Cold in Curitiba

6th of September to 12th of September

Last blog post left you at getting off the bus. It was already dark by the time we arrived. We were taking an Uber to the apartment and the temperature showed 10 degrees Celsius. Brrrrr brrrr. Way worse than São Paulo!!!

Our apartment was on the 15th floor of a tall building in the historical centre. You take the elevator to the 15th floor and walk up one flight of steps. It had a small kitchen, a rock hard sleeper couch, a small bathroom and a bedroom for mom and dad.

It all looked nice but it became clear that the kitchen was not used often.

Dad was getting annoyed with the lack of quality cooking supplies so he went out and got a good sturdy pan. That night he was cooking but didn’t have a lid so he used the pan from the kitchen. We always make a plan! And that became the start of dad creating a ‘mobile kitchen’. In the following days he got us spice containers and a dish up spoon, then 2 microwave containers, and a small pepper grinder.

Our building was on the shopping street. From our window we could see the bustling crowds flitting from shop to shop. At the back of the building there was a tram restaurant thingy 🚃. In the front there was a water fountain ⛲️.

Curitiba Clues

Curitiba is the capital and largest city in the Paraná province, known as a cultural center. The city is 932 m above sea level. It has almost 2 million inhabitants, number 8 in Brazil. And one of our Uber drivers said it was one the 5 most expensive cities in Brazil to live in.

In the 19th century Curitiba was a big cattle breeding area for Brazilians and immigrants from Germany, Italy, Poland and Ukraine moved in. It grew a lot because of logging and agriculture (mate, coffee and later wheat, corn and soy). The biggest growth happened after the 1960s, with innovative urban planning to house the increasing number of people.

Flea and craft market

On Sunday we decided to go for a walk in the historical town center and we managed to stumble upon this Sunday Market that mom had read about.

There were rows upon rows of stalls selling a variety of things from second hand stuff to homemade crafts to homemade foods.

Second hand there were old ceramics, glass, metal arts and clothes.

Crafts: barbie crafts (homemade clothes and furniture), crochet crafts, wood crafts. You name it, they probably had it.

Everyone is very friendly and the city was nicely laid out and here and there, there were old buildings, some of which were refurbished nicely.

After a while we got hungry and decided to get some Empanadas from one of the stalls. We decided to get the Argentinian empanadas which had chunks of meat and vegetables 😋.

And my ears were getting cold so we bought a winter bonnet with a matching cowl for me and a beret for mom.

I also had my first Toffee apple. It had a shiny red candy coating that added a fun crunch but as soon as you accumulated enough candy in your mouth and tried to chew it, it would stick your teeth together and as you try to open your mouth you get a tugging feeling. It took me at least 2 hours to finish it!

When we were done hanging around the market dad called up an Uber to take us to Carrefour (a big super market) then we were shopping around for a while. After that we went to this funny looking bus stop (it was a tube!).

In São Paulo there were buses with a bendy part (like an accordion) that were slightly longer than normal buses. But here there were buses with two bendy parts and we went in one! What’s nice is that the bus and the bus stop are wheel chair friendly (not that any of us use wheel chairs, but still).

Congregating Capybaras

Parque Barigui is a huge park where wildlife runs free. It has lakeside trails for hiking and biking. It has capybaras, birds and fresh water fish. We went there early morning and it seemed like half of Curitiba was out there going for a run or a walk. The park has concrete paths with a lane for pedestrians, a lane for runners, and one for cyclists. Everything looked neat and well maintained.

We had read about the capybaras and had never seen any so we were very curious. The capybara or greater capybara (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris) is the largest living rodent, native to South America. Its close relatives include guinea pigs and rock cavies, and it is more distantly related to the agouti, the chinchilla, and the nutria. The capybara inhabits savannas and dense forests, and lives near bodies of water. And guess where we spotted our first ones? Like little statues at the edge of the water!

It is a highly social species and can be found in groups as large as one hundred individuals, but usually lives in groups of 10–20 individuals. In Barigui the capybaras shared their space with birds, fish, geese and people (from a distance). On one of the man made islands was a nesting ground for some sort of geese. The capybaras decided to go annoy them at some point 🙄.

The capybaras we saw liked to swim and lay around but they did a great show of their intelligence (NOT. They probably have 0.1 IQ). We saw two youngsters trying to climb the steep shores over and over again at the same spot, tripping over each other, while the adults stared and chewed and rechewed their grass strands.

The capybara is hunted for its meat and hide and also for grease from its thick fatty skin. Jaguars like to eat them too.

As we were walking to the capybaras we saw a kestrel. When we went back we saw a water vole in the same area (a future snack for the kestrels?).

Along the lakeside path we saw a whole bunch of kivits (a very noisy bird). Dad says they are very aggressive when they are guarding eggs. And their preferred spot for laying eggs is in the middle of the Rugby field!

Browsing in the Botanical Garden of Curitiba

After walking up and down the big park Barigui we decided to check out the Botanical gardens.

There was a maze and the flower beds were laid out like the gardens of the French sun king (Louis XIV, Versailles gardens).

There was a greenhouse built in Art Deco style, but dating only from 1991. Inside it was the tropical area. When we walked through it, it was like walking through the back path of our house in Bocas. We recognised most of the plants.

There was also a glass tube that went around the tropical house. In it were flowers and statues of the Greek goddess of harvest, Demeter.

The Botanical Garden has lots of different types of plants. There were bee hives and a sensory garden. It had a big pond full of fresh water fish and fresh water turtles.

Municipal Market

Next on the list was the municipal market. It was very similar to the São Paulo one, except no giant meat sandwiches.

Shopping Estação

This is now a mall with very expensive brands, but it used to be a train station back in the day and has a little train museum. It’s ok for some pictures and maybe a beer or ice cream but otherwise it’s not really worth it (unless you’re into shopping expensive brands).

Curitiba City life

There are a lot of fountains everywhere, in front of our hotel and in every park. But they all had brown or greenish water. Often the water foams or has a layer of grime and foam in the corners. Personally, I think that at night when everyone’s asleep the homeless go and bathe in the fountains 🤣. And clearly some were long overdue for a wash.

Another common thing in the city was Paraná pines, (Brazilian pine) or candelabra tree, a critically endangered evergreen tree species. It’s called a pine but isn’t part of the pine family.

To close off, the Curitiba experience described with as many C’s as possible: Careful cruising with cute but not so curious capybaras. Clumsy candy apple on a concertina bus! Clutching a coffee or hot chocolate not to clam up because of the cold.