For 35 years I’ve dreamed of going to the World Cup. When my son, who’s 6, asked me on the school run a few months back if we could go to the World Cup, I instinctively answered “no”. We’d been listening to a news story from England saying how expensive the hotels and flights were for the World Cup, hardly the best motivation to make it happen.
On the drive home I did a mental calculation… Eli would be 10 years old when the next World Cup takes place – in Russia… 14 when it’s in Qatar… he’d be 18 before it would be in a place we might actually want to go… and then I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t want to go with ‘old fart’ dad.
I did a cursory search for flights to Brazil, out of interest. There were 3 seats left, and they were not cheap. As I debated this predicament, and recalled how my dad had once promised to take me to the World Cup in 1978, but sadly never did, the mail arrived… and one of the pieces of mail just happened to have a new credit card in it.
You can’t argue with fate.
Today was the day… Thanks to Viagogo, and that new credit card, we had 2 tickets for the match between England and Costa Rica. Setting aside the fact that England had already screwed it up, and the game itself was virtually meaningless, I was still incredibly excited to be going to a World Cup game… finally.
Eli and I set off from our hotel, power Vuvuzela in hand…
We queued for the busses taking fans from downtown to the stadium
It was a long ride, and the busses were dropping people off a healthy walk from the stadium.
There was all kind of action along the route
And TV crews…
20 mins later we arrived at the stadium
Our tickets were good (fakes were a worry), and Eli was a champ, smuggling in his Vuvuzela like a pro – bizarrely they’re banned at this World Cup.
Ubiquitous stadium selfie… we’d made it… finally!
The atmosphere was heating up…
… and Eli made quite an impact on the up-for-it English fans sitting in front of us
It turns out that a large beaker of coke at a football game has the same impact on a 6 year old as beer does on adults. Eli turned into a total hooligan!
And just like that the game was over – a nil-nil draw. After all the traveling and organization to get here, deep in the heart of Brazil. I wanted it to go on longer. I wanted another game… or something.
We left the stadium and headed back to our bus.
And back to our hotel to share all the stories
After decompression from all the excitement, we ventured out for a bite to eat. Like every night in Belo Horizonte since we’ve been here, there were literally tens of thousands of people on the streets.
We walked in circles, but eventually we found the meat-heavy restaurant known as Fogo de Chão
The meal was wicked – a sumptuous help-yourself salad bar, and endless meat brought to your table for carving. It was fab.
And now back to our hotel, through the insane crowds of people
And thus ends our awesome 3 day sojourn in party town Belo Horizonte.
Tomorrow we leave for a long flight to the very north of the country – São Luís, where all being well we’ll pick up a rental car, and drive for 4 hours to a gem of a place called Barreirinhas. We’ll be getting there late, so tomorrow’s post may be on the slim side.