Cuiaba

Introduction

Cuiaba is a city in the central Brazilian state of Mato Grosso and the gateway to the northern Pantanal and southern Amazon. Cuiabá was founded on April 8, 1719 as the capital of Mato Grosso State. The capital of Mato Grosso state, Cuiabá is a modern, pleasant town of 500,000 that sits in the middle of Brazilian cattle country. Formerly it was not unusual to see folks on the street in cowboy duds, but through recent years, Cuiaba has been greately modernized. And, it's a great place to stock up on boots, saddles, and other western gear. The city serves as the main gateway to the northern part of the Pantanal - the Transpantaneira Highway starts just 98 kilometres away - and as the jumping-off point to the Chapada dos Guimarães.

Sights and Activities

The centerpiece of Cuiabá is a small green square called Praça de República. The modern but very stylish basilica fronts this square, as does the tourist information office and the small natural history museum. The most important street in Centro (central Cuiabá), Avenida Getulio Vargas, runs northwest from Praça da República. Most of the city's better hotels and several restaurants cluster around Avenida Getulio Vargas about 8 blocks from the square. Directly northeast of Praça República, there's a small shopping district, centered on Rua Eng. Ricardo Franco. Two blocks southeast of Praça República, Avenida Getulio Vargas hits the broad traffic arterial Avenida Ten. Cel. Duarte. On the far side of this street there's a large city park, Parque Antonio Pires de Campos, and on the ridge behind that, the neighborhood of Bandeirantes, where there are a few cheaper hotels. It takes about 10 to 15 minutes to walk from either Banderiantes to Praça República, or from Praça República to the Avenida Vargas hotel enclave.

• Basilica do Senhor Bom Jesus de Cuiabá, Praça da República. Tu-F 8:00am-11:00am and 2:00pm-6:00pm. A stylish modern cathedral with some nifty Art Deco features and great stained glass. Mass is at 6:00am and 6:00pm daily.
• Almost next door there's the yellow baroque Palácio de Instrução tel: 065/321-3391. M-F 8:00am-5:00pm, now home to Cuiabá's history and natural history museums. Admission is R$1 (US35¢) for both. The history museum is mostly devoted to the 1860s war between Brazil and Paraguay, largely fought in this remote region. The natural history wing features a wide assortment of stuffed dead animals - all rather tatty looking - and some great Indian clubs and arrows and headdresses.
• Down by the renovated riverside port area there's the Museu do Rio Cuiabá and the Municipal Aquarium, Av. Beira Rio s/n (where the Av. 15 de Novembro crosses the river; tel; 065/623-1440. Tu-Su 9:00am-6:00pm. Features displays and exhibits on the changing face of the river, and a small collection of local Pantanal fish.

Events and Festivals

World Cup 2014

Australian Fans

© Peter

The FIFA World Cup 2014 will be held in Brazil. It takes place from 12 June to 13 July 2014. It will be the second time that Brazil has hosted the competition, the previous being in 1950. The national teams of 32 countries will join the second biggest sports event in the world (after the Olympic Games). A total of 64 matches are to be played in twelve cities across Brazil, with the tournament beginning with a group stage. For the first time at a World Cup Finals, the matches will use goal-line technology. Twelve locations will be World Cup host cities: Belo Horizonte, Brasília, Cuiabá, Curitiba, Fortaleza, Manaus, Natal, Porto Alegre, Recife, Rio de Janeiro, Salvador and São Paulo. They cover all the main regions of Brazil and create more evenly distributed hosting than the 1950 finals in Brazil provided, when matches were concentrated in the south-east and south. As a result the tournament will require significant long-distance travel for teams. Brazil opens the tournament against Croatia, played in Sao Paulo on the 12th of June, and the final will be played on the 13th of July in Rio de Janeiro.

Weather

Cuiabá has a tropical wet and dry climate. Cuiabá is famous for its searing heat, although temperatures in winter can sometimes reach 10 °C . This is atypical, caused by cold fronts coming from the south, and may only last one or two consecutive days then returning to the usual heat. The climate is tropical and humid. Rainfall is concentrated from September to May, the mass of dry air over the center of Brazil inhibiting the rain formation from June to August. The cold fronts dissipates the heat associated with the smoke produced by fires lit on during the dry season. The relative humidity drops to very low levels, sometimes below 15%, increasing cases of respiratory diseases. The average annual rainfall is 1,351.1 millimetres, with maximum intensity from December to March. The mean maximum temperature reaches 34 °C, but the absolute maximum can reach 40 °C in hotter months but is muffled on rainy days, when the maximum temperature is typically only 28 °C. The average low in July, the coldest month is 16.6 °C with wind chill of 10 °C.

Getting There

By Plane

The Marechal Rondon International Airport (CGB) is just a 10-15 minute drive from downtown Cuiaba and has flights to/from Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo, Campo Grande, Brasilia, Belo Horizonte, Curitiba, Porto Velho, Manaus, Recife, Salvador and many other somewhat smaller cities throughout the country.

By Car

You can get in by car; there are highways coming in from all directions.

Sleep

Upscale

Keep Connected

Internet

Internet cafes (Lan houses) are increasingly common, and even small towns often have at least one spot with more or less decent connections.
An increasing number of hotels, airports and shopping malls also offer hotspots for Wi-Fi with your laptop computer or of course smartphone. Sometimes it is free, sometimes you need to register and there is a time limite and sometimes you need to pay a small amount for (day) use.

Phone

See also International Telephone Calls

The country calling code to Brazil is: 55. To make an international call from , the code is: 0014. All cities use the following emergency numbers: 190 (police), 192 (medical) and 193 (fire department). However, if you dial 911 or 112 while in Brazil, you will be redirected to the police.
Brazil uses two-digit area codes, and phone numbers are eight digits long. Numbers beginning with digits 2 to 5 are land lines, while eight-digit numbers beginning with digits 6 to 9 are mobile phones.

Public payphones use disposable prepaid cards, which come with 20, 40, 60 or 75 credits. The discount for buying cards with larger denominations is marginal. Phone booths are nearly everywhere, and all cards can be used in all booths, regardless of the owner phone company. Cards can be bought from many small shops, and almost all news agents sell them.

Brazil has 4 national mobile operators: Vivo (Telefónica Group), Claro (Telmex/América Móvil Group), OI and TIM (Telecom Italia Group), all of them running GSM and HSDPA/HSPA+ networks. Pay-as-you-go (pré-pago) SIM cards for GSM phones are widely available in places like newsstands, drugstores, supermarkets, retail shops, etc.

Post

Correios is the national postal service of Brazil. It is a government run postal service and overseen by the Brazilian Ministry of Communications. Post offices are generally open from Monday to Friday from 09:00am to 5:00pm, although post offices located in shopping malls have their own opening hours, usually from 10:00am to 10:00pm. There are no set opening hours at weekends and as post office owners can choose when to open and close. More and more post offices are open until 1:00pm on Saturdays though. You can check things at the nearest post office.

Sending postcards, letters and parcels is a rather straightforward process and services are reliable, though not overly fast when sending post internationally, mostly taking about a week to the USA and Europe, and there is a track-and-trace service for this as well. Domestically, there are both next day as well as more expensive same day delivery options. Stamps are available at post offices, as well as some kiosks or other places where they sell postcards.

For sending packages internationally, you can also used competitively priced private companies like TNT, UPS or DHL. They are generally much quicker and not much more expensive.

External Links

• Official Website