Curitiba, Brazil

To get to Curitiba we decided to do the long haul and head straight there. That meant we were on the road early and into a taxi to the Asuncion bus terminal. Being a Sunday the streets of Asuncion were empty except for marathon runners in a race.

We got the bus to Ciudad del Este (the border town) and later found out is was a religious holiday and a three day weekend so that explained why the bus was so full and there were loads of buses and people at the bus terminal. It took us 7 hours to the terminal and we were into another taxi and quickly through the deserted streets. All the stalls were packed away.

We walked through  immigration and crossed the river bridge again into Iguacu. In no time at all a Brazilian taxi found us and delivered us to the terminal for our night bus to Curitiba. We chatted to a young Danish guy in the waiting room and he told us how he missed buses and got lost a few times because he didn't speak Spanish or Portuguese. We introduced him to the Google translator app and he was thankful for that.

We had seats in different rows but John managed to persuade a lady to change to his seat so we could be together. It is better I put up with his snoring that anyone else. I  am at least be able to give him the elbow. It poured with rain all the way to Curitiba and after 11 hours and yet another taxi ride we arrived at our hostel.

These wonderful people looked after us at the art deco Motter Home hostel.

What a clean and well organised city. It has about 2 million inhabitants with significant numbers of Polish, Ukranian, German, Italian, and Japanese descendants amongst them.

Some of the sights from walking about the downtown area.

Street art.


We walked around the city centre and enjoyed it very much.

The restored old city hall which is now a cultural centre.

 These 'tubos' are waiting rooms for the local buses. Once inside you buy or scan your ticket and the doors open directly into the bus when it arrives. One end is in and the other the exit. In this set up it holds 3 tubos of people waiting for the bus and are all over the inner city.








One day we joined the hop on hop off city tour. On one section we walked a couple of the parks and came upon a dozen capybara like these. They are the world's largest rodents. They are huge! As big as a pig but not as long.

 A park to commemorate the Ukranian inhabitants.

The botanical gardens with a glasshouse inspired those at Kew gardens in UK.

 The city residential blocks on the outskirts.

 Birds in the parks.

It rained most of the time here but we still enjoyed our stay. There are lots of people sleeping on the streets outside shops. They have their mattresses and blankets and and we saw groups of about 6 in some places unbothered by the goings on in the street. It is hard to walk along the walking street without having advertising pamphlets thrust at you from all sides. It's now a habit to avoid eye contact and give a flick of the fingers in the direction of a pamphlet.

Next stop Rio de Janiero.