Destination: Brazil : Brazil’s Clean Little Secret : South of smoggy, crime-ridden Rio lies flower-bedecked Curitiba--a city made for walking

A carpet of bright purple and yellow blossoms litters the pathway as I cycle my rented bike through sprawling Barigui Park. Dotted with swans and rowboats to my left is a lake created by a dammed river that flows through the city and whose simple hydraulics now prevent flooding that in past decades drove hundreds from their homes. On my right, a grazing flock of sheep employed by the city is a low-tech way to keep the lawn trimmed and amuse legions of schoolchildren at the same time. Barigui Park is one of a patchwork of green spaces splashed across the city--more than a dozen parks interconnected with 100 miles of bicycle paths that thousands use daily for jogging, strolling and to commute on bicycle to and from work.

It seemed that everywhere I went in this city of 1.5 million, I was reminded of how ecologically friendly it is. “Think globally, act locally,” is the simple maxim that most cities have trouble adhering to. Yet it has been realized in Curitiba (pronounced koo-ree-TEE-ba), the capital of the southern Brazilian state of Parana and the country’s 10th biggest town.

Worldwide, Curitiba is praised as one of Latin America’s most livable cities. Five hundred miles southwest of smoggy, dangerous Rio de Janeiro, Curitiba’s streets are clean and safe for walking night and day, and Curitiba has the lowest homicide rate per capita of any major Brazilian city. Light automobile traffic, the result of an excellent system of modern city buses, has created clean air. Well-tended parks of native forest and clipped lawns are bursting with tropical flowers. More people recycle their garbage here than in any other city in the world, according to the World Health Organization: more than 70% of the city’s trash as compared to 20% in diligent Tokyo and roughly 10% in most U.S. cities. Remarkably, all this progress evolved between 1970 and 1990, two decades in whichCuritiba’s population increased by 164%.

One sunny day I was relaxing at one of the outdoor kiosks that serve coffee and light snacks. “This city is literally a breath of fresh air,” a young soldier told me, as he took a deep breath and settled into a seat beside me. “I’m on leave from Rio visiting my family and it’s always such a relief to come here.”

We were taking part in a favorite Brazilian pastime--people watching--on the pedestrian street known as the Rua das Flores, the street of flowers. In many ways, it was a European experience, but as I ordered my coffee a group of Peruvian pan pipe players in traditional mountain capes walked by, leaving melodious tunes floating behind. There were rows of flowers and shoe shine vendors chatting with clients as they worked. A group of guitarists from Argentina tuned up alongside the cafe and launched into a staccato Latin rhythm that put a bounce in the stride of shoppers strolling by. Unable to resist, a young couple seized the moment and did a samba in the middle of the avenue as the cafe audience clapped in time.

Like a European city, Curitiba is made for walking. On this November morning, there was a fruit and vegetable market set up in front of the old Art Nouveau city hall, which is now the Museu Paranaense, a free museum filled with a hodgepodge of local artifacts. I watched as a group of housewives made arrangements with two young boys--street children working as market helpers and easily spotted in their special green cotton vests--to carry home the fresh produce they had just purchased. A 15-minute stroll away, at the Catedral Metro Politana, in the historic colonial quarter of the city, I watched a newlywed couple emerge from the church amid a shower of rice and flower petals. Nearby, an artist sketched a scene of the lamp-lighted boutiques that line the cobblestone streets.

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Three decades ago Curitiba was evolving like many other South American cities into an ugly and dilapidated colonial town with traffic-snarled narrow streets rambling into faceless suburbs. It was turned around in the late 1960s by a small group of local architects appalled by the rampant, unplanned growth that had been turning Brazilian cities into filthy, squalid metropolises. When one of them, Jaime Lerner, was appointed mayor, they began to turn things around. Almost immediately, the group began to reclaim the streets for pedestrians and provide good public transport, create parks and keep the city on an intimate human scale, instead of creating deserted canyons of skyscrapers.

