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Published: March 25th 2012
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We received a warm welcome upon arrival to Rio de Janeiro. Erika, an amiga from my Barcelona days, came to pick us up and drove us back to her mom´s apartment, where she set us up in her own room while she would sleep in her sister´s room. Her mom fixed us some leftover dinner of frutas del mar and rice, and we were told to make ourselves at home and help ourselves to anything in the fridge. Amazing hospitality, and we thanked them profusely.
The next morning we were up by 7, and out the door by 8 to drive to a small locals beach down the coast 45 minutes. But as it was Carnaval and the majority of people were on vacation from work, the normally exclusive local surfer beach was packed with people from all over the city bringing their families to what is considered one of the most beautiful beaches in Rio, with nothing but dense forest and a large heart shaped rock in the background. After Chloe and I slept on the beach for an hour, we were woken by the increasing temperature and strength of the sun. We headed to cool off in the
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Oops, totally caught...water, but were surprised at the freezing water temperature. Chloe the Mermaid jumped in regardless while I cooled off my feet and headed back to my towel on the beach. It had only been 2 hours when Kika and her sister said we were leaving; the normal tranquility of the beach was overrun by loud families packing their entire lives with them to a day on the beach. We loaded up and drove opposite the ridiculous bumper to bumper traffic incoming to the beach. From here, we headed to a bloco in Barra, the nicer southern neighboorhood in Rio. Blocos are basically block parties, where a double decker bus equipped with a huge sound system blasts loud samba music from a live band on top of the bus. An immense crowd gathers and dances and sings to all the familiar but similar sounding songs. Every Brazilian knows exactly what to do, but us gringos stand out as we attempt to mimic the smooth rhythmic moves of samba. After a few beers failed to cool me down from the heat intensified by the dancing crowd, we all headed to the beach next to us to take a dip in the chilly
water. The beach was jam packed, but we found enough space to put our stuff down and watch the kite surfers in the distance as well as some quality people watching along the beach.
It was interesting to note the dress code on Brazilian beaches, especially in Rio. Every girl - young, old, big or small, all wore the same iti-biti bikini style - covering just enough of the nipples to expose major side boob action, and a thong that covered just enough of their nether regions, exposing the full force of the Brazilian bootie. Of course there were the women with the idyllic beautiful Brazilian body, but there were many more of the other side, letting it all hang out. There is no shame on the beaches here. I guess the same goes for off the beach as well; so many girls wore the tightest, exposing clothes they could find. Chloe is quoted saying, ¨They´re like chorizos trying to fit themselves back into their casing, but good for them!¨ The men are no better though. Yes, there are the ripped, dark skinned men strutting the beaches, but there are many more wearing the same style speedo shorts, on
and off the beach, with not much to show or impress with other than a hanging belly. They love to bring the beach style with them on the prominade, but put a t-shirt on to cover their belly, leaving their entire hairy legs exposed. I don´t know how they haven´t gotten the hint from the ladies that this simply is not attractive. Like I said, interesting dress code...
We had spent over an hour on the beach when we decided to head back to the house, first stopping at a super-supermarket. It wasn´t Walmart, but it had the same cheap, anything-you-could-want feel and size. The meat section was especially interesting. Stacks of all sorts of cuts and meats, fully exposed in the open air. Fortunately, there weren´t flies buzzing everywhere like many of the markets we´d been to in the north. We picked up some vodka, mixers, and lunch food for the upcoming days and headed back to the house. We rested for a few hours, ate another great dinner from Eliane (Erika´s mom), had a few drinks, and got ready for the party that night.
