By Silvia Oliveira

I don’t know about you, but I have the greatest difficulty in telling the difference between a parrot and a macaw, a parakeet and a budgerigar. If I’m not careful, I confuse a swan with a heron! But I’m not as hopeless as I sound. I can recognise a big-beaked toucan or a discrete peacock. I would never have visited Foz do Iguaçu’s Bird Park if it wasn’t in front of the Iguaçu National Park’s Visitors’ Centre. As it is very close to the city’s major attraction, it ends up on the afternoon itinerary – as the majority of people visit the Falls in the morning.

The tour takes, on average, from one to two hours, depending on your pace. Admission is not cheap. But the organisation that administers the attraction points out as soon as you arrive: “we are a private company and we need your help to keep the park open”. Anyway, I have to say that that the project is well-executed. It really seems that you are lost in the depths of some native forest.

You are instructed to neither feed the birds, nor shout, nor talk loudly, nor to run. The trail is very easy to follow – you don’t need a guide, everything is well-signposted – and brings the visitor into very close contact with the animals. In some parts of the  trajectory you enter vast aviaries where you share space with the toucans and macaws that live there… as free as a bird, so to speak! They apear to be docile and like to play with tourists’ belongings, such as necklaces, keys, glasses and hats!

The idea of the aviaries is to try to reproduce some of the natural Brazilian habitats, such as the Pantanal.  There are more than a thousand animals, for the most part birds, of both indigenous and exotic species. But you will also find caiman, butterflies, tamarins and even an iguana. Something caught my attention in the area dedicated to flamingos: several mirrors scattered around them.

Flamingos are used to living and reproducing in bands of hundreds or thousands. As there are only 20 or so in the park, the mirrors were put into place so that the thin-legged darlings would feel more protected. Freudian philosophy if ever I saw it! The Bird Park is as colourful as “Carnaval”, but at a slower, more romantic pace. It is beautiful and tranquil. It has captive breeding programmes and visits guided by biologists. Each species is identified by an explanatory sign with its scientific name and its native region. Endangered species are also given prominence.

The Golden Parakeet (also known as the Golden Conure or Queen of Bavaria Conure), for example, reproduced for the first time in captivity at the Bird Park. To finish up, avoid the use of flash photography as much as possible and do not stray from the trail. At the end of the visit there is a gift-shop in case you feel the need to buy DVDs, books or T-shirts that portray the place. I left there happy and content… even though it still seems almost impossible to me to distinguish a rhea from an ostrich! But that’s just nit-picking…

Photo: Raul Mattar

INFORMATION

Av. das Cataratas, KM 17 (in front of the Iguaçu National Park’s Visitors’ Centre)

Tel.: (45) 3529-8282

Opening hours: Daily, from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

Admission: R$ 18.00

Site: www.parquedasaves.com.br

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Reportagem publicada originalmente na 21º edição do jornal Curitiba In English. Para entender o projeto de internacionalização do Matraqueando, clique aqui.

 by Sílvia Oliveira

If you chose only one weekend to visit Curitiba you know it will be almost impossible to visit all the  city’s parks in 48 hours. Here, if you’re not careful, even a vase of flowers is likely to be fitted out with  an entrance portal, a waterfall, two or three trails… and before you know it, a park is born!

We have parks for all tastes, all types, by the yard. They are made for those not in a hurry. Devised for those who like to enjoy what man and nature are capable of doing together.  But if I had to recommend only one (based on my enamoured  opinion, if you’ll permit me), visit the Ukrainian Memorial.

To me it is the most hotogenic and – architecturally speaking – one of the most interesting. The memorial is located in Tingui Park and, as the name implies, pays tribute to Ukrainian immigrants in Curitiba. The Ukrainian Memorial is, in fact, a complex: it has a replica of the St. Michael the Archangel church, a typical house, and, of course, a portal. The whole structure of the church is made of wood interlocked in the Ukrainian style.

A kind of Lego, the construction toy whose concept is based on parts that fit together harmoniously. Next to the church, a typical house is home to a souvenir shop, where you can buy the famous  “pessankas”, eggs decorated with the typical art of the Ukraine.

According to tradition the “pessankas” are made in the last week of Lent and taken to church on Easter Sunday, the day they are blessed. They became a kind of amulet, a talisman – which was either kept at home or given to a friend. A giant “pessanka”, made by artist Jorge Seratiuk, makes the Memorial even more gracious.

The interior of the replica of St. Michael the Archangel church has no religious function. It is a small museum, in which are displayed icons of the Orthodox Church, a collection of “pessankas” – each more beautiful than the other – and Ukrainian handicrafts. So make a note in your travel diary: the Ukrainian Memorial – not just the best photo opportunity, but also a great memory to take with you of Curitiba.

Photo: Raul Mattar

INFORMATION:

Ukrainian Memorial

Location: Tingui Park | Between Fredolin Wolf and Jose Valle Streets.

