Breastman, sorry this took so long to get back to you. Lots of family stuff over the last 4 days.
Sao Paulo is a huge place, something like 21 million people. I personally don't care for it and would much rather be in Fortaleza, Natal, Bahia, Florianopolis or Belo Horizonte. That said if she wants to move back down there and you follow its not the end of the world. Just get ready for lots of slowwwwwww traffic.
The people in Brazil are probably some of the nicest I have meet anywhere in the world. You can go from the blackest black to the whitest white and everything in between in any area and they don't seem to have any issues with race. I would probably put folks in Columbia on par with Brazilians as well as Ecuadorians, but that's about it. You can have Chile, which would be the bottom of the barrel in my world as far as South America goes (have heard awesome things about folks in southern Chile, but never been there) and Santiago is probably one of the places I wouldn't care about ever going back to (sorry Duke).
I have spent a fair amount of time in Brazil, all the places above and Rio. Not speaking Portuguese isn't a huge detriment either. Most of the professional circles you would be exposed to, many if not all the people would speak English and those that don't absolutely won't hold your non-native language skills against you. I think its a fairly easy language to pick up as well...it's kind of a mix of Portuguese, Italian and Spanish. I'm not sure what you might plan to do as far as employment, but teaching English is a great option and it's normally total immersion so you won't have to worry about knowing any Portuguese.
Duke and I differ about SP and Santiago/Chile but one thing I am in violent agreement with him about is you have to be extremely careful when out and about, especially if your looks/dres etc etc, scream "I'm an American." For two years it wouldn't be a bad place to be, but no chance in hell I would settle there way to many other nicer places in the country.
If you make the move let me know okay. My brother-in-law is an entrepreneurial son of a gun (with some investors and friends) and just started a line of restaurants that are tied into the favorite/most popular soccer teams in a certain geographical region. The food is a regional draw as well with some American dishes. Even though the economy is in the crapper down there and the politicians are about as corrupt as they come, he/they are doing well.
My email is
[email protected] if you want to drop me a line. I also have some connections with PETROBRAS but not sure they would do you any good as that group has been pretty much neutered as of late. My wife's friends could be a help also plus her son still lives in SP.