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| Decorations in Manaus, Brazil |
[
3 de Julio, 2014]
Today is a quiet day in Brazil. After the round of 8 single elimination matches for the World Cup ended on July 1st with USA's final match against Belgium, no teams have played. All the athletes, the fans, the international travelers, the shop keepers and bartenders of Brazil, the kids and the parents and the grandparents, who have watched every moment of World Cup football, are now resting. Tomorrow is a new day. And tomorrow is also a Brazil day.
Every day that we have been able to experience the World Cup here has been an unexpected pleasure.
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Empty streets of Belem during
the opening Brazil match |
We knew that our trip would end in Brazil and that the timing of our visits with friends could overlap with the World Cup. But at the time we left home, we had no intention of going to any games or even necessarily being here for all of the World Cup. For travelers uninterested in soccer, this is not the time to visit Brazil as practically everything has a "Copa" price and a off season price. We are, however, soccer fans. Our Seattle Sounders have redefined MLS games and friendlies as top tier sporting events in our city, and we love them for it. (If you ever visit Seattle and see lime green Xbox apparel, you know now which team this belongs to.) Regardless of a life long devotion to soccer or not, we are here and we are American and
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At the Manaus ticketing center (which is not at the stadium
or conveniently marked on any city map) |
there is nothing like cheering on your own country when you are abroad. For the second time in my life (the first was to the Olympics with Eli 4 years ago), I got to dress ridiculously patriotic, sing childhood songs (Oh when the saints...) and chant U-S-A over and over again while cheering for my country.
The fever of the World Cup got to us and by the time we got to Brazil, we were thrilled we had already caved and bought ourselves game tickets to 2 matches.
So how did we get here? To Brazil I mean, the rest of the trip will take a lot more time to explain. (However the posts, pictures and trip details are still coming, I swear!) The physical journey into Brazil is one I'll never forget.
Trip to Brazil
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| Amazon Jungle village |
Fast forward through Chile, Bolivia and Peru and you will find Eli and I leisurely relaxing in the heart of the Amazon Jungle in early June. The Amazon region can only be accessed by boat or plane so we flew from Lima to a city, Iquitos, in eastern Peru. From there we explored the Amazon River and stayed in a river lodge.
After Iquitos we were either a 2 day slow boat or a 9 hour fast boat ride away from the Brazilian border. We decided to take the fast boat (this was a regular speed boat but with an uncomfortable seating arrangement, no head rest to sleep on and 9 long hours of nothing to do) downriver on the Amazon to the tri-country border zone of Peru, Colombia and Brazil.
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| Tabatinga, Brazil |
Tabatinga, Brazil was our destination. This little Brazilian town on the tri-country border is no different then it's neighbors: smelly, dusty, and hot. It was however different in one major way, there was no more Spanish! We found a comfortable enough hotel owned by a sweet Portuguese couple which we were somehow able to rent with no real communication going on between us. The shops were all ready for the World Cup and I enjoyed shopping in Tabatinga because everything was very inexpensive.
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| The slow boat to Manaus from Tabatinga |
Slow boat to Manaus
Following our frontier towns layover, in which we also got to Leticia, Colombia, we left two days later for our real Amazon River adventure. Over 700 miles away is the Brazilian city of Manaus. We bought slow boat tickets, 2 hammocks and planned for 4 days of travelling down the Amazon on an overnight boat headed for Manaus.
So how do you sleep, eat, and shower on a slow boat? I'll leave all of that for another post. But I will say that we were very surprised by how many people fit on the boat, most of the people were local as this is the way to travel on the Amazon and our beds were our trusty hammocks.
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| Largest dorm I have ever slept in |
This trip had 3 of the most broken up nights of sleep you could ever imagine, the last being woken up by armed National Military looking for drugs, but it was sloooooooow, the boat was calm and the breeze kept the bugs far, far away.
