Brazil Day 27 - Bye bye Brazil
As I watch Brazil are 1-7 down to Germany. From my hotel room in Sao Paulo I can hear police sirens wailing and massive fireworks going off. Blimey they are getting a thrashing from the Germans, who have gone through their defence like some sort of very elegant Panzer division.This has upsides and downsides. The obvious downside is that the atmsphere in the Maracana will be lacking the crazy local support that would have been there had Brazil got to the final. That really would have raised the rafters. Plus, I don't get to shoot Brazil this tournament which is a real shame. The upside is that there should, hopefully, be fewer Brazilian photographers at the final meaning fewer people in the Group 2 photo position selection queue, and more decent spaces for us guys in Group 3.It feels like Brazil sort of collapsed with the loss of their talisman Neymar. They just didn't know what to do in the first half. Neymar's injury has obviously been all over the news here. On the day it happened the replays were shown again and again and again on the TV. You could sense a national "oh, we're screwed now" feeling everywhere in Rio. It's almost like Neymar was the guy who held it all together for them.Oh well, the balloon will deflate here somewhat and we won't get the mega atmosphere at the Maracana. I'm guessing if Argentina win tomorrow here in Sao Paulo that the Brazilians will get behind them.My day began feeling a bit better than yesterday. With the world no longer falling out of my bottom at regular intervals and not shivering in cold sweats, I had a decent breakfast and then made my way to the main bus station in Rio. I had booked a bus rather than flying as the other photographers had said that they were very comfy and efficient, and I'm so fed up with getting on & off planes and the security hassle that the bus made a lot of sense.
I had a slight problem though. When I booked my tickets I had no idea what most of the fields on the website were asking for. Even Google Translate was foxed. I had my receipt on email and my booking reference though, and had definitely paid, so I felt fairly confident.
On arriving at the Cometa ticket office they refused to print my ticket because my passport number did not match the number on my booking. That'll be one of the fields that I hadn't understood then. The lady wrote "SELECTA" on a piece of paper and pointed vaguely to the left of the concourse. I wandered in that general direction and found another ticket office called "Selecta" - a clue! Inside a lovely lady looked at my email confirmation and my passport and printed out my tickets with no issue. Why you need a valid passport to get a bus is anyone's guess.
I had thought the bus station would be a bit of a scabby sort of place but it was beautifully clean with numerous food outlets scattered around, and lots of people with rucksacks and big cases hanging around. The toilets (important!) were spotless and plentiful, and free. A clear departure screen kept everyone up to date with the gate number of their bus. Very efficient.
I found my bus at gate 63 - a big blue thing. Some people insisted that I write my passport number on my ticket for some reason (which they then ignored) and I went in. I took all my luggage in rather than stow it in the hold. There was no way I was going to leave any gear out of sight. My Peli went behind my seat where there was a big space, and the 400mm lens back and my shoulder bag on the rack above the seat. So much less hassle than flying.
I had booked "Leito" which I think is "Luxury" so I was in the front section of the bus where there were 9 seats - 3 rows of 3. In the rear section the seats were in rows of 4. The posh bit I was in was very nice indeed - lots of space, big wide reclining seats with footrests, blankets, power socket and curtains on the windows. Lovely. The cost was about £50 each way which was very reasonable.
I was able to lie back and enjoy watching the Brazilian countryside roll by. Much more informative than flying. It seemed to take ages to get out of Rio, and when we got into the countryside there was lush green vegetation everywhere. We seemed to ascend forever, up and up and up. The roads were more litre sportsbike territory with long sweeping curves up the hills - proper max-lean territory.
Finally we reached a plateau after about 2 hours of going up. The scenery dried out a bit and the banana trees were gone, replaced by grassland.
We stopped after some time at a very clean service station, with plentiful and clean toilets (still important!) where I bought the world's worst sandwich. Disgusting, even if it did have the crusts sliced off. It was supposed to be chicken salad. Not wanting to make by dicky guts any worse I gave up on it pretty quickly and ate a banana and some nuts and a Magnum ice cream instead.
A lot of buses and lorries here have these odd things on their wheels. Our coach had them as well and I've been puzzling about them for a while. A bit of a closer inspection and I think they are tyre pressure monitors or remote tyre inflation/deflation things.
I know this excites you beyond words, but these little things are important. Eventually after about 6 hours we were into Sao Paulo's Tiete bus station, which was again clean and efficient, with plentiful toilets. 15 minutes later I was in my hotel writing this and prepping for tomorrow's Argentina v Holland semi-final which should be a cracker. I can't figure out who will win it, but after today's result anything is possible.As I finish off, Scolari is on TV giving his press conference on a split screen with endless relays of all the goals sharing the screen with him. Oh dear!