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Curitiba is about six hours west from Sao Paulo and is described as an Eco City. We decided to come here for three nights as a pit stop before heading to the Iguazu Falls, mainly so we could rest and do some washing. The hostel we stayed in was lovely. It was an Eco Hostel, not quite sure what constitutes an Eco Hostel here, it did have recycling bins but that seemed to be about the extent of it ´Eco ness´. It had large grounds and the rooms were in little wooden outbuildings like chalets. It was a bit out of town which made it difficult for us to do much in the evenings, this at least this saved us money and we spent the evenings playing pool and watching TV which was actually quite nice after the madness of Sao Paulo.
We did venture into the city centre during the days though. The city is fairly average looking and doesn´t seem to have any great history or must see sights,although it was very clean and seemed very safe. The first day we stumbled across a market which had loads of food stalls selling everything from sushi to pasties, we
had a taco. We also noticed that the city had a rather high population of limbless musicians. We saw a one armed guitarist and a man playing recorder with no legs. That is really all there is to report on that.
The next day we went back into town, Lil was tired and wasn´t feeling very well and I was bumbling around like an old man who´d lost his teeth, we became a bit impatient with one another so we didn´t speak much that day. We had a lunch of steak, rice and beans and managed to buy some hair straighteners and a hair dryer so at least we managed to achieve something..........that is until the hair dryer blew up that evening. As you can see nothing particularly interesting happened.
Our final day we were determined to do something and we decided to go and find the Botanical Gardens. We hopped on a bus and got off at the stop that said Jardin Botanica. We looked around and spotted a sign, Jardin Botanica, that must be it we thought. As we approached the building we saw a lot of people in suits and it looked more like a
conference venue than anything else, we thought that perhaps the gardens were used to host events. We went inside to a reception area and asked at the desk if we were at the Botanical Gardens, we were reassured that we were and they told us to wait where we were. A couple of minutes later a lady came over who spoke better English and she again told us we were in the right place. Good we thought, lets go and see some plants and birds. She first led us over to what seemed to be a large model of a new residential development, at first we thought it was maybe a model of the gardens, but no, it was what it seemed.
It was at this point the penny dropped, we were being shown around a showroom for a new development of luxury apartments called Jardin Botanica, it was going to overlook the gardens. By this stage we were too far gone to tell the lady there had been a mistake and so we decided the politest thing to do would be to play along. We were shown around two lovely flats. ¨Very spacious with an outdoor area for entertaining and finished to a very high standard¨ the lady told us. We told her how much we liked them and she then sat us down to talk numbers, she showed us the total cost, how much the deposit would be and when the other payments would need to be made. She was asking us for our address and what our situation was, we had to lie and we told her we were looking to invest in property in Brazil. She must have wondered why we had our day bags with us and looked such a mess, but Lil still insists that the fact she was wearing her glasses fooled her into thinking we were something more than a pair of nomads. At this stage we thought we have to get out of here before our politeness goes to far and we end up putting down a deposit on one of these flats! We told her we would go away and think about and be in touch within a week. We weren´t!
We did find the Botanical Gardens after this, they weren´t very good. We preferred the flats.
Curitiba served well as a pit stop but there´s not a great deal to grab your attention beyond a couple of days.
Next stop Argentina and the Iguazu Falls.
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