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| Chillaxing in bed |
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| Enjoying my morning coffee while overlooking the Amazon |
Manaus, Brazil
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| Teatro Amazonas, Manaus |
In Manaus our real excitement for the World Cup began. Since this is a host city, the streets were decorated and everyone seemed to be waiting and watching for the foreign tourists to arrive, the streets to become filled and there to be wild, celebrations every night. Which I'm sure there were. However Eli and I left Manaus the morning of the opening ceremonies and Brazil's first match.
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| Picking up our tickets in Manaus |
Belem, Brazil
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| Eli at the Belem market |
We traveled to Belem, Brazil which is very close to the mouth of the Amazon river. We were interested in seeing this city, but also we wanted to avoid visiting only host cities while in Brazil. Not quite adjusted to the heat of northern Brazil yet (Belem is the closest to the equator I have ever been), Eli and I struggled to find the energy to travel outside of Belem. However, Belem has a long river front and the largest outdoor market in South America. On our first night, we had one thing to do. Find a bar with Brazilians to watch the first game of the world cup.
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| The bar for the first Brazilian match |
Our stay in Belem was short due to our new World Cup schedule. We had games to get to in two different cities and the first was the USA game, 4 days after the World Cup kickoff. We flew down to Natal, Brazil and were excited to find that even the airlines had put a great deal of thought into how they'd celebrate the games.
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| Flying to Natal during the World Cup |
Natal, Brazil and the USA World Cup match against Ghana
Natal was a whirlwind. Once we arrived we were already seeing Americans everywhere. People don't just dress up for the game, they display their gear proudly all of the time. There were 3 games on TV every day and all of the restaurants, even ones that didn't have real tables and chairs, had new flat screen TVs. In Ponta Negra, the touristy part of town, there were round-the-clock opportunities to enjoy the matches whether it be live, after parties, or pre-parties.
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| Sand dunes in Natal and scenes from around town, Eli blending in |
If you didn't want to watch every game you certainly could entertain yourself in Natal. There are sand dunes located in and around the city which are beautiful but also fun to sand buggy around. The beach in Ponta Negra is pretty and not overly built up. Eli went to explore the dunes on our one morning off but I had to find a shirt to wear with my newly purchased American pants. Both Eli and I found clothes to wear for the game in Belem. Since it had been 5 months since were in the US we had nothing in our backpacks that would even pass for 4th of July apparel. (Where were all of those Old Navy flag shirts!) So we did our best and in the end I think it worked out pretty well. One lady asked me if I had my pants custom made back in the US. "No," I told her, "They are from a Brazilian market!" Only in Brazil can you find, randomly, this pair of spandex.
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| Red, White and Blue filled the streets of Natal before the USA game |
Before the game there was a pre-party hosted by the American Outlaws soccer fan club. We found the restaurant by the overflow of Americans out on the street. People were singing patriotic and childhood songs and pretty much anything that they could think of that had to do with America. We were as American as we could be, but this time, I didn't mind it.
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| At the American Outlaws party. I think this girl's pants would look nice next to mine! |
At the stadium, we were joined by plenty of Ghana fans. Everyone got along great. The Ghana people are very easy going. Since this was the first week of the tournament, everyone was just happy to be there.
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| Ghana fans outside of Natal Stadium |
As excited as we were to get tickets to a USA game, we couldn't have known how much fun the stadium would be. The crowds were hilarious, the energy was extremely high and the game was amazing. I was so nervous for our team before the game. After one minute, when we scored, the entire stadium erupted and the American crowd ran the high for most of the rest of the game.
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| The most patriotic of all of our accessories is Eli's hat, from Chile. The back strap is labeled, simply, America. |
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| Ghana vs. USA, FIFA World Cup 2014, Natal, June 16th |
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| The USA Men's Team warming up. Upper right photos include Beasley, Jones, Bradley, Dempsey and Johnson. |
I managed to capture our second goal! Brooks (#6) is heading the ball in the next photo.
After the game the fans continued to sing and cheer outside of the stadium. We took some video to enjoy the parade of wildly decorated fans racing in to join the party. Here are a few of their costumes. Absolutely, our favorite is the man carrying the flag that is the most American of them all. It says only one thing: Soccer.
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| Happy fans outside of the stadium following the match |
