Thu, Jun 05, 2014 page19

• World Cup: World Cup’s most exotic city awaits fan influx

  • AP, MANAUS, Brazil
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  Death by giant snakes, malarial mosquitoes or drug-addled thieves: If the barrage of headlines in UK tabloids are to be believed, that is what awaits soccer fans traveling to the most exotic of Brazil’s FIFA World Cup host cities: the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus.

  Despite Manaus’ location in the heart of the world’s biggest rainforest making it reachable only by plane or boat, the ills most likely to affect the 52,000 or so foreigners expected for the tournament are disappointingly mundane. Visitors to the city of 2 million are far more likely to spend hours in bumper-to-bumper gridlock than cross paths with a python.

  “People need to study geography,” local student Ketlen dos Santos Alves said. “Yes, Manaus is in the Amazon, but it’s also a huge city. How do foreigners actually believe there are snakes hanging from every tree and caimans hiding in the gutters?”

  While the forest fauna are largely absent from the city, nature does make itself felt in the hothouse climate and blooms of mold that envelop low-slung concrete buildings. With humidity hovering at about 80 percent year-round, just sitting motionless is a sweat-inducing activity.

  To help acclimate their players, England are training in multiple layers of long-sleeved clothing as they prepare to face Italy on June 15 in the first of four World Cup matches being held in Manaus’ new US$229 million Arena Amazonas stadium.

  “There are two seasons in Manaus: summer and hell,” a local adage goes.

  The eight teams slated to play in the city — the US, England, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, Cameroon, Portugal and Honduras — have their work cut out for them in dealing with the heat and humidity, but for adventurous tourists, a unique city rich in tradition awaits.

  Manaus got its start as a Portuguese fort in the late 17th century where the Rio Negro and Solimoes meet to form the mighty Amazon, the world’s largest river by volume.

  It blossomed during the rubber boom of the late 1800s, briefly becoming one of the world’s wealthiest cities. During its heyday, rubber barons spared no expense on their vanity project, a stately opera house designed to rival Paris’ Opera Garnier and made from the finest materials ferried in from Europe.

  In the early 1900s, competition from rubber plantations in Asia caused the price of the milky tree sap to plummet, sending Manaus into a decades-long spiral.

  It was not until the 1960s that an immense industrial zone helped breathe new life into the city. Now, gas flares burn bright at a riverside oil refinery, while smokestacks puff smoke above the tree line as Honda, Harley Davidson, Suzuki and other companies churn out their wares.

  While Manaus now suffers from the triumvirate of urban ills plaguing nearly all Brazilian cities — chaotic planning, terrible traffic and iffy security — the upshot is that visitors can escape it all within minutes.

  The port area, with its cacophony of fishmongers flaying 40kg-plus pirurucus and fruit sellers hauling chandelier-sized banana bunches, buzzes with speedboats that can carry visitors out of the urban sprawl to pristine jungle in just 15 minutes.

  It is in the forest that the tabloid reports take on a semblance of truth. Here, there really are giant insects, from palm-sized beetles that can amputate the tip of a human finger to snapping caimans, and razor-toothed piranhas. Mosquitoes and other insects are so thick at dusk that malaria, yellow fever and leishmaniasis, which causes skin to break out in unsightly ulcers, represent a real threat in the jungle.

  Then there is the candiru, a catfish that feeds off blood and is said to swim up any human orifice, prompting guides to warn swimmers not to urinate in the rivers.

  Indigenous peoples live in villages carved out of the forest and the riverbanks are lined with floating houses, restaurants, general stores and bars.

  Water is a way of life for the ribeirinhos, as the river dwellers are known. Everyone waves and smiles at tourists on river boats.

  “When I came here, I knew literally nothing about Manaus,” said Luis Malheiro, who heads the Manaus Philharmonic Orquestra. “I was completely ignorant... Twenty years later, here I am.”
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