December 3-6: Rio de Janeiro

Rio was everything we had been told it would be... wild, beautiful and alive. Although we felt a little too old to truly appreciate all that the nightlife had to offer, we thoroughly enjoyed our three days in the city.

We were staying in the beach neighborhood of Ipanema. Despite having to pay above our budget for a somewhat moldy room in a ¨hostel village¨*, we loved being so close to the beach. Ipanema and it´s neighboring beach of Copacabana are like no where else on earth. Beautiful pristine beaches (just how do they keep them so clean?) right in the middle of a massive city. The flow between beach and city is truly seamless -- only in Rio can a man in a white speedo with no shoes on confidently saunter through the streets of his city. And these people know how to do the beach. For $2 you can rent a chair and umbrella for the day. From there, the endless stream of vendors saunters by selling caparinhas, beer, nuts, grilled shrimp, empanadas, coconuts, bathing suits, beach balls, hats, and anything else you can imagine. Sit back, people watch and enjoy.... Hardly a better way to spend an afternoon.

On our first morning in town, we ventured up the Sugarloaf monolith for some views of the city. We hiked halfway up through dense jungle terrain and then took the tram for the rest of the trip. Rio is a city built admist the jungle and from the top of Sugarloaf you can see the beautiful battle which ensues between the two with skyscraper highrises giving way to lush mountains throughout.... With the favelas claiming the gray space in between.

Speaking of the favelas, we decided to take a tour of them on our second morning in town. At first we were highly skeptical of these tours... Allison tried to imagine a tourist ¨tour¨ through West Oakland or Dorchester, MA and it sounded like a bad idea for about a million different reasons.  But the favelas aren´t the inner city neighborhoods of the US.  Although the realities of poverty and drug dealings are the same, the favelas represent something entirely different -- most notibly by the reality that they live completely off the grid of city infrastruture with their own neighborhood associations that coordinate trash pick up, mail, etc. and pirated electricity.  Their scale is also staggering.  20% of all Rio residents (a rough estimate) live in Favelas.  So if we were going to understand a bit of this city it seemed like an important exploration, skeptical as we were.

Our tour ended up being extremly well done.  Well, that is, after we survived the beginning.  As I mentioned earlier, most of the favelas have taken over the land between city and jungle which means they exist in the steep hills in between.  So our tour started with motorcycle ¨taxis¨speeding us up to the top of the neighborhood each on the back of our separate bike.  Passing buses as they sped closer to the curb, flying around corners all on the backs of a strange man shouting ¨gringo!¨as he passed his friends.... It was a bit harrowing, but we survived :) From there we wound our way down through the favela through the alleyways between makeshift houses, stopping along the way to meet residents, check out some art, and visit a daycare center that our tour agency supports.  We were warned to not take any pictures if anyone with a ¨walkie-talkie or a machine gun crosses our path¨.... Um, ok, I think we´ll heed that advice.  We did see one of the walkie talkie dudes on our travels, keeping watch for if the police came into town.  Our guide, the owner of his small tour company, was excellent.  He seemed to know everyone we passed and had a sincere passion and commitment to his work in the favelas.  We can easily imagine how such a tour would be patrionizing at best and exploitative at worst.  Ours was neither and we walked away with a better understanding for and respect of the communities that are built in these neighborhoods.  (If you´ve never seen City of God, go rent it right now.... a beautiful movie about one of the other Rio favelas).

Later that same afternoon, we headed up to the bohemean neighborhood of Santa Teresa.  Set in the hills above town, you take a streetcar/tram to get there.  We were the last passangers to make a leaving streetcar and so found ourselves hanging off the sides as it wound its way up through town.  Our second harrowing ride of the day after the motorcycles, but this one was a uniquely spectacular journey with beautiful views along the way.  Santa Teresa was our favorite neighborhood in town.  Local artists displaying their work, quaint cafes with casual live music, and a chilled out crowded that seemed much more our style than the flair of Rio´s beaches... we could have happy spent much more time here.

Our favela tour guide gave us a tip on a great local musician who was playing in Lapa that night... since a big interest of ours in visiting Brazil was to check out the music scene, we hopped on the chance to see this show.  Doors opened at 10 with the show ¨starting¨ at 11.  We showed up around 10:15 to a completely empty venue and realized that we may be in for a late night.  Around 11:30 the first opening act went on, followed by a second opening and then the main guy around 1:30  Although we had to leave at 2 because we were so tired (again, too old to fully appreciate this city), the music and atmosphere was amazing to soak in.  Seating for the show is set back from a large dance floor where couples danced samba.... everyone in this country seems to be an amazing dancer.  It was also super cool to see hip young kids grooving to samba instead of sitting around drinking like their peers in the US are likely doing.  I had a similar feeling to when we were at the Boca Juniors football match.... Partying is about passionate involvement in the things you love.  People drink, sure.  But it´s more of an after thought rather than the way that alchohol dominates such experiences in the US and other countries.

Off to the northern coast for a week of music, beaches, and off circuit travels before heading back to the US/Canada for the holidays and some greencard paperwork.... Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!



*A quick side note on the hostel village experience: South America most certainly has a backpackers ¨circuit¨that we have found ourselves on and off over the course of our 3 months here. For anyone who´s travelled at all, you know what we´re talking about. Germans with big hiking boots, hungover young Australian girls, loud Isralis (I´d insert a cliche about Americans on the circuit but our cliche is that we don´t travel so we´re not really here). Anyways, the cluster of backpacker pads we dubbed the hostel village in Rio was the apex of the circuit.... We´re looking forward to a bit more off the circuit travel in Asia although it certainly has provided some entertainment and a few new friends when we´ve floated through it here.