Brasilia

I managed to get a nice deal on a great hotel on Sunday in Brasilia...Brasilia being much busier during the week than on the weekends. Cheap accommodation is really not to be found though...you are only going to get a ¨deal¨ if you are willing to spend a fair amount and stay somewhere nice. When I decided to stay Monday night I was told the price would be double, so I promptly moved out into a place that was not nearly as nice, but cost the same price R$130 (about $75).

As for Brasilia itself...the area of tourist interest (the Esplanada where the government ministries, cathedral, theater, etc. are located) is made up of very wide boulevards separated by vast open spaces with few trees to provide respite from the sun which shone every day I was there. Walking around the area during the day, on sidewalks devoid of shade, which were placed immediately next to the road full of cars screaming by, is not the most peaceful place to enjoy the ¨modern¨ architecture of the buildings and scultures about. As for the design of the buildings themselves and the layout of the city, I suppose it is all interesting as a study of what someone (namely, the designer of all this, Oscar Niemeyer) 60 years ago thought the future would look like, but it is not a lot of fun to actually be there and be on foot. The Esplanada itself has the many different government ministry buildings, which are all identical looking towers of non-descript design. Nearby are the more interesting buildings like the theater, cathedral, and branches of government. Some of those buildings do have a space-age look to them...but only if you think of the 60´s as the space age.

The city was designed for cars...or you might say it was designed for its 50th anniversary party, because the huge open spaces between the boulevards on the Esplanada proved to be the perfect place to put thousands of young people celebrating the anniversary. The 50 anniversary was celebrated by seemingly every young person anywhere near Brasilia, as walking around the area in the early evening during the fiesta I saw hordes of young people, but very few older folks, with the exception of the omnipresent security and medical forces on hand. Being around that many potential, well, assailants, did not make me overly comfortable since my physical appearance limits my ability to blend in, but staying amongst the crowds and close the the police posts worked out well for me. Several different concers were being put on at different stages around the area, and the shows were pretty entertaining, though it was a little hard to enjoy myself when I was spending most of my attention on watching my back and getting out of the way when a group of young people would come running toward me (which I was told later was because they had likely ripped a bag away from someone). I cannot say I saw another person out there that I could clearly identify as being not from S. America.

At any rate, the cleanup must have been fun, as the day-long party had already left enough garbage by early evening in some areas to nearly completely cover the ground...it was almost as if a landfill had had a volcanic eruption nearby. In the end, Brasilia was notable mostly for the strangeness of it and its unfriendliness to people on foot, though I do not regret going there at all, as it was enjoyable simply for the uniqueness of it.