My son the junior engineer, acting like a boss these days, determined that we should go to Brasil for the World Soccer Cup and follow the games of Group G- the group of death: USA,Portugal, Germany and Ghana. That's what we ended up doing. We started in Recife a beautiful city with aging infrastructure crazy traffic and a lot of economic activity. We drove around in a stick shift Ford Fiesta rental car and it was a relief to see that we could survive and maybe even thrive in that chaotic traffic. After the games there we drove to Natal, the ancient (over 400 years old) city on the East coast of Brasil. As you enter Natal there is star (of Bethlehem) overhanging the highway suspended from a large cantilever curved concrete beam welcoming you to the city. Quite impressive. Natal is a city perched on the slopes of the dunes of the Atlantic coast. The roads in the city present so many ups and downs that at times it feels like a roller coaster ride. Most of the residential streets are made with cobblestones and they have seen better days. We saw a worker with a horse cart carrying sand that he used to fill the potholes. The Via Costeira on the other hand presents a very nice driving experience and may have even been designed by Ayrton Sena the Brasilian champion race car driver. We drove to Pirangi do Norte in Rio Grande do Norte to see the worlds largest cashew tree. The tree which is about 115 years old covers an area of about 850 Sq. Meters and produces about 17,000 nuts a year. I tested their cashew liquor: excellent but not like our feni. By the way, in Brasil you cannot drink and drive: zero tolerance. Finally we went to Manaus a big city home to about 2 million people, deep in the rain forest on the banks of the Amazon river. The Manaus soccer arena was built just for these games and is a beautiful structure that reportedly carries a price tag of 300 million USD. Many of the locals felt that the money could have been better used to update the aging infrastructure of the grand city, for new schools and so on. We took a three hour boat trip on the River Negro to the confluence with the river Solimoes where both the rivers flow side by side for about 4 miles without mixing due to the temperature differences of the waters: one is at about 20 deg C while the other is at about 28 deg C. The waters of the River Negro are dark and the waters of the Solimoes are sandy colored. On the 22nd we saw the USA Vs. Portugal game with the very loud fans and with the exciting finish . We headed home the next day.
Brasil is a huge country almost 8.6 million Sq. Km in area with a population of over 200 Million people and they all speak Portuguese. Brasil GDP (Purchasing Power Parity) was estimated at 2.5 trillion USD in 2013, placing it at number 8 in the world. We only saw a little bit of this great country. There were demonstrations against the games in the neighborhoods, there was a partial transportation strike (partial bus service), the fully armed military police were around projecting a strong presence and maintaining order. The people that we interacted with, were very friendly. The food was good. Beautiful Country. https://www.flickr.com/photos/53242509@N06/sets/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RrDAI7tFzU Best Regards, E. DeSousa
