It must be early morning, weak twilight, but it might also be the light of the street lights.

As so often before, in an unknown new place, a strange confusion creeps in: I do not know where I am.

The world is silent and dark. Looking at the watch might solve the riddle, but I am too tired. I do not move, listening for sounds. Is it a dream?

The mind is still confused, the images of the past days merge into each other, the Rio de la Plata, a corpulent lady in a bus, crowds, faces and long avenues, cows on endless pastures, whose boundaries blur on the horizon.

And yet, slowly the darkness lifts, the room takes on shapes and colors, the shadows become objects, table and chairs and paintings on the walls.

Ah yes, Porto Alegre. Of course. And now the day begins to stir outside. Honking. Car engines. A departing bus. Voices. Laughter.

I have arrived in today.

Plans at breakfast

The day has picked up speed, I am once again the last one at breakfast, I am greeted with this familiar mixture of halfway friendly and scrutinizing looks. I sit down, still completely with myself, that is going to change quickly. The room is small, but filled with many voices, locals, I am the only alien in this homogeneous community.

Today, conquering Porto Alegre is the mission, i.e. to open the doors to its hidden interior, see if there is anything special. But as always first - a running gag as many others - first step to the bus terminal to buy a ticket to the next destination.

The destination is called Chapeco, no idea how to pronounce it correctly (which causes a little confusion at the bus counter, because I pronounce the name completely wrong and it takes some time until the poor guy understands where I want to go). I know absolutely nothing about this city, even if a diffuse memory of the name is buzzing around in my mind.

Once again, the idea is to drive during the day but this is easier said than done. The distances in this huge country are endless and the days are hot, so that people prefer to travel during the night, which also saves them the cost of hotel accommodation. If you want to avoid this, things get complicated. The way to Foz do Iguacu is about 900 km long, so ideal for a night drive.

I searched for a solution and actually found a halfway reasonable one. One can divide the distance into two roughly equal halves. But the departure is around 6.30, so an early start is required. A hotel in Chapeco is easy to find, but there is one tiny problem: despite a long search I haven't found a bus that runs the second half of the way to Foz do Iguacu. Well, we will see ...

Obesity carried with dignity

So then Porto Alegre, which hopefully will live up to its promising name.

The hustle and bustle in the old town is just as dense as it was yesterday, and so the pace remains slow, the senses tense. It's better that way, because the sun is hot and sweat collects on your forehead.

 

First of all I look for the shortest way to the bus terminal to make sure that I am prepared for tomorrow morning. Can't hurt if you know where you have to go. Especially in the twilight of the morning.

It is clearly a different breed of people to those in the Spanish speaking countries. A certain dignified obesity has taken hold, at times I think to be on Fifth Avenue in New York. During last year's Olympics, a reporter made the not very charming remark that he had searched in vain for all the famous beauties of the female sex in Rio. Without wanting to insult anyone - I understand what he means. It is by no means that the people are ugly, on the contrary, they are just not prettier than elsewhere.

Which doesn't mean too much.

Stranger in a strange land

It's annoying that I can't talk to anyone. This Kalashnikov Brazilian, banged around my head in spite of my uncomprehending eyes, might as well be Cantonese or Swahili. Even the attempt to explain that nothing at all has been understood, leads to further cascades of words, which are just as ineffective as everything before. At the same time, the city is supposed to be one of the most progressive cities in Brazil; a lot of industry, trade, global economy.

Good heavens, how do people talk to foreigners?

Quote from Wikipedia: The education system is well developed.

But the people are happy, as the cliché suggests, cheerful and in their own way at peace with the world. Anyway, according to Wikipedia, Avenida Cristovao Colombo is supposed to be one of the streets with pizzerias, where German and Swiss cuisine is supposed to be served.

Why not.

So I set out, as usually completely uninterested in any monuments (some of which are said to exist) or further churches and cathedrals (where even today the poor are still being stripped of their money) and magnificent palaces and skyscrapers and other symbols of monstrous extravagance and arrogance.

The way to Avenida Colombo is miserably long, but in my mind I can already see a wonderful lunch in front of me, accompanied by a cold beer.

But the Avenida starts out so modestly that I don't even notice that I have already missed it, and this should be a first warning. It doesn't get any better, the street remains poor, run down, and even where it gets wider, the many promised pizzerias and the other famous restaurants are absent, and while my stomach is growling louder and louder, my frustration is getting bigger and bigger.

With Wikipedia it is always the same: either the assertion is correct, not correct, or no longer correct.

A juicy piece of meat

In this case, the third variant seems to apply. This area may well have once experienced a period of prosperity, but today it is a tired mirror of former grandeur and beauty. Many stores are closed, locked, run down, not a single pizzeria is left, not to mention German and Swiss cuisine.

Well, I'm still hungry though and finally find myself in one of the typical restaurants again, where there's a buffet and a friendly waiter explaining the cuisine to me in the notorious fast-paced Brazilian, which confuses me to a certain extent, but helps me to get a really good meal anyway.

But as a modest Swiss, I take so few that the waiter takes pity on me and puts a juicy, freshly roasted piece of meat on my plate. That's what I call hospitality and finally reconciles me with the unfortunately no longer very fashionable Avenida Cristobao Colombo ...

It somehow also reconciles me with the city, unfortunately the only one in Brazil that I visit. Can it be an example for other Brasilian cities, for the country itself, for the way of life and art of living of the locals? I don't know, but certain characteristics might be true. There is a lot of poverty, besides a lot of money and wealth, the old and well-known discrepancies in all the countries of South America. But there is also the friendliness of the locals, the cheerful way of seeing life as a gift and enjoying it despite all the adversities.

That should be a lesson to me.

Mileage: 994

Matching Song:   The Dead South - The good Lord

And here the journey further - westward

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