Their first assault on urban squalor and the rule of the automobile came on a winter night in May, 1972, when a convoy of city works trucks arrived at Novembro XV Street, the main shopping avenue in the heart of Curitiba’s colonial downtown. In the wee hours of the chilly morning, detour signs were posted redirecting traffic. Hundreds of workers jackhammered and carted off the street’s asphalt while others were on their knees laying down a broad carpet of petit pave, the traditional small black and white paving squares that form the much-loved wave and geometric patterns typical of Brazilian sidewalks.

Wooden benches were set alongside trees in planter boxes and instant flower beds created a park-like atmosphere. When the first merchants and shoppers arrived on Monday morning they stood shocked on a newly created three-block-long pedestrian mall--South America’s first--that had banished the automobile in less than 72 hours. “Please give this plan 30 days,” Lerner pleaded with skeptical merchants who believed business would be driven from their doorsteps as car access vanished. But people flocked to the street and business in the dying downtown boomed. Before the end of the week a petition landed on Lerner’s desk from all the merchants begging, “Please close the remaining 13 blocks of the street to cars.”

The public’s imagination and support were captured by the revitalization of Novembro XV Street into an elegant avenue of fruit and flower pushcarts and sidewalk cafes that became known unofficially as Rue das Flores; its flower beds and many of those throughout the city are now tended by street children for modest pay. A tree-planting campaign took off. With tax incentives, the city--at no cost to the taxpayers--encouraged businesses in the rundown colonial city center to upgrade their buildings into what is now a charming downtown core. With no funds to purchase parkland, Lerner passed legislation forcing developers to leave one-third of any project’s area green.

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More than two decades of eco-planning has created a delightful city. The Rua das Flores is lined with not just boutiques but department stores, pastry shops and restaurants from around the globe--their colorful facades a tribute to the city’s turn-of-the-century Italian, Portuguese and German architects.

Curitiba’s, colonial old town area, Largo da Ordem, is a warren of cobblestone streets lined in historic buildings and galleries. The area is particularly lively at night, when the cafes and bars fill their outdoor tables and nearly every establishment provides live music to listen to while sipping a cold beer. Sundays from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. an artisans’ fair is held in the historic quarter’s public square, the Praca Garibaldi. Booths that line the streets sell a good variety of local arts and crafts, paintings, key chains and baskets.

It is late afternoon as former three-term mayor, Lerner, and I sip thimble-size cups of sweet black Brazilian coffee on Rua 24 Horas (24-Hour Street), a relaxed European-style indoor arcade. A glass ceiling illuminates a string of shops that stay open around the clock. Here you can sample anything from pizza to a cup of Brazil’s delicious tropical fruit ice cream, or shop for antiques, medicine or a quart of milk, day and night.

The street is a Lerner brainchild and he talks about another of the city’s success tales. “We needed a bigger venue for entertainers coming to the city,” he remembers, “but as usual the city had very little money.” So he chose a lush site in an abandoned quarry filled by a lake and he envisioned a transparent theater to show off the unique surroundings. Scribbling sketches one evening he thought of the wire used in architecture school to make tiny models of buildings. “Why not a theater made out of wire?” he suggested to his team the next morning. On time and under the projected budget of a mere $300,000, the charming 2,500-seat filigree Opera de Arame (Wire Opera) opened in 1991 for its first performance--63 days later. Since then, everyone from Luciano Pavarotti to Pink Floyd has played in this unusual venue and the structure has become a Curitiba landmark. Aware that there are a large number of people in the city for whom culture of this kind is out of reach, Lerner insisted the poor be included. So when Spanish tenor Jose Carrera came in 1993 to perform in the natural outdoor auditorium alongside the Wire Opera, 5,000 slum dwellers attended, each given a ticket in exchange for 15 pounds of garbage brought to collection centers in their impoverished neighborhoods, as part of the city’s extensive “Keep clean; keep healthy” program.

Using unusual locations in low-cost areas and revitalizing abandoned buildings became a way to get things done quickly and inexpensively and, at the same time, to stimulate business. The four-story Mueller Shopping Center, the city’s biggest and most upscale, was once a foundry; a glue factory became a creative arts center; an 18th century arsenal was converted to a theater (Teatro Paiol) and a historic military barracks is now a shopping enclave.

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Entering through an Art Nouveau gate that once adorned a Parisian pet cemetery, I found the Passeio Publico, a small park in the heart of the city featuring a zoo built around a lagoon.

