Wednesday 1st June 1988
I was glad when dawn broke and the temperature increased to a comfortable level. We pulled into the Rodoviária de Cuiabá at 07:00 hrs. and I took Bus 202 to the centre of town to look for a hotel. The first one was full and the second one didn’t appear to exist anymore, but I eventually took a really nice single room in the Hotel Samara at Rua Joaquim Murtinho 150 for 600 Cruzados.
I was beginning to look a bit scruffy, so I washed some clothes, had a shave, a haircut and good meal to restore my humanity. I went to the centrepiece of Cuiabá which is a small green square called Praça de República. The modern but very stylish basilica, the Cathedral Basilica Bom Jesus de Cuiabá, fronts this square, as does the tourist information office and the small natural history museum.
The staff in Tourist Information Office were friendly and gave me a photocopied map but were unable to recommend any attractions to visit in the city. I walked around the pleasant, modern town, browsing along the pedestrian shopping lanes and looking at unspectacular churches.
I went back for a siesta in the afternoon and in the evening I went for a walk-about finishing up in a supermarket where I bought a few snack things including yoghurt with honey, which was yummy. Tourists seemed to be a novelty in Cuiabá and I attracted quite a few stares. Most of the locals were dark skinned so I stood out.
Back in my room I spent a relaxing evening making a list of all my kit (I know how to live!), having a long hot shower and listening to the radio. Vodka and guaraná juice, which the ants were partial to, helped me to have a good night’s sleep when I went to bed early to catch up after a night spent on the coach.
The word guaraná comes from the Guaraní word guara-ná, which has its origins in the Sateré-Maué word for the plant, warana, that in Guarani means "fruit like the eyes of the people" or "eyes of the gods”.
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