Brazil v France from Santo Angelo 1 July 2006

Brazil v France from Santo Angelo 1 July 2006

Our bus from Santo Tome arrived in Santo Angelo at 6pm. We originally intended to take an overnight bus to Porto Alegre, but our discussions with our (non English speaking) bus ticket agent had persuaded us that it would be impossible to reach Porto Alegre before Brazil's match at 4pm the next day. Now, our discussions with our (non English speaking) bus conductor were confusing the issue.

The bus conductor alighted with us at Santo Angelo. Having already gleaned that we would like to ultimately go to Porto Alegre, he took us to the counter and started booking tickets on our behalf. It was all so terribly confusing. We understood from him there was a bus leaving right away, but we couldn't understand what time it arrived in Porto Alegre. He kept saying 'veinte tres horas'. I took this to mean that the bus took twenty-three hours to get to Porto Alegre meaning we would arrive too late to watch the Brazil match, just as the travel agent woman in Santo Tome had indicated.

We decided to stick with our original plan B and stay in Santo Angelo. Our nice bus conductor arranged for a taxi to take us to a (too) nice hotel with a(n uncomfortably) soft bed and clean bathroom. We went out, ate pizzas, drunk caipirinhas, and went home giggly and drunk. It was only the next morning that we realised 'vienty tres horas' meant that the bus arrived in Porto Alegre at 23:00 or 11pm. We could have easily made to Porto Alegre in time for the match!

I now hated Santo Angelo. Having just reviewed our video footage from Sao Paulo, I remembered the nerves from the day and longed to feel that sort of rush again. I felt tired of little towns where everyone goes home for matches and there is little chance of being bombed by fireworks or crushed in a mob. Santo Angelo seemed okay when I thought it was our only option, but I was livered to learn we had just let our preferred option pass by. I tried to shift my mindset as we explored the cold, empty streets of Santo Angelo.

"There must be a story here, I said trying to move into the mode of a journalist with a deadline instead of a self-obsessed lawyer trying to entertain a few mates. "I don't want to spend another match in a restaurant¦ Perhaps if I got hit by a car and we had to watch from the hospital¦ that would be a good angle.

But there would be no such luck. We did manage to find the town's tourist office, but again language conspired against us. The man said he understood our request, but went on to talk about the Jesuit missions and other attractions around, saying nothing at all about where we could watch the blessed Mundial.

It was still some five hours before kick off, so we caught a taxi to the bus station to plan our post-match escape. I was delighted to find there was a bus leaving for Rio de Janeiro the next morning and, booking tickets, felt much better knowing that we had an easy exit from Santo Angelo (in the form of a twenty-seven hour bus ride). We resumed out hunt for inspiration for somewhere to watch the match.

We passed a school, but had already watched a match from a school and felt pretty sure it was Saturday anyway. There was a sign pointing to an army barracks, but we didn't fancy wandering in there. The most interesting thing we could find, after hours of walking, was a little booth where taxi drivers gathered on the street to watch a TV. I have been wanting to watch a match from the street, and with the little town so placid, this seemed a good chance. We settled on that.

The taxi booth was right near Santo Angelo's Cathedral and town square. We walked through the square on our way back to our hotel room for a rest perhaps an hour before kick off. Then, in the park, we saw something that really lifted my spirits.

There was a pond in the park that looked like it must have been beautiful once. It was now full of nasty green water, but still had the most impressive statues.

First, we saw tortoise statues lined up on a ledge with necks stretched into the air. There were some immersed in the water as well and some on top of others, all with their necks sticking out. Then, while admiring them, we saw one move¦. we thought.

"Some of these are alive!

It took a while, both the tortoises and us being a little slow, but we came to observe that all of the tortoises were, in fact, alive! We caught them blinking (so cute!) and moving about on each other's backs. One was even trying to climb up on to ledge and kept falling back in the water! Oh, we had such a good laugh!