Tel.: 41/ 3335.2112 and 3321.3313

Opening hours: 8 a.m. – 6 p.m. daily

Free admission

by Sílvia Oliveira

I confess… I sinned. A Mortal sin in the heavenly order of daring backpackers, fancy-free foreigners and Brazilians who know the value of their own country. The crime? I went to Niagara Falls in 2004 – when I visited Toronto – but never even thought of the possibility of experiencing Foz do Iguaçu, which is 650 kilometres from my house and, moreover, is the second most visited destination in Brazil, after Rio de Janeiro.

The idea of visiting Foz do Iguaçu, a democratic destination – that blends ecology, engineering and shopping – was full of expectations. Once there, everything was much more, much better and much larger than expected. The arrival at the Visitors’ Centre of the Iguaçu National Park immediately impresses. The structure is of the great European parks and it seems that there are more foreigners than Brazilians there. The Centre’s entrance hall is beautiful, clean and well signposted. It has a souvenir shop and information desk.

We bought our admission tickets – which are priced differently for Brazilians and foreigners – and embarked on one of the colourful buses (decorated with local fauna) which take tourists to the trail closest to the Falls. It is an 11-kilometre, 15-minute ride. When you get off the bus you find out that there are another 1,200 metres and 500 steps until you get there! Onwards you hike down the winding path and the first, not-so-impressive, waterfalls appear. But it does not take long to get very close to the Devil’s Throat, the largest of all the falls and the best known of the city’s views.

Foz do Iguaçu is also home to the world’s biggest hydroelectric dam in terms of energy production, Itaipu. Three thousand years from now, when a new civilisation has taken our place, Itaipu will be to them what the Pyramids of Egypt or the ruins of Machu Picchu are to us today. Without understanding the process or even any idea as to what end such a structure would serve, they will wonder if this perfect, creative and gigantic monument was the result of extraterrestrial intervention or slave labour.

They will surely believe that extraordinary minds and evolved spirits participated in the construction of what would have been one of the largest engineering works of mankind. Because, in fact, only highly-intelligent people charged with a very special mission could have carried out such a monstrous feat. Foz do Iguaçu is perhaps one of the few cities in the world that can unite – in a relatively small demographic area – one of the greatest natural spectacles on Earth with the genius of human creativity. Well worth a visit!

Photo: Raul Mattar

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Reportagem publicada originalmente na 19º edição do jornal Curitiba In English. Para entender o projeto de internacionalização do Matraqueando, clique aqui.

by Sílvia Oliveira

The “ecological” Curitiba, that  place you’ve heard so often called the best place to live in Brazil (maybe the world!), underwent a severe face-lift. Everything changed – a kind of Extreme Makeover of cities. Here a quarry became an actor’s stage, there a powder magazine became a theater and there a valley bottom became a park. Until the 1970’s, the city was far from being a mecca for Brazilian and foreign tourists, thought it would soon be off to the operating table. Lacking the immense waterfalls of Foz do Iguaçu of  lands not far away, it sought to replicate such splendor in the waterfalls at Tangua Park, built over an old degraded area.

Today, it is the charming hallmark seen in so many photographs of Curitiba. Already rivaling the nearby Serra do Mar, one of the last remnants of the Atlantic Forest, making a visit perhaps a waste of time and money. The technical planning of the city entailed utilizing each and every patch of green in the city to create parks. And they have succeeded. They are immensely beautiful. The city with the highest concentration of parks per square meter on the planet is sure to be the capital of the state of Paraná. Once again someone’s skill with the knife has yielded fine results.

The municipality proudly carries the benchmark of 55 square meters of green space per inhabitant. Moreover, Curitiba has a reputation of being a pioneer in almost everything: the first Federal University in the country was founded in the city. The first Brazilian street designed to be completely covered (currently being renovated), the 24 Hour Street (“Rua 24 Horas”), lies at the heart of the capital city. It has the only museum in the world in the shape of an eye, the MON. It was signed by Oscar Niemeyer, one of  the greatest Brazilian architects. Recently, the city  inaugurated Brazil’s first Organic Market, a pleasant venue that offers more than a thousand products certified as having “no pesticides and chemical additives”.

The precursor “Ligeirinho” bus, a kind of subway on 4 wheels, has transformed the lives of those who depend on public transportation. While not ideal (there is overcrowding during peak hours and on some routes the name “slow bus” may be more appropriate), the system is so innovative that cities like Los Angeles are already adopting the model. Curitiba has simply worked out. In addition, it has an even greater resource, one that is engaging, diverse, with so many stories to tell: people!

People from everywhere and all walks of life. Immigrants dedicated themselves to agriculture and brought skilled labor for industry. So much work for one title: a people with a per capita income 40% higher than the national average. On Sunday, the highly competitive Largo da Ordem Fair, in the city’s historic downtown, will send you home with armfuls of trinkets, handicrafts, used books, antiques, and especially with the certainty that Curitiba is indeed the most successful architectural “liposculpture” in Brazil!

Photo: Raul Mattar

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Reportagem publicada originalmente na 19º edição do jornal Curitiba In English. Para entender o projeto de internacionalização do Matraqueando, clique aqui.