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Published: August 9th 2008
The plane to Rio was delayed by three hours, so I had the dubious pleasure of arriving in Rio at 1:00am!
I had organized a Hotel in an outer area up a gigantic hill called Santa Teresa, an arty community perched above a favella. I had passed through it on my way to the Cristo statue thing on my first visit to Rio.
I paid for a radio taxi, the safest option, but we got hopelessly lost trying to find the place.
It was 2:00am by the time I was ringing the bell waking up half the hotel to get in. Casa Aurea is an excellent German run place that was extremely cosy and looked like fun, but when I checked my email, I had received a reply from the favella hotel that Mark had suggested. I decided the next morning, after a hearty breakfast, to give it a shot.
Great decision!
Landed on my feet again.
What a spot this is!
The first 24 seconds of this video are set where I am!
http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=XLsx1kDKEzQ&feature=related
If you've see the recent Incredible Hulk movie you know what it looks like because the whole movie was filmed here, and the cast
view from the Maze
Not me and not my pic - but what can a camera free boy do?and crew all stayed at the hotel. If you google ''The Maze Inn in Rio'', you will find a link to the jazz nights they have here. You will see my gregarious English host Bob Nadkarni with his arms draped around Edward Norton's shoulders. (Bob described Mr Norton as a very intense and committed artist, fans will be pleased to note!)
The view from here overlooking Sugar Loaf mountain and the bay is literally stupendous. I have the room at the very top of the structure. It's incredible to say the least. The area is incredibly exotic, with tiny alleys, pulsating with wires, so narrow you can touch either side of the alley with barely outstretched arms. It's a labyrinth of buildings and alleys, but, unlike similar favellas in Rio, it is safe. The reason it is safe is because the SWAT team headquarters are at the top of the hill. The reason the SWAT team headquarters are at the top of the hill is because of Bob! Long story.
I've met some pretty remarkable people on this trip, many of them ex-pat gringos, but Bob Nadkarni takes the cake and all the candles (sorry George, Sami, Elso, Joel, Sandy,
Dani, Sherrira, Andre, Julio, Mark and anyone else I've forgotten).
Bob has been living here in the favella for the last thirty years, or so. He was the main foreign correspondent for the BBC in Brazil for many years. He worked on ''2001 a Space Odyssey'' - that's right the Kubric film, where he designed the space ship interiors and sets. He worked with the producers of many movies including the Incredible Hulk, many TV documentaries, was a war correspondent in Beirut (he told me some truly hair-raising tales not appropriate for this forum), and on the day I arrived a film crew was working in the Hotel working on a new movie directed by Jonathan Nossiter called ''Gringos of Rio'', starring Irene Jacob and Jerome Kirchner.
Bob has a role in the Movie, so I spend the first few hours at the place staring out at the staggeringly gorgeous view waiting for my host to arrive. A steadycam case sits next to me, along with various camera equipment and the detritus of a group breakfast. I think to myself, ''well, this has got to be interesting''. After a few hours, the film crew and actors start to filter in
and I get to meet 65 year old Bob with whom I immediately have excellent rapport. Most of the crew are speaking French, including the charming Ms. Jacob.
It's a hell of a scene that lasts for a few hours before they all disappear back into the favella. I guess there is another crew working on a different film somewhere else in the favella so they need to get busy. Bob has finished his parts for the day so we spend the rest of the day chatting. Turns out he was a film maker and producer and/or sound engineer on many interesting projects including a Doors documentary, a Queen documentary, and has had many of them staying in this extremely cool spot at times over the period he has lived here. Even George Martin stayed here relatively recently!
He's a very down to earth English chap with a lovely twenty odd year old son, Bruno,who perhaps will work with me on my Anum Cara songs over the next few days, and two younger children Lucy and Eric and a delightful wife named Malucie. It's Lucie's 7th birthday, so after the film crew gets back, as night falls and the returning
crew has downed a couple of beers, while I strum the guitar and Ms. Jacob sways to my meandering musical drivel, preparations are under way for a kids party. The last of the film crew leave and then the kids party gets underway. The party is a small rather delightful affair.
When the kids go to bed, I'm still strumming away, as I have been all night, and Bob and I are left to chat. I'm trying to piece together his story, but it will take a couple more days yet before I can put all the pieces together.
It's been a long and eventful day for me. Bob has been filming since 5:00am so he is also tired and we both crash out relatively early. I retire to my rooftop room, where the wind is cool and delightful, and I leave the doors open so the cool air can swirl from the bamboo covered clifftop behind me out over the jumble of roof tops across the bay to the Sugar Loaf mountain.
It's the most delicious nights sleep I've had in ages!