Now, we noticed something even more curious. There were crocodiles, or statues of crocodiles, in there as well. There was one on a concrete bank near the edge of the pond and another larger one on a platform in the centre. The larger one was about seven-foot long and the smaller one perhaps five-foot. They did not move, but they certainly looked lifelike and near them were big chunks of bleeding raw meat.

"I think it just moved its eye! said Sal.

"No¦. I said.

The whole thing seemed so incongruous. The crocodiles looked real, but the fence around the pond was perhaps, at the most, one-foot high and made of open loops. I could have reached over the fence and touched one of the 'crocodiles' or stuck my hand through it and done the same. We could not believe that crocodiles could be kept in a public park, right near play equipment no less and concluded the meat was for the tortoises and the 'crocodiles' were excellent statues designed to fool tourists. Uplifted by our exciting guessing game, we went back to our hotel to rest.

We watched the last throes of the England and Portugal match, listening to the shouts coming from around town, then packed up our gear to go to the taxi booth on the street to watch the Brazil match. Then it started to rain. It was thundering even!

"Bloody Santo Angelo!! I said. "I bet it's not raining in Porto Alegre!

It was so hopeless that we both had to laugh. We put on our wet weather gear and though the sky threatened worse, it didn't come down all that heavily, thank goodness. Walking past the Cathedral, we ducked in to say a quick prayer for Brazil and visited the taxi booth to confirm they had indeed packed everything away for the rain and we could not watch the match there. On my insistence, we walked back to the pond to look at the crocodiles again. I nearly fell over in shock. One had moved! I tried to reconcile this new fact with those I already knew. Crocodiles can swim, run, jump and kill people and here are some moving around in a park behind a one-foot high fence!

"Maybe they're made of latex and someone moves them around to scare tourists?

Then we saw a crocodile move! It stretched out its hind legs and shuffled its tail, not a lot, but enough to be alive, or terribly well remote controlled.

I watched the crocodiles intently, willing them to move for the camera, while Sal filmed three boys playing football nearby. I even tried to coax the crocodiles into moving again by jumping over the fence and stepping along two of the seven concrete blocks which led up to the big crocodile's middle platform. Still, it would not move. I could have reached the smaller crocodile with a single step over the fence, but thought it best to leave that one alone.

I rather scared myself with my crocodile baiting and was quick to hurry back to the 'safe' side of the fence. 'Go on! Back you go¦' motioned a girl who was watching me, and smiling, eating an ice cream.

It was hard to leave these terrible meat eaters sitting there so placidly, so amazingly, in the park, but we had to get to the match. We passed by the taxi booth, speaking briefly with a guy watching the TV now inside, half hoping he would invite us in.

We went to our fallback destination, 'Skinao Lanches', a typical lancheria with greasy tables and walls and the most attentive of staff in dirty uniform shirts. The boss sat in the back corner of the long narrow room, overseeing all, rising only occasionally to grill something or 'psssst' at one of his staff.

Four old men sat at tables alone. They looked isolated from each other and the happy noises we had heard coming from homes outside where families were gathering to watch the match. I wondered what troubles or choices in life might have kept these fellows from such places and saw them here, at the little lancheria, instead.

There was another man, younger, sitting alone near the back of the room with a scarred and scared face. He wore a bright top that clashed with itself and didn't have anything at all on his table. He just sat playing with his huge grubby hands. He stood when we entered, stepped back from his table and then sat back down again, returning to his hands, when we sat at another. He did the occasional thing for a customer, like fetching an ashtray, but did not go behind the counter. I think he was a regular who had moved in, become a piece of the furniture and been moving himself around the place ever since.

A man, with a bung nose and the smile of a clown, appeared in the doorway and leaned in to see what was happening in the room. It seemed to me that he lacked the money or familiarity to come in and instead just stood outside, grinning and sticking his big mug in the door. I contemplated offering to buy him a drink, but he blew away down the street before I had decided whether an offer would have been welcome or caused offence.

