Will World Cup soccer stadium in Amazon become a white elephant?
Critics say 42,000-seat arena is not appropriate in rainforest, but others say it will draw fans
The most challenging aspect of building a World Cup soccer stadium in the middle of the Amazon is debatable.
Some might say it is figuring out how to get oversized cranes and hundreds of tonnes of stainless steel and concrete into a city surrounded by a rainforest that stretches for about 5.5 million square kilometres. Others might mention the need to put most of those materials together before the rainy season floods the entire construction site. Then, of course, there are those who might point to the need to install the special chairs.
Yes, the chairs. It may seem like a small concern - at least compared with the whole everything-being-flooded possibility - but one of the less obvious issues that comes with building a stadium in the jungle is what the searing equatorial sunlight here can do to plastic.
The seats are supposed to be varying shades of yellow and orange. "But if we don't use the right kind of material," said Miguel Capobiango Neto, co-ordinator of the construction project, "then the sun will melt the paint away. The seats will turn white."
Neto sighed. "The Brazilian press compares us a lot to other stadium constructions," he said through an interpreter. "There is no comparison. There is nothing like this."
The World Cup has never staged games in a rainforest, much less in the middle of the Amazon. But that is the plan for next summer, an ambition that invites plenty of hurdles.