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Nov. 27, 2005 I’m still in Belém, Brazil. Incidentally, the Brazilian spelling of the name of the country is ‘Brasil’, with ‘s’ pronounced like ‘z’ anyway. Today we have a high of 87 F (31 C) and a low of 77 F (25 C), the same as always. I’ve been in Belém over three months now, and I don’t think the temperature has dipped even to 70 F. When I leave my room at 8:30 each morning, it’s already warm, at least 75, without the slightest trace of coolness in the air. So if you are a warm-weather lover, you would find Belém much more congenial than Honolulu, where the temperature drops into the lower 60’s or even upper 50’s at night in the Winter. However, Belém gets four times as much rain as Honolulu. I mentioned in an earlier article that, in order to secure a second three-month visa for Brazil, I was required to present to the police, along with other documents, proof of passage out of Brazil. Being in the far north of Brazil, at the mouth of the Amazon, I could not buy a bus ticket for Uruguay, my next point of call. I decided, therefore, to book a flight to Buenos Aires just to get the e-ticket to present to the police, figuring I could cancel later. The flight was $878, whereas I expect the bus will cost me $250 all told. Moreover, I’ll get to stop at São Paulo for a few days. I trusted that I would be able to cancel the flight, but when I went to the travel agency, they told me they could not cancel the flight. They could only change the destination. So I had my bank ask Visa to research a ‘merchant dispute’, and this morning I see that my account has been credited $878. In other words, my little trick worked. I got the visa, without parting with the money. Now I can go by bus. My apologies to Varig Airlines for the little deception! This is important too, in that I plan to sail upstream on the Amazon right after New Year’s Day. By ferry, it’s two days to Santarém and five days to Manaus, two other cities here in Brazil. I may try to bus south directly from one of those cities to São Paulo but I understand that the journey by bus from Manaus to São Paulo takes a week, by a very circuitous route through the thick of the jungle. Basically, I’m just living rather than sightseeing. The average income around here is far less than in the USA, but my neighborhood, which is called Marco, is very pleasant and orderly. I’d have no trouble staying here indefinitely, but I don’t think a third visa is to be had. The quality of the supermarkets and malls here is absolutely on a par with the USA, however. Within a mile of my room, there’s an awesome supermarket, with 12 aisles about 300 or 400 feet long. Adjacent to the supermarket is a department store, roughly equivalent to K-Mart, but not quite as big. There are ATM’s right in the front of the store, along with some smaller shops, for photography, cassettes, drugs, etc. It’s called Yamada. It must be Japanese, as Portuguese has no ‘y’. There’s another impressive supermarket called Nazare (Nazareth), after the street that it’s located on. About 5 miles from my hotel, there’s a mall called A Castanheira—The Chestnut Tree—three stories plus a basement, very modern and elegant, with escalators and air-conditioning. I go by bus. At the mall, you absolutely would not know you were not in Los Angeles or San Diego, except for the Portuguese names and signs. Products tend to be Brazilian-made too. I haven’t seen a great number of American products around here, though the style and motifs of the packages and bottles are vaguely reminiscent of American counterparts. There is a McDonald’s in A Castanheira, and I’ve seen a couple others around town. But so far, I haven’t seen any other American chains. Brazil is not like Argentina. Products in Argentina today are very inexpensive, sometimes only one-third or one-half as costly as in the US. In Brazil, consumer goods tend to be as expensive as they are up there. In fact, in some cases, little household items cost more here. My room more than compensates for this though. I’m paying $13 a day for a room that would cost $30 in Phoenix and $45 in Los Angeles, and I get a complete breakfast free. On the waterfront, on the Pará River, a part of the Amazon delta, there’s a dangerous looking marketplace called Ver-O-Peso—See-the-Weight—that I visited once. I’d hesitate to buy food there also. The refrigeration looks inadequate for the fish and meat that they sell. People here are only minimally friendly and hardly ever say ‘hello’ or even look you in the eye. Brazil is certainly not Thailand or the Indonesia, when it comes to amiable, charming people, but I’d say, economically, it outclasses them somewhat. I would rather live in Brazil than in the US, providing that I didn't have to make a living. You can't beat the American economy. ------------ About the author Thomas Keyes: I have written two books: A SOJOURN IN ASIA (non-fiction) and A TALE OF UNG (fiction), neither published so far. I have studied languages for years and traveled extensively on five continents. Email: udikeyes@yahoo.com Tell a friend about this site! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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