The match didn't start well. Brazil looked bad and the four old men grumbled into their whiskers. More men arrived to share in the grumbling, the waiters and the regular finding chairs and tables for each new arrival. The waiters, one my age and thin and one young and fat, were the most passionate supporters, but so often had to sacrifice their own viewing to attend to another's needs. The audience peaked at perhaps twenty unhappy men. Some hit each other on the arms as Brazil floundered again and again. It was playful, I think, but created an aggressive air.

Half time was a relief. We paid our small bill and left to inspect the action in what we hoped would be a happier restaurant. I had a couple of places in mind which I thought might provide interest having been decorated so wildly in Brazil's colours. We passed the little taxi booth and the man emerged from inside to let out a big sigh. Brazil was lucky for the score to still be nil-all.

We walked to every nearby restaurant that we knew. All were empty. We circled a couple of blocks and saw no-one but a woman walking her dog and a man taking a breather from the match on his porch. It felt like Skinoa Lanches was the only place happening in town, so we returned to reclaim our old table and order fresh drinks. The regular noticed us getting anxious about the video camera battery and even motioned for us to plug it into the wall. We were still welcome there at this time.

The second half started and I couldn't sit down anymore. Our bus tickets to Rio burned in my pocket. I willed the Brazilian team on so that we would have a chance to savour another big city in crazy full swing. Then, stinking France scored!

The waiters screamed. The boss swore, I am sure. All the men were mighty upset, banging on tables, throwing their arms and shouting out. There was plenty of time left in the match, but so little hope in the room. Brazil had looked awful all day.

The last half hour of the match was disgusting to watch. A few times, the skinny waiter jumped up and down and clasped his hands together in hopes. He was let down every time. The younger, weightier, waiter simply stood at the counter with his head in his hands. All might have been forgiven if Brazil could just sneak in a goal and get back in the game, but they never even came close.

With less than a minute to go in the match, all the men with other places to go stood up and left. They waiter started stacking their chairs and the four lonely old men just sat sad in their places. I stood at the back, quiet and stunned. I couldn't believe Brazil was going to lose, but they did. The old men started talking now. They complained with rising voices. The owner was the most pissed off man of all. He threw something, an orange perhaps, across the room! It exploded against the wall in the little space between the fridges, the television and the top of Sal's head.

"Time for us to go! I called out.

I had felt the animosity growing towards us near the end of the match. It felt like we had come to be regarded as unlucky omens with our filming and note taking and other such strangeness. I don't know whether the orange was aimed at Sal's head, but it certainly came close. We paid the bill without waiting for change and left in a hurry.

"How do you feel? asked Sal, less shaken than me, as we walked past the Cathedral.

"A bit sad. I said. "I didn't expect it to end like that today¦ They played like dogs.

The light was dimming. We would soon have to go back to the hotel and hide ourselves and our camera from the no doubt angry town.

"What do you want to do now? asked Sal.

"Go look at the crocodiles I guess.

At the pond, there was already another man, in a Brazil shirt, looking teary. We tried to commiserate on our approach, but he left us, probably preferring to be alone. We circled the pond, but could only spot the larger crocodile on the centre platform. We looked hard for the smaller one in the darkening water.

"I feel like it's going to leap up and bite my face off, I said. "For being bad luck!

In the dusk, the three boys were playing football again. This time, I watched. They were playing a game where each one tried to keep control of the ball while fending away the attacks of the others. They played, dodging the trees of the park and must have been at it for hours that day. The scrawniest kid was amazing. He could fake running over the ball and leave it between his feet to wrong foot his opponents. He could flick the ball up onto his knee, then over his head, catching it between his little shoulders and neck. He toyed with the other boys, exerting his superior skills and control.

The ball came loose towards me and I went for a kick. I thought the kids might hold back and give me a chance for a moment, but the scrawny one appeared, took the ball from my feet and left me, off balance, kicking the air.

