Advertisement
Published: February 4th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Ola all, Como Vai? Yep the Brazilian Portuguese is coming on treat.
The beginning of this latest blog will start in the form of a brief match report. A few days back whilst in Montevedio (29th Jan) we managed to fluke being in the city when El Classico was being played, the biggest match in Uruguay between the two most successful teams, with the most hatred between eachother to boot; Penarol and Nacional. It was certainly a baptism of fire, or as it turned out to be, fireworks, for our South American football experience, as we were greeted by all manner of explosives upon entering the ground.
The ground itself is called the Stadio Centenario, and most famous for playing host to the first ever World Cup Final in 1930 which Uruguay won. Incidentally there were advertisements for their bid to host a century on in 2030 which I thought were perhaps a little premature. So the stadium itself has plenty of history, a capacity of 76,000 and was a trifle intimidating. We arrived not knowing which team we were to fervently support as we were in the so-called ´neutral´stand, and it turned out to be Nacional; we learned
that the concepts of a friendly and being neutral don´t appear to apply in such games.
The game itself was difficult to concentrate on as a result of our surroundings. The noise level was unbelievable, as were the huge mosh-pits at each end of the ground, littered with flags, men jumping around with flares in their hands, sporadic movements, plenty of jumping around and general chaos. The players ran onto the pitch with about 300 mascots or just kids plucked from the crowd and told to wear a football shirt, which was generally reflective of the lack of organisation on the pitch. The game itself was not without incident, as 20 minutes or so in the teams racked up about 6 yellow cards before the inevitable penalty, tucked away to make it 1-0 Nacional. Cue an avalanche from the ´popular´end of the ground and more pyrotechnics, chanting and sweating. Just before half time a Penarol defender was sent off for a professional foul and they were down to 10 men and without a prayer.
Half time came and it was interesting to see that corporate greed is yet to swallow up Uruguayan football, as catering for a hungry
crowd of over 60,000 in our stand was one man working tirelessly trying to get out mildly undercooked hamburgers which do appear to be the international football snack of choice, and we weren´t to complain. The second half went much the same way, Nacional´s talisman putting them two-up with a nice header and they then rounded up the scoring with a late third. Unlike at Villa Park literally no-one leaves before the end, or before an hour after the game if you have one acoording to the noise we could hear back at our hostel. Penarol´s support was incredible despite losing to their bitter rivals, another facet that has not made it over to our football in England, it really is their life. In all the game was a fantastic spectacle and probably salvaged our time in Montevideo which in all was not that inspiring.
On the 30th January we headed up the Uruguayan coast to Punta Del Diablo, a small fishing town with a population of around 700 and gaining a building reputation amongst surfers for its waves. The pace of life here was much slower, people generally sat outside their wooden shacks all day drinking and waiting
for the fishing boats to come in so they could admire their work. Despite the fact we are still eating at completely inappropriate times the food here was really good, more than I can say for the Brazilian cuisine we have just been subjected to. The relaxation in the area was reflected by the police station which was essentially a hut, and also by the cars they have in the area which to all intents and purposes should never start but with hours of persistence eventually do.
On the first night we went out to a Uruguayan club with a future Army Officer and a Belgian with a dodgy peroxide perm, and drunk until we found the local music of reggatron-salsa midly acceptable to our dancing tastes. The club itself was full of locals and our moves may have perhaps looked a little out of place. The next day we attempted bodyboarding, though again never quite got to grips with this due to the ferocious waves and after being outdone by 5 year olds for about 20 minutes I decided to give up and pass the mantle over to Sam, who didn´t fare much better but enjoyed posing, as
you can see. Incidentally he also got his head shaved, hilarious when the battery ran out half way through and he wouldn´t have looked out of place in West Texas, unfortunately despite compliments he wouldn´t keep the hair.
After 2 nights here we carried on our journey to Florianopolis, Brazil, to sample the Carnaval period. This involved getting a short bus firstly to Chuy, a strange town on the border which was a hybrid between Uruguay and Brazil, as apparently people bring Brazilian clothes to the shops and sell them to Uruguayans. Either way it wasn´t up to much and seemed to sell dodgy underwear on every corner.
However it was after this point where the problems arose, the bus from Chuy to Florianopolis which was scheduled to take 13 hours, ended up lasting for 29 hours as a result of local flooding, and the fact Brazil tends to rely on one road, which on reflection is clearly not wise. Obviously this is a regular occurrence as the drivers didnt´t take it upon themselves to inform us, however the seats were comfortable and reclined almost all the way which was of great novelty value. The driving on the
other hand was far from comfortable and the suspension felt as though we were in a gangster rap video bouncing up and down to the phat beats. Also the Brazilians have an interesting take on the overtaking process, nipping in and out infront of articulated lorries and oncoming traffic, pretty fearless.
Brazil itself looks just as it did in the year 7 geography textbooks, huge hills covered in trees and different shades of green dotted with houses with towns seemingly thrown together amongst vast landscapes. We are staying in Florianopolis on the beach which again has spectacular views, and more fishermen. On arriving in the town we saw the huge floats of polar bears, devils, and generally obscure objects in preparation for Carnaval which we are going to tonight. We have already sampled the Carnaval spirit by heading out with a few English guys from our hostel to a local street party which was enjoyable.
Hopefully the next blog will detail Carnaval, but until then, Bom dia.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 9; qc: 56; dbt: 0.0527s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Mac
non-member comment
Was Sparrow going for the Daniel Craig coming out of the water in Casino Royale (plus body board) look?! V impressive blogs once again, OJS ain't the same without u! x