Brasilia - a worthwhile unscheduled stop...

  Brasilia, Federal District, Brazil
Friday, June 19, 2009

More numb bums, swollen feet (from not being elevated - can we PLEASE not be so old!) and another long (21 hour including a 2 hour nap at 1am on a truck stop bench) bus ride to add to our vast collection we arrive in Brasilia. Not originally on our to do list, and against most other travelers advice we decided to go and have a look for ourselves and were very pleasantly surprised by what we found.

View from TV tower

History lesson time:  Brasilia is the capital city of Brazil built from the ground up only 49 years ago. It took 3 years to go from dust to a fully functional capital city which if you think about it is very impressive indeed! There was much controversy at the time as many people had to uproot and move there to keep their jobs when the capital moved from Rio in 1960. It was the brainchild of the president at the time, J. Kubitschek (or JK). The chief architect was Oscar Niemeyer. The city is laid out in the shape of an aeroplane, with the fuselage being the main drag with all the government buildings, hotels, museums and monuments and then the wings (north and south) are for housing. Everything is divided into specific sectors (eg: sector hotel, sector hospital, sector industrial, sector shopping etc) and then each sector narrowed down further into quadrants and again further into lettered blocks and finally house numbers! Which if you haven't been there sounds awful but its the best thing EVER! No crazy street names the remember and try and see on broken down street signs, its logical, clear and easy to learn and understand in any language.

sunken cathedral

A little more about the architecture - since it was built in the late 50's they thought they'd try to be 'futuristic' and it kind of looks like you have stepped into a set of back to the future or something like that! Its mostly concrete but then the massive open spaces in between everything (often grassy) balance it out really well. Walking around the equivalent of Westminster you certainly don't feel like you are in a massive city. Everything is flowing calmly up and down the 6 lanes on either side of the main drag. Ok, nothing beats Westminster area in terms of splendor, character and history and that is NOT what Brasilia offers at all. What is does offer is a TOTALLY unique experience of basically being in a life size museum. It is a sight in itself, its not so much the individual sights but the entire concept of a city created from scratch within a reasonably modern era with no resemblance to any other place in Brazil or the rest of the world for that matter.

Its hard to paint an accurate picture in words (go and see it for yourself ;-) ) As you probably gathered we are quite impressed with the place...

So, arriving 3 hours later than planned the idea of walking around looking for a posada fell through. It was already dark and we were fuming mad after inhaling ponging (with a capital P) fumes from the broken bus toilet that everyone insisted on using. It was not broken by us this time...its only funny if we break it, NOT if locals - who we saw eating bean slop and biscuits all day and night long - break it. Add to holding your breath for 21 hours, a chorus of constant nasal cavity clearing that could register on the Richter scale and a shirtless wonder drinking beer and having a personal karaoke practice behind us. I will save the story of the guy who never knew that deodorant had been invented for another time. Get the picture?

The nearest/affordable place came in the form of a delightful hotel (looked like a prefab) along the main drag a few minutes from the bus stop. The shower was to die for, the bed pure bliss and they even had an English TV channel (having a TV at all is actually a big deal at this point). The reason for describing the delightful hotel will become clear when we describe the contrast of the 'not so delightful' place we found the next day...

Another task we needed to accomplish in Brasilia was to extend our entry stamp days. South Africans are allowed 90 days but on entry the lady asked how long we'll be so we said about a month and she wrote 30 days instead. The weather was perfect so we walk the +- 3 km to the cop shop only to find its moved! But we also learn that you can get the visa extended at the airport so that's great news because we plan to fly to Rio anyway. Sorted...for now. Let the sight seeing begin!

Stop 1 is the JK Memorial, containing all photos, clothes, medals, books etc belonging to him. Also, he is buried there! well not so much buried as on display on the top floor of the memorial but anyway! Next its off to the library! I hear you gasping: ANGELA AT A LIBRARY - whatever for? Fear not! i still don't read...it was because we caught wind of free internet there and we had to watch the Springboks vs Lions game online! hehe. The vibe was awesome! You could feel the passion, cut the tension with a knife, beers flowed, wors sizzled on the braai, green jerseys everywhere...NOT! We weren't even allowed headphones!! Oh well a win is a win! Go bokke!

Ian in Jail...the worst posada in the world!

Sadly checkout time at the hotel loomed and we couldn't fork out for 2 more expensive nights so we packed up and headed off for what we thought would be an easy to find posada. We were wrong. Over 2 hours later we were taken pity on by a young guy who could speak English only to be told that Posadas were made illegal in Brasilia and were all closed down...only a few sneaky ones remained and he showed us the whereabouts of the nearest one. If we could walk another step we would have left but after 2 hours in 30+ degree heat we accepted the fact that we would be staying in someones garage with a shower over the toilet and a kitchen in the storage area under the stairs. Now listen, we are NOT diva's or snobs - but come on man - this place was disgraceful. Unfortunately money stretching had to take priority!

In an effort to spend as little time there as possible we headed back the the TV tower for a beautiful sunset view over Brasilia.

A bit blistered the next day we opted for the hop-on-hop-off bus tour of the remaining sights of Brasilia that we never got to the day before. It turned out to be a do-not-hop-on-and-do-not-hop-off bus but a whip-around-the-city-in-record-time-and-get-a-blurred-photo-with-the-afro-in front-of-you-in-every-shot bus. Still it was fun! Saw the presidents residence, opera house, museums, congress, pretty much everything! Ended up walking back to them all to go inside and get more detail. All very impressive - as per lengthy explanation in paragraph 1!

Mixed emotions leaving the next day: sad to leave Brasilia as we did enjoy it, although staying longer would become boring as we had had the experience now. ECSTATIC to get out of the garage and also very happy to not be taking a 18 hour bus but instead a flight to Rio!!

WOOOHOOOO!!! One of the definite highlights of the trip is upon us and we can hardly wait!