

A video conference with Carl Pilcher provided the opportunity to talk about international collaborations with the NASA Astrobiology Institute.

In the end of the week there was held a discussion forum on education and outreach in Astrobiology and its social impact. Norm Sleep, Jorge Horvath, Steven J. Dick and Nelio Bézzo were available for any questions.

These are only a few sections of the extensive program. If you would like to know more about the lecturers, talks and the program in general, please have a look here.

For this activity we were divided into small interdisciplinary groups to write a realistic research proposal. The topic was completely up to us as long as it was something worth to spend time and money in. Every day we got an hour to work on the proposal (plus some night sessions) and on the last day the proposals were presented to the audience (students and lecturers) and the three best were elected by the judging committee (students only). An extended version of the winner proposals will be submitted to the Astrobiology journal and after the normal peer-reviewing process – fingers crossed – get published in the educational papers section.

On the 14th we went to a day trip to visit the Brazilian Synchroton Light Laboratory in Campinas (http://www.lnls.br/) where we got an introduction to how synchroton light works and what the applications are as well as a tour through the facilities. We also visited the adjacent nanotechnology, electron microscopy and biology laboratories.

The trip ended in having dinner at a “churrascaria“ – a typical Brazilian steakhouse where we were offered “rodízio“ service meaning “passadores” – meat waiters – come to your table with knives and a skewer and offer you about 20 different kinds of meat. There was also a massive salad bar for the veggies…

Is there a nicer place to have a poster session than outside in the sunshine at 30 °C surrounded by palm trees? Probably not…

During two sessions we presented our research to the other participants. The beginning of great future collaborations…

In the morning of the 18th we left São Paulo by bus and were heading to PETAR which stands for Parque Estadual Turístico do Alto Ribeira (Alto Ribeira Tourist State Park) and is a nature preserve located in the south of São Paulo state, it is a patrimony of humanity recognized by UNESCO and houses the largest portion of preserved Mata Atlântica in Brazil. It is known for its more than 300 caves, dozens of waterfalls, rivers, trails, archaeological sites, thousands of birds, mammels and many species of bromeliads, orchids and Juçara palms.

In the evening we went to the Betary Reserve where we learnt a lot about the local geology, flora and fauna including bioluminescent fungi. We were also shown the “frog farm”, an extensive collection of mammal skulls, fluorescent minerals and my personal highlight: frozen lizards and snakes.

The next two days we had a very exiting activity program which involved hiking, caving, swimming in natural pools and waterfalls and boia-cross. After having spent a week in a dark and chilly lecture hall at a confined space we have been perfectly adapted to the conditions that awaited us in the caves. Equipped with helmets, head lights and good spirits (and a bit a silly look) we entered the caves which were really impressive. And fortunately we had a geology professor in our group, so we were pleased with a geology lecture in situ. After the caves a couple of waterfalls and natural pools followed which were very inviting for taking a bath. The most exciting part was definitely the boia-cross, equipped with helmets again and big tyres we went down the river, first in a quite organized way, followed by constantly increasing chaos. :-)

All the time we were accompanied by the new group member we got immediately on arrival and who constantly tried to steal our chocolate bars… with success as you can see! I was quite impressed to watch that little smart guy unzipping a backpack, finding food and unwrapping it within only a few seconds. Very well adapted to tourists.

And finally we were rounding off amazing 10 days and continuing networking in the local pub before heading back to São Paulo and to the airport. :-)

São Paulo Advanced School in Astrobiology was funded by FAPESP, the São Paulo Research Foundation which is an independent public foundation with the mission to foster research and the scientific and technological development of the State of São Paulo by supporting research project in higher education and research institutions in all fields of knowledge.

FAPESP is a very agile organisation which awards every year plenty of scholarships to foreign scientists to go to Brazil as well as for Brazilians to go abroad, for undergraduate and graduate students as well as Post-Docs. If you are interested have a look at this website.

Making connections … and friends!

Many thanks again to all organisers and funding bodies of SPASA 2011! It was an incredible experience for all of us and a plethora of valuable research collaborations as well as friendships have been made. An event which is definitely worth to take part in, so watch out for the next SPASA!

Obrigado!