The party, called Bailes do Rio, took place at the Jockey Club,
and was definitely more of an formal, exclusive Carnaval party. With a few forged student documents that Kika´s sister Gabi made for us, we entered at a discount price of 100 reales. I knew that at this party, I wouldn´t have to be constantly conserned about someone stealing my money and/or camera. After buying our tickets, we went inside and met with Gabi, her boyfriend, and a group of their friends. The decor inside was incredibly elaborate. Set up like a grandiose circus, one would expect to see jugglers, flamebreathers, maybe even an elephant. Instead, there were people in all sorts of funny costumes, somewhat like Halloween. Contrasting to this, there were also people in very formal dress. Chloe was fortunate enough to have borrowed a dress from Gabi while I attempted to find the nicest shirt without holes I could find in my backpack. On stage, there were to be 4 seperate bands, each playing their own unique samba according to the samba school to which they pertained. The first was a bit slow; classic old samba I suppose. Chloe and I both agreed we would never make it through the night if the party was going to be
this slow. Fortunately, the drinks started to flow, and with the second band on, fast party samba entailed. It took us a bit to get the motions down, but once we had a basic grasp on the dance, we had a great time, even if we couldn´t sing along like everyone else. By 4 am and the arrival of the fourth band, we were pretty tired, but Kika and crew were still at it. We pushed on, and by 5:30 we all left, and tried to get ahold of our private taxi that we arrived with, to no avail. With so many people trying to hail a taxi, we took off walking a few blocks to a main street, where we waited for a bus or taxi, whichever came first. A taxi came by a half hour later, and we were home by 7, pulling the blackout shades down to block out the sun which had already risen.
The entire day was wasted by sleeping until 2 pm and struggling with the hangover that ensued. The following morning however, we got up early and drove to Parque Nacional de Tijuca, in the backyard of Rio. We hiked up through
the rainforest to Piedra Bonita, where we were rewarded with views over Rio, La Barra, and the southern coast beyond. After aweing at the views, laying down, and relaxing in the sun, we began to walk towards the trail but were stopped by a guy with his parachute deployed, running to the edge of the cliff while his friend/instructor yelled ¨Run faster!!¨ Off the cliff he went, followed soon there after by his companion, floating down over the forest to the big blue ocean below. I was immediately jealous; it looked too good! We had seen plenty of paragliders take off from the platform below but this was on a whole different level - pure bliss of adrenaline. Check out the link to the video I took. We walked down the mountain to the car and drove to get some lunch at a place that had sushi hand rolls. At first I was nervous about eating raw fish in Brazil, but this was a chain fast food spot and cooked all the fish. It was still pretty good, especially since it was different to everything we´d been eating. After lunch we drove to pick up a few of Kika´s friends,
one of which had a little boy of around 3-4 years old. We drove back to the park we´d come from, but to a different area where we took a short hike to a waterfall. The little boy must have been having a bad day, since he screamed the majority of the time we were there. Whether he wasn´t being carried, or when his mom wanted to go under the small waterfall like everyone else, he screamed an ear piercing cry. Before too long, we hiked back to the car and Kika drove Chloe and I to the base of the backside of Cristo Corcovado, the big Christ statue at the top of Rio.
We waited in line for 45 minutes to buy bus tickets and entrance but found we couldn´t pay with a credit card. Before we had left the house, Kika had told us that we could pay with a credit card, so we only brought a small amount of cash with us. We bought the transfer, since we were stuck regardless. The view was pretty spectacular but the amount of people crammed up there was ridiculous. We should have expected it, as it was the main
week of Carnaval, but it was still impressive. We snapped some photos, took in the views for a few brief moments amongst the hoards of people, and headed to the tram. However, we found out while waiting in line that they did not accept credit cards and this was the only way down the mountain other than hitching or walking. Of the 50 reals we needed, we were 8 short. In other words, we were screwed. By some stroke of luck, a couple American girls had been watching us ponder our dilemma and said they would give us the cash. They single handidly saved our ass, for the moment. When we got down, we tried using a pay phone to call Kika, who said she´d be at a bloco in the area and would come pick us up. However, the number I had did not work - I got ahold of someone else. Completely out of cash and armed solely with a Visa, we had no way to get back to her house since both taxis and buses only accepted cash. For some reason, Chloe found that she had brought her debit card that particular day (she never carries it),
and after trying a few ATMs, we got lucky and took out some cash. Four bus transfers and 3 hours later, we found our way back to the apartment. Completely burnt out, we stayed in for the night.
