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Published: February 15th 2006
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Brasilia
From the T.V. Tower, BEHOLD! Well, after our extremely emotional departure in Campo Grande (including several boxes of Kleenex) I said goodbye to Jord and Ry, and headed northwest to the town of Cuiaba which, is basically just on the opposite side of the Pantanal. I took a night bus, and arrived there early Friday morning. Through hell and high water (well just Portuguese street names and drowsiness) I found my hostel. Actually I didn't find it at all, for the first time on this trip, someone noticed my Canadian flag (which I was about to rip off and declare completely pointless a week ago) and knew French. Thankfully I know French and he escorted me to the hostel. Once at the hostel I realized I was the only guest there, odd I thought but didn't think much of it. After awhile a Swiss Italian guy showed up and we chatted, I caught up on my journal and then set out to explore the city.
Not much to Cuiaba, in fact its basically like a Brazilian version of Burnaby from what I could tell, and I found the Metrotown. Hung out in the mall for a bit because that is the cool thing to do,
Chipada
The beautiful park, too bad the weather sucked!! well no actually I bought a new shirt so that Jacky is impressed when she gets to Rio.
After that I wandered back to the Hostel, got lost again having no clue as to where or how I came about the mall, so hours later I ended up at the Hostel. New guests arrive! Two nice Brazilian girls were there and after attempting to cycle through all the languages I kind of know, we settle on Portuguese (weird eh?) and since I know 5 words, things go great. Thankfully the Italian guy saves me, and next thing I knew the four of us are out for dinner, and I don't have to do anything because of the translation process of converting everything from English, to the Italian guy in broken English and spurts of french, to the Brazilian girls in spurts of Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, then finally to the waiter, in Portuguese.
The girls were nice, especially Luciana who taught me as much Portuguese as my mind could handle over one meal, and a few necessary words were written on a dirty napkin and put in my pocket for an emergency.
Next day we all went
Lookout
The park, in its fogged glory. to the park, it rained and in the end it was just Luciana and myself, we waited forever for the fog to clear then finally got some pictures before heading back to Cuiaba, which is about an hour bus ride from the Park. The park was nice, similar to Brandywine falls, but with a nice restaurant similar to Horizons on Burnaby mountain.
Once back in town, the four of us wanted to go to this concert, but it turned out to be Brazilian country music, and was 30 reals, so I passed and ended up just trying to study more Portuguese and eventually hit the sack. Sunday I left Cuiaba, so did everyone else, off to various other destinations, and I boarded a 19 hour bus (which turned out to be only 7 minutes late after 19 hours, a new record) and I woke up entering Brasilia. Brasilia is pretty rad for about 20 minutes, but pretty odd at the same time. It was easy to get where I needed to go, because one bus went into the city center (number 131!!) and then the central bus station, which is about the same size as Coquitlam, I took another
Bar
Drinking in Brasilia, all alone! bus to the South Hotel Quadrant, sector 707, block I, casa 55. Yes, everything is quite precise and easy to find, you enter a quadrant, find the sector, then find the block (which is just basically equivalent to a street name but identified by a letter) and then the house number. Turns out I stayed at the same place as Jord and Ry only days ago, although I think they are both liars because I specifically looked in the registration book upon my arrival but did not see them, either that, or they took my advice and are now travelling with false passports.
Today I trotted around the city and checked out all the sights, the city is very cool but like I said before... odd. Its supposed to be really modern and beautiful, but being 50 years old now it just looks like a moon colony trapped in the 60´s. I do say though, if I had been able to deliver pizza here as a teenager instead of in Coquitlam my life would have been a lot less stressful, the street and bus system is absolutely perfect. Today, Tuesday morning at about 8pm I stood in the center of the entire city and all traffic was flowing perfectly at about 70km/hr, so I suppose its design has some merits!
Other than that its all mostly sky scrappers, although spread apart in a really fascinating way as to allow for lots of parking and large roads, plus no cool shops like in Bolivia, just giant shopping malls and what not.
Tonight I take off for Ouro Preto, assuming I can get a bus, and spend tomorrow night there, see some sights then take off to meet the party pack in Rio.
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nolan
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jay
miss you clown's.. No one to beat on. Be safe.. chow