It's over, but it continues.

Cuxiponés or Capepuxis? I confused one with the other and, instead of arriving at Vila Anglo, where the first winds its way through, I ended up in Alto de Pinheiros, the territory of the second, with its high walls and flat sidewalks.

Delivery driver, athlete, or curious pedestrian... anyone who walks around São Paulo knows that the streets are reliable right up to the next corner.

Alves Guimarães and its neighbor Cristiano Viana, in Pinheiros, end at a huge staircase. It's all wood. It's all stone. It's the end of the road. It scares you.

How can that be, if the number I'm looking for hasn't appeared yet?

The postman's response is simple: "It's over, but it continues. The numbering is right up ahead, just go up the stairs or around the wall. Take a deep breath."

At both ends of the Presidente Dutra highway, I investigate the namesake streets, be they alleys or avenues, boulevards or expressways. In Rio, Souza Lima Avenue, where Oscar Niemeyer liked to have lunch, sprouts up on the Copacabana boardwalk; in São Paulo, it emerges in the glorious Barra Funda, where Mário de Andrade lived.

Tuiuti, in São Cristóvão, dates back to the time when streets were called "logradouro" (public square). Meanwhile, in Tatuapé, it's full of new developments and stretches for over three kilometers.

Barata Ribeiro and Visconde de Pirajá, routes for drivers and pedestrians in Rio de Janeiro's South Zone, have postal codes in Bela Vista and Ipiranga in São Paulo. Torres Homem, in Vila Isabel, is next to Morro dos Macacos, and in Jaguaré, São Paulo, it's almost Osasco.

Wandering through places with the same name that have never crossed paths is endless. As different as our two largest cities, they are unequal in size, income, and the accents of their inhabitants; also in noise, the roads they open, and the crossroads. Only the names are the same: Palmeiras, Bom Pastor, Haddock Lobo, Voluntários da Pátria; also Ferreira de Araújo, Toneleiros, Senador Vergueiro, Rio Branco; not to mention Curuzu, Cantagalo, Juriti, Várzea. No, nobody can complete this trail.

Even walking in a straight line with our feet firmly on the ground, we're taken aback when we realize the street is no longer the one we entered. How so? Frederico Abranches, in my Vila Buarque neighborhood, becomes Alameco Barros, which then becomes Cândido Espinheira until it reaches the wall of Parque da Água Branca. Three names in two kilometers.

Just one step across the street and Aureliano becomes Sabará. Canuto transforms into Baronesa. João Ramalho is already Padre Chico.

On a spring afternoon, I watch the kids leaving school on Nazaré Paulista Street. When I pass the bakery, it's already Alvilândia, and after the taxi stand, it becomes Japiaçóia. Four hundred meters of cameras, pointed fences, and the blue sign with white letters announce a fourth name: Belini, which soon gives way to Arruda Botelho.

In order, they are two cities in São Paulo state, a kind of dove, the captain of the 1958 World Cup-winning team, and a doctor who went into politics. The same route and five names until reaching the Marginal Pinheiros highway. The urban road, wider than the river and its sequestered banks, is called Engenheiro Billings, Ruth Cardoso, Nações Unidas, Rua Hungria. Everything but Marginal Pinheiros.

On the Tietê River, only the river itself changes: each stretch is honored by a different person—it could be an ambassador, a countess, or even a dictator—but it's not the Marginal Tietê, as we know it.

Like so many streets, this chronicle goes up and down, detours, goes around, forks; then it widens; then it narrows and, suddenly, it ends.

On the wall. In the alley. At the end of the line.

I republished this chronicle from a few years ago because it gives its name to and is part of my new book. “It’s over, but it continues” will be launched on Saturday (8), at the Folha Seca bookstore, in Rio de Janeiro.