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30 EVENTS AND PLACES VISITED
Date Dec. 29, 1962 Saturday
Place São Paulo
Weather Cloudy; hard rains
This morning we spent in visiting Pan-Am & Varig to arrange a simple trip to Curitiba, Iguassu & B.A. —it took about 2 hours! This afternoon Doris's entomologist friend Mr. Diringshofen came for us at 2 in Mr. Diringshofen's car (with chauffeur!) to take us to see Mr. D's collection. We were ushered into a sumptuous home (of 22 rooms, he told us later) & after being greeted briefly by Mrs. D. & a Peke who obviously didn't like us, we went up to the 2nd floor, where beautiful wooden cases lined the walls, & exquisite Schmidt boxes of burled cedar held the really beautiful insects that Mr D. had mounted. He brought out many boxes of all sorts of insects, including barbeiros, butterflies, grasshoppers & giant bettles over 7″ long. He also took us into the cellar, where 3 big rooms were filled with tins of unmounted insects packed in naphthalene. He had beautiful old furniture, pictures & curious which I should have liked to know about. About 3:30 we were taken to the car, as Mr D. had other business then, & Mr. Pohl went with us to our hotel.
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EVENTS AND PLACES VISITED 31
Date Dec. 30, 1962 Sunday
Place São Paulo
Weather Raining, then cloudy
As it was raining hard, we spent the morning in letter writing. At noon it had more or less stopped, & after chicken soup, orange juice (& coffee with milk for me), we started for the zoo, eventually finding the right bus. It is a small zoo, inaugurated in 1958, but has beautiful large ponds for water fowl, & a lovely bird house, parrot "garden", a cock-of-the-rocks & other rarities. There is a tractor-drawn "sight-seeing" car, & we rode all over the zoo for 5cr. I didn't know anything in Brazil cost as little as 5 cruzeiros! There were trees along the duck pond, & in one we saw a white gibbon curled up asleep. The land turtles & guinea pigs were kept together in a concrete shell —hard on the gp's with their nice white coats. There were 2 lions, 2 tigers, grizzlies, a Kodiak bear & some bad-tempered camels, as well as llamas & alpacas. I did not go in the small snake house. Humming birds were coming to the cannas & hibiscus planted beside the paths.
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