The following day we decided to check out some sights in the center. After 2 hours of bus and metro, we made it. As we walked the streets, we noticed the interesting disparity of old 2 story colonial buildings next to modern highrises. Finding some of the important historical buildings proved to be more difficult than it looked on a map. Nothing is labeled or has signs marking it as something important. Even once we did find what we were looking for, the building did not appear very impressive. So, over 3 hours of walking and touring around, the most interesting things we saw turned out not to be famous, but rather normal routine scenes such as the disparity of buildings I mentioned and a big street flea market we walked through. As Rio is so large, and as it took so long to get to the center from Barra de Tijuca, we had to see Copababana and Ipanema from the
bus on the way back. At one of the transfer points we stopped at a supermarket and picked up the groceries we needed to make fajitas. We had wanted to show our appreciation for the hospitality of Eliane and Kika so we said we would cook a typical meal from home. Maybe we could have thought of something more ¨American¨ but as they were vegetarians, fajitas seemed to be an easy answer. I felt bad as we arrived home at 8 pm, but with all the transfers and time it took to get home, it was what it was. Dinner was served by 11, normal for our lives in South America but a little late for the Ribeiro´s. They were very nice though, and even complemented my cooking. Phew, I passed that test and earned us our enduring stay!
Our 5th day in Rio we headed to Pão de Açúcar (Sugerloaf). After another long transfer by public transport, we made it to Praia Vermelha, the beach at the base of Pão de Açúcar. This small beach had the potential to be very beautiful, set in a cove between two massive jungle massifs, but it had so much garbage on
it and in the water, we could only stay for and hour before we had to get out of there. For lunch we ate at a buffet by-the-kilo restaurant. This style of restaurant is very common throughout Brazil, and I had told Chloe I had to eat at at least one before we left. After a very filling meal of pasta, meat, and salad, we bought tickets for the gondola and headed up Pão de Açúcar. The midway point was interesting, with good views, various videos explaining the history of Pão de Açúcar and the cable car, and a helipad that allowed the choppers to come sweeping in close above the crowd below. We got back in line and took the second gondola up to the top of Pão de Açúcar, where we saw the best views of Rio yet. As it is set somewhat out in the sea, it gives the perspective of looking into the city and mountains beyond rather than over the city to the ocean like the other viewpoints give. Besides the innate beautiful views, they have walkways that go throughout the jungle on the top, as well as little ugly monkeys that jump around the
trees above your head. We spent a decent amount of time wandering around the top, taking in the sights but before too long, we had to begin making our way down to start the process of travelling home. This process made it difficult to be motivated to go out at night. At least 4 hours on a bus everyday; we could be in a different city everyday if we wanted! So, that´s what we decided for the next day; to travel 2 hours to Petropolis, 80 km away.
Petropolis is a small city in the mountains ouside Rio, built to be an imperial summer house and village for royalty. The colonial architecture was preserved beautifully, as was the large royal summer house we toured. Like a smaller, less extravagent version of the Place of Versaille, all the furnishings, paintings, and memorablia were still intact and well perserved. As we shuffled around the wooden floors in the slippers they provided, I found the most impressive sight of the tour - the jewelry room. Rings, necklaces, robes, staffs, and crowns, all peppered with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies, gold and silver. The most interesting to me were the elaborate bejeweled cuffs that
the slaves of the most wealthy wore, and the diamond encrusted pen with which Princesa Isabela signed the law into effect that abolished slavery. After the tour we ate lunch at another per kilo restaurant, yet this one had the addition of a parilla. I ate way too much food, and we took off to shop in an area that cairiocas (people from Rio) would come to for shopping. Chloe had been excited, but soon was deflated when she saw every shop had more or less the same design and style of clothes. We left the shopping area, wandered around town a bit longer, and caught our bus back to Rio, watching a gorgeous sunset fall over La Barra as we came into town.
Our last full day, we set out with Kika to a beach close by. She had a friend that lived in a complex which gave access to the beach by boat across a canal. This beach was nice since the canals across from it were protected, so there were no buildings in sight. We hung out for several hours, taking breaks from the sun to swim in the cool water. At some point, the beach
is the beach, and there really isn´t much exciting to talk about. God, are we spoiled or what?! From the beach we went to a cool tapas spot a friend of Kika´s owned, had a few beers, tried a couple decent tapas, and watched a local rival soccer match. That night, we packed up our stuff and got ready to leave the madhouse of Rio to somewhere a bit slower and more laid back. A little place called Paraty.
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