Life After Rio

With an expired visa in hand I am back on the road. To be honest, I feel like I lost a bit of my travel edge whilst lazing in Rio. But it was worth it. Rio is the cidade mervelhoso! Unlike the first time around, I was now ready to move on. I had done Carnival. And my visa is expired. So now that I will have to pay a penalty for every day extra that I am in the country, there is a monetary incentive to move on.

I am definitely glad I stayed though. Carnival was awesome. Unfortunately you will have to wait for that story. And I got to meet a lot of cool new people. Hopefully you will hear about them too.

It’s clean, it works, and there is a lot of good shopping and restaurants.

To my surprise, I actually felt a bit homesick as I settled into my semi-letto seat on the bus to Curitiba. This kind of bus has fewer seats because each one is cushy, reclines significantly, and has a place to comfortably rest your legs. But despite the comforts, I began to feel a bit sad. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Was it because this was the first time I had spent more than a year away from home? Or was it because Rio had been my home for the last six months and should I come back, my experiences will never be the same again? Probably a bit of both.

Robert’s friend Juan, who also had a bed on the floor of the apartment during Carnival, invited me to spend a couple of days in his hometown of Curtiba. Since I was on my way south anyway, I decided to stop there and have a look. As my bus entered the city around 8 AM my excitement began to grow and my sadness disappeared. A new city and new experiences awaited.

Juan had set it up for me to stay with his friend Cleide, a lawyer with a penchant for travel herself. I got my own room and when Juan was not helping out with his mother’s business, we could experience Curitiba.

The first thing we did was check out the Oscar Neimyer museum. As you can see from the picture it is a quite bizarre place with its glass and concrete eye hovering over water. Typically bizarre Neimyer stuff. Though Neimyer was its name oh, the museum is not dedicated to the man. Instead it houses temporary exhibits, like slavery in Brazil. The “eye” is the main attraction, so we took the underground tunnel from the museum to the elevator and ascended to this huge airplane hanger of a room. When we got to the top it was clearly being refurbished as there were no exhibits, just white walls. In fact, everything was white, save the dark tinted class. It felt like something out of 2001.

After our stroll in the museum, we went for a ride towards the historic part of town. I commented to Juan that his city didn’t feel like Brazil. There is no beach! No Chaos! It’s clean! And things work! These last two points are generally echoed by most tourists who happen upon Curitiba. Before I left Rio, I asked Håkan what he thought of the place. He pretty much summed it up when he said, “They seem to have thought of everything. And it’s clean.”

Something else I began to notice was that the Curitibans are very proud of their city. More than one person told me that it was a “Cidade Maravilhosa”. This is the same name usually attributed to Rio. One taxi driver went so far as to tell me that the city had everything he needed. He had no desire to go anywhere else!

Of course the city does have things to be proud of. It still has colonial era buildings, best seen in the historic quarter of the Largo da Ordem. Here you can check out artisanal shops in historic buildings or eat and drink while people watching. There are also nice shopping streets like the pedestrian only Rua da Flores. Here Juan and I snacked on hotdogs at the Bar Triangulo. I began to feel more in Brazil as we dined at this Curitiban institution where toppings include special green or tomato sauces and cheese. It even advertises itself with a dog inside a neon triangle.

Curitba was blessed with a practical mayor a decade or so past. He is partially responsible for giving the city the reputation of practicality. One of the many things he did to try to improve life a little was ease the flow of people onto busses. This is accomplished by space age looking tubes where people buy tickets before hand and can wait away from the elements. Simple and practical. Indeed I found it easy enough to traverse Curitiba despite its many terminals and bus lines.

Unfortunately the city was in a bit of a lull for nightlife. However we did find a decent place in Mondo Biere. Here we befriended the owners Arthur and Sebastian. Arthur is crazy for Ireland and its most famous product, stout. No we are not talking about Guinness here, but Beamish. He went so far as to pour a glass of each to prove the underdog’s superiority.

Besides having beers from all over the world, Mondo Bierre is a live music pub. The band playing was one of Arthur’s own designs. Actaully it was their first time playing together and it showed. They were cranking out some good Classic Rock, which is always good to hear, especially in a South America. I commented to Sebastian that the singer’s voice was exceptionally strong. Like Robert Plant’s circa 1969, but maybe a bit louder. My praise was acknowledged with a sloppy rendition of The Ocean, but beggars can’t be choosers. Sebastian asked me to guess what the singer’s day job was. I went for the obvious, a programmer. Turns out that he is a lawyer on his way to being a judge. I guess wonders never cease.

Arthur loved us, so after his place closed he dragged us to a place called Iggy Rock that played mostly Indie Rock. We went home promising to come back the next night to what he said was the biggest party of the week. Unfortunately it didn’t live up to expectations. A late night hot dog confirmed our suspicions. Juan chatted to one of the servers, who all have their fingers on the pulse of the nightlife. He said it was a down time and didn’t know when it would pick up again.

Having caught up on my sleep and seen what Curitiba had to offer, I decided to move on south. Over the next few days in Florianopolis, I was asked what I thought about Curitiba. My response was always, “It’s clean, it works, and there is a lot of good shopping and restaurants.” Original it may not be, but the truth it is.