The hotel is closed.
The reason? It depended on its casino to keep it going. The new
president of Brazil was instrumental in enacting a law making
casinos illegal. So now the gambling element of Brazil is
thinking of getting a new president. So you see, the world is
pretty much the same all over.
We drove up under whatever it is that great big hotels have in
front of them and there stood six or seven cars. Most of them
held Del Mar sightseers. Nobody could get in. Our host
disappeared somewhere and came back directly, saying we would get
in. I asked, "How." He said, "Folding money." So you see, we are
still pretty much the same, all the way around.
Did you ever see a whale of a big hay loft with all the hay left
out? When we stepped through the front door into the dimness of
that hotel, that was my thought. No lights and total silence.
Everything on a tremendous scale and everywhere in semi-darkness.
That conference room must be the size of our court house lawn,
hitch rack and all. The flags of all the nations still hang.
Hundreds of thousands of cruzeiros changed hands nightly under,
and surrounded by those flags. Inside, I saw a swimming pool 25
feet deep at the deep end. The fellow who I think took the
folding money told me in broken English the dome of the hotel was
bigger than that of St.
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