See you on the flypaper,
mike
P.S. Here's an article about this place and Bob from
the Guardian, my favorite English Newspaper:
Do yourself a favela
Amazing views over Rio and a steady stream of celebrity guests . . . no, it's not a glitzy hotel but a guest house in one of the city's notorious favelas
* Benji Lanyado
* The Guardian,
* Saturday November 24 2007
* Article history
Rio
Sweet ... admiring Sugarloaf mountain from the terrace at the Maze Inn
The view from the veranda at the Maze Inn is one of the finest in Brazil. The hubbub of central Rio de Janeiro stretches from the base of the hill on which the house is perched until the shores of Guanabara Bay. Across the water, dotted with yachts and fishing boats, I can trace the paths of cable cars sliding up and down the iconic granite peak of Sugarloaf Mountain.
Such panoramas are one of the few privileges of living in one of Rio's favelas - the multitudinous cascades of slum housing that coat the city's hillsides.
"It's all due to a Portuguese design fault," says Bob Nadkarni, English-born owner of the Maze, Brazil's first favela guesthouse. "They couldn't be bothered to build up the hills, and the favelas gobbled up all the best views!"
Bob has been in Brazil in various guises since the 70s - as a journalist, a BBC cameraman and a documentary maker - and moved to the favela in the 90s having driven his ill maid home and been gobsmacked by the views.
In 2000 Bob pounced on the then governor of Rio, Anthony Garotinho, at his inaugural international press conference, and presented the plans of an abandoned warehouse behind his house on the favela's peak, challenging him to station a police squad there.
Forced into action by such a public challenge, the authorities agreed and by the end of the year the police had pushed the drug-runners out, and made the favela one of the safest districts in the city.
Behind us, the Maze is buzzing with activity. Scattered around a multi-level lounge, pinned by large pillars and clad in demolition wood under a large skylight, dozens of people are whizzing to and fro. Inexplicably, the Maze is home to the cast and crew of Hulk 2, the Incredible Hulk. I'm informed that Edward Norton isn't on set today.
But this is just the latest chapter in the Maze's extraordinary story.
Even before it was made into a guesthouse in 2005, Bob had a variety of interesting guests turning up, fascinated by tales of an English film-maker living in a Rio favela.
George Martin recorded a chapter of his Rhythm of Life series here, and Alan Parker and Stephen Frears have visited. When film companies heard about a favela where they could "shoot without being shot at", they started knocking on Bob's door. Episodes of Brazilian soaps and a Snoop Dogg music video have been filmed on Tavares Bastos's cobbled streets using the Maze as a base, and now, of course, there's the Hulk.
But the Maze is mostly a rather unique guesthouse. Eight double rooms above the main lounge area - each with original paintings by Bob - are arranged around asymmetric arches and multicoloured broken tiles. It's a beautiful, organised chaos that imitates the favela around it.
I ask Bob if this is the beginning of some kind of favela gentrification. "It's already happening! We have regular live music nights in the lounge, and we get locals coming up who would never have gone anywhere near a favela in the past. We put on jazz bands, bossa and samba nights, and they come, drink R$5 (about £1.30) caipirinhas and walk home safely at 3am. OK, right now we are the only favela that is totally safe, but 200 years ago Hampstead was the most dangerous favela in London."
The Maze's temporary role as a film set means that there's no room for me, but since arriving at my hostel near Copacabana I'd been asked various times whether I had "done" a favela yet. Since entering the international vernacular via films such as Fernando Meirelles's Oscar-nominated City of God, various companies have been running tours into the slums. Just like Sugarloaf and the Christ Statue, the favela experience is another box to tick when visiting Rio.
"Some of it is voyeuristic," says Bob. "The tour people take you to designated areas where the locals know you are coming. But you can't observe anything in that way without changing its behaviour.
"At the Maze Inn it's safe enough to be on your own . . . spend a week in Tavares Bastos and the locals get used to you, and you can drink with them in the cafes, or maybe play snooker in the bars. And when you want a change you can head down the hill to the bars in Lapa, or jump on the metro to Copacabana and Ipanema."
We head to a small cafe behind his house where a couple of women and their children sit watching the TV. Then Bob's phone rings.
It's a guest booking herself in over Carnival. Dutifully, Bob ambles back to the Maze to confirm the booking. I head down to the base of the favela, past flaking buildings and vested locals who had directed me to "Casa du Bobby" on the way up.
I button my pockets and shove my camera to the bottom of my bag, leaving the only patch of Rio hillside that, thanks to a slightly eccentric Englishman, manages to be safer than the flat land beneath it.
· Doubles at the Maze Inn cost from R$90 (£25) a night, 0055 21 2558 5547, cariocadesign.com/themaze or email themaze@globo.com. STA Travel has flights to Rio from £615 with United Airlines via Washington, including taxes for travel until end of March 2008 (0871 230 8512, statravel.com).
benji.lanyado@guardian.co.uk
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Lucille
non-member comment
what a spot!!!!
HI, Well it seems like you have landed in an amazing place. The view, scenery, its inhabitants, past and present to add to it all. Sounds all so amazing. enjoy and savor every moment. You seem very much relaxed and almost at home there. Thanks for sharing. Enjoy what time you have left. Where to next? I will be checking for your blogs. Stay safe and enjoy Lucille