"The future Ronaldhino, I said, turning back to the crocodile pond.

We returned to our hotel and sat in the lobby to drink cervezas and watch television news reports of faces smeared with paint and tears. I commented what a strange site it was, but Sal said she had felt a little teary at times towards the end of that match. I realised I had felt the same way.

"I guess that's a wrap, said Sal.

"Yeah I guess so, I said. "¦let's go look at the crocodiles again.

Thank yous¦

Most of All¦

Thank you to my partner, Sally Read, for your love and support. Thank you for savouring this adventure with me, filming everything along the way, laughing at my silly dances and jokes and being patient with my moodiness and sleeplessness during and prior to the World Cup. You help me in some way every day and I fell lucky to have you by my side¦

Back Home(s)¦

Thank you to Tony Cook and the rest of ABCtales.com for offering such unqualified support for my World Cup adventures both in 2002 and 2006. You 'got' the concept from the start and helped me to nurture it. Without your encouragement, I don't know whether I would have embarked on this undertaking again. When I was having difficulty with writing, I would sometime imagine I was writing for you to help inspire me along.

Thank you to my parents Fim Jucha and Lud Jucha and my sister Sarah Jucha for taking over the management and administration of my life, and legal practice, back home while I am away. Email makes matters so much easier, but there still has to be someone at the other end, so thank you for being there to receive my crazy instructions. Thanks also for your encouragement with the writing along the way.

Thank you for David Jucha for being my webmaster and attending to every necessary technical task along the way in updating the site, uploading and downloading content and helping me manage the mailing list and all manner of technical difficulties. You are ever reliable and it has been nice to have known I have had someone back there who always gets things right.

Thank you to Simon Small, Jeremy Ervine and Tim Walters of Fnuky Advertising for your work in creating and maintaining my website and responding to my panicked emails and text messages during and in the lead up to the World Cup.

Thank you to Adam Thompson for helping to compile the statistics and map for the site.

Thank you to Christine Welsh, Mi Strom and Serene Pritchard for helping to manage Sally's and my personal affairs in Sydney while we are away.

Thank you to Julie Wrobel of Algo Mas for the encouragement and snippets of public relations advice.

Thank you to Simon Batchelor for last minute technical support before departure.

Thank you for Paul Collier for arranging media contact.

Thank you to Bryan Mason for your early technical advice.

Thank you to my clients, employers and colleagues who provide me with work and understand it is possible to do things like this and still be a good lawyer.

And thank you to everyone who followed this adventure and especially those of you who were kind enough to send supportive messages along the way¦

On the Road¦

Thank you to Mariano Rodriguez for arranging us a place to stay in Buenos Aires and for Pepe Rodriguez and Fru for welcoming us into your home. It was wonderful of you to support us on our adventure and allow us to savour such kindness of strangers.

Thank you to Camila Morandini for your company and time and to Lisandra Oliveira for letting us stay in your flat in Sao Paulo. The madness of the Sao Paulo was a highlight of the trip and I was touched by your time and attention in supporting us (and entertaining us!) on our visit.

Thank you to Carlos Lorenzo for putting us up in Mexico City on our way here (and thank you, in advance, to Mark Mason and Hilary Mitchell, Mark Stanley and Matt Lindford, Deborah Jucha and hubby and Eamonn, Gary Cushway, Christina Harry and William J, all of whom we are yet to see on this trip.)

Thank you to Marcus, Litetia, Jose and Pedro for showing us a good time in Ciudad del Este. We enjoyed your company so very much. I hope we meet again and that we may have an opportunity to repay the favour in Australia some day.

Thank you to Fransesco at Hotel Residencial Misiones in Posadas, the guys at Hostel Bamboo in Foz do Igacu, the old man and woman at Hotel Brazil in Sao Borja, the kids in the school near Itaipu, the drunk guys in the restaurant in Quito, the crocodiles in Santo Angelo and all the other characters we met along the way¦