CAVERNOUS EX-CASINO
On the way is the Quintandinha (or some such spelling) Hotel—the biggest I ever saw. Here is where the Pan-American Conference was held. There it was on the mountain side, all quiet, no one about and just beginning to look a bit like our cattle barn east of Russellville, or "Happy" Cal's derby hat. 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. Peter's in Rome. I doubt that. I said to him, "It certainly would hold a pile of clover hay." That went clear past and beyond him. But who am I to tell a Brazilian how big his dome is?