I rented a sturdy old bicycle at a kiosk in the Passeio Publico--they are available throughout the park system for less than $1 an hour. Following my map I pedaled toward Parque Joao Paulo II and its outdoor museum, Museu da Habitacao do Imigrante, a tribute to the early Polish colonists of the state. Several of their original log cabins were brought from rural areas outside the city and furnished with objects from 18th century pioneer days. A Polish woman visiting with her grandchildren took me by the arm into one of the cabins. “The ‘Papa’ came here and blessed our ancestors,” she said proudly, pointing to a framed photo of Polish Pope John Paul II, who came here on his 1991 visit to South America.

Pedaling farther on, I reached the site of a former ranch donated to the city by a wealthy Curitibano, now the Jardim Botanico, a showcase for the flora of southern Brazil. The small three-domed conservatory, designed with the same metal tubing and glass as the Wire Opera, was filled with exotic plants while outside expansive lawns are trimmed in colorful flower gardens.

Curitiba is perfectly situated as a base for exploring the subtropical state of Parana. Inland, straddling the borders of Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil are the Iguacu Falls. I decided to head the other direction, toward the coast, on a train trip that is one of the most beautiful in South America.

Heeding the advice of locals I found a spot on the left side of the train that departed at 7 a.m. from Curitiba Station toward the town of Paranagua, near the coast on Parana Bay.

Lush stands of Easter lilies lined streams and cattle grazed in fields dotted bright orange and red with wild gladioli. The landscape became ever wilder. Waterfalls tumbled off canyon walls clad in tropical green as the train wound its way down from the plateau on which Curitiba sits. A vendor, dressed something like a sea captain, carried cold soft drinks in a huge bag around his neck, making his way through the carriage. One of the teachers leading a troupe of schoolchildren produced a drum and gently beat out a familiar rhythm.

Paranagua is a colorful old fishing village with a waterfront that has the feeling of lazy tropical decadence, the kind of place to order a beer and a plate of fresh fish from a small cafe on the sea wall and watch the world go by. There is a traditional fish and vegetable market to poke around in and the churches, their once brightly painted exteriors faded from the tropical sun, are wonderful to explore. Many Brazilian museums tend to be a bit of a disappointment, but Paranagua’s Museu de Arqueologia e Artes Popular is a pleasant surprise. The beautifully restored Jesuit Mission in which it resides was built in the early 1700s and is filled with Indian artifacts, folk art and intriguing old tools and wooden machines, such as an enormous basket weaver, all described in an English notebook at the front desk.

By late afternoon as the colorfully painted fishing boats readied to head out for the evening’s catch, I headed back to the city that could well serve more developed nations as an example of what can be done to make urban areas better places.

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GUIDEBOOK: Curitiba Curious

Getting there: VASP Airlines, VARIG or Delta fly from LAX to Curitiba with one change of planes in Sao Paulo. Lowest round-trip fares start at about $930.

Where to stay: Hotel Bourbon, 102 Rua Candido Lopez, from the United States call 011-55-41-322-4001. The Hotel Bourbon is in the center of downtown near Rua 24 Horas (24 Hour Street); three restaurants; $180 per night for a double, including breakfast.

Hotel Araucaria Palace, 73 Rua Amintas de Barros, tel. 011-55-41-322-8558. Across from the Performing Arts Center and alongside the Passeio Publico; $90 per night for a double, including breakfast.

Hotel Caravelle Palace, 282 Rua Cruz Machado, tel. 011-55-41-322-5757; $140 per night for a double, including breakfast.

Where to eat: The Bologna Restaurant 150 Rua Carlos De Carvahlo, the best Italian restaurant in Curitiba; local tel. 223-7102.

The Danubia Azul is a good restaurant for lunch in Paranagua. For more information: Brazilian Consulate Trade Center, Tourist Information, 8484 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 711, Beverly Hills 90211, (213) 651-2664; fax (213) 651-0963.

Brazil Tourism Office, Brazil Reservation System, 1050 Edison St., Suite C, Santa Ynez CA 93460, (800) 544-5503.

--M.P.