If the barrage of blood-soaked headlines in the British tabloids is to be believed, that's what awaits soccer fans travelling to the most exotic of Brazil's World Cup host cities, the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus. Despite Manaus' far-flung location in the heart of the world's biggest rainforest, making it reachable only by plane or boat, the ills most likely to affect the 52,000 or so foreigners expected for soccer's premier tournament are disappointingly mundane. To help acclimate its players, the England soccer squad is training in multiple layers of long-sleeved clothing as it prepares to face Italy on June 15 in the first of four World Cup matches being held in Manaus's new $229 million Arena Amazonas stadium. During its heyday, extravagant rubber barons spared no expense on their vanity project, a stately opera house designed to rival Paris' Opera Garnier, made from the finest materials ferried in from Italy, Britain and France. [...] gas flares burn bright at a riverside oil refinery, while puffing smokestacks poke above the verdant tree line as Honda, Harley Davidson, Suzuki and other international companies churn out auto parts, assemble motorcycles and manufacture electronics. The port area, with its cacophony of fishmongers flaying 40-kilo (88-pound)-plus "pirurucus" and fruit sellers hauling giant banana bunches the size of chandeliers, is dotted with speedboats-for-hire that within a quarter of hour can carry visitors past the urban sprawl to emerald jungle as far as the eye can see. Here, there really are giant insects, from palm-sized beetles with jaws mighty enough to amputate the tip of a human finger to pencil-length "stick bugs," which look like twigs come to life atop impossibly spindly legs.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 2 hours ago.
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