Christmas Play
From what I’ve read, Curitiba is perhaps the most well developed, organized, clean city in Brazil. It many ways, it defies the stereotypes of a Brazilian city. But had it not been for Valeria, there definitely would have been no reason to go there. The city is known for two things: parks and malls (los shoppings). It also had a nice pedestrian street and plaza area downtown. But other than that, there was not a whole lot to do in the city. I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with Valeria and her friends and am glad I did so, but there were parts of the day when we were in search of activity.
After an uneventful afternoon of visiting a small animal park that turned out to be rather dilapidated, we ventured down to the bus terminal to inquire about fare to Iguazu for Valeria and fare to Torres or Puerto Alegre for me. I came up with a rough plan of where I wanted to go next and settled on purchasing a bus ticket to Torres, from where I would transfer to a smaller town. I purchased my ticket for Monday evening and then we walked downtown to see the town Christmas production on the plaza.
In what had become a long running Curitiba tradition, the outside of a building downtown was outfitted with a facade of windows and a massive Santa Claus for the annual Christmas production. They had dozens of powerful lights to perfectly illuminate both the building and the children inside the windows. I couldn’t understand a word they were saying, but it was entertaining to stand with the few thousand people in the street and look up to the beautifully constructed set. The whole production featured young kids, except for the narrator who was a woman in her 40s or 50s. Every song featured different specially constructed props such as Christmas trees, flowers, or angels. Some of the songs were originals and others used the melodies of traditional Christmas carols and either translated the lyrics or completely changed them to serve the purpose of the play. We had planned to meet a couple of Valeria’s friends at a designated spot, but that proved futile in the large crowd that had gathered.
