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Published: March 3rd 2007
Arriving in Rio after the quiet, tranquil beauty of Patagonia was something of a shock to the system. This once pristine Atlantic rainforest is now an ever expanding urban sprawl rapidly consuming all remaining coves, beachfront, foreshores and hillsides. Although I was well aware of many of the problems facing Rio, though, I did not expect it to be quite as rundown and decreipt as it was. Almost reminicent of present day Havana after its 48 year trade embargo. But at the same time the whole place was just so full of life and energy which give it this very rough and raw feeling and excited you as much as scared you. One thing is for sure though Rio is a very charismatic town.
On my first day I decided to do a tour of one of the local Favelas (the Brazilian, typically hillside, shantytowns or slums). I was initially a little apprehensive about the whole thing. The concept seemed increadibly voyeuristic but I was assured that it was ¨suprisingly¨ not so and for the most part this was true. The Favela we went to, Rocinha, was definitely better off than many of the other ones around. Every house had
electricity and water (although most of it was stolen) and most even had TVs. Rocinha in fact had even been declared a neighbourhood in the early 90´s in an attempt to legitimise it. Yet after 15 years this city of 200,000 people still appeared as little more than a single road on the map and with no access to waste disposal and other such services it still obviously has a long way to go. The tour itself was quite well run. The group was greeted well by all we meet and our guide explained a lot about the social orderings within the Favelas, who controlled them and how (typically they are controlled by 1 of 3 drug gangs) as well as how the Favelas began and their current role in society. With over 740 different Favelas in Rio State they provide low income housing for most of the State´s factory and service workers. As was pointed out more than likely all the cleaners in our hostels lived in the neighbouring Favelas. All Favelas though are techincally illegal. Originially this was because they were built on poached land and paid no taxes but is more so today because they have come
to be controlled by the drug gangs. Yet ironically they have made them much safer (and safer than many other parts of the city), with all petty crime and random attacks stamped out so as to prevent any additional unnessary attention. But then on the other hand in recent years as the average age of the gang leaders has fallen so has the incidences of armed conflict with the police risen.
The following day I decided to get a different view of the city so I headed upto the statue of Christo Redeemer (the largest Art Deco Sculpture in the world). From above Rio really does look gorgeous. I think you really need to it from this view if only to work out how it all, the beaches, the hills, the city, the Favelas and that last remaining bit of Atlantic rainforest, fits together into one homogeneous city. On the ride up I meet two awesome girls, Niche and Anna, english and canadian respectively, and afterwards we headed down to Ipanema and drank Caiprinias by the beach as the sun went down. Spending an afternoon on the beach in Ipanema is also one of those essential Rio things to
do. Ipanema is very indicitive of much of modern Brazilian culture, in particular the part that scream: I want to wear as little as possible for as long as possible! For the averge Brazilian woman, voluptious is a word that commonly springs to mind. Personally though I find this body type-dress combination less than appealing. As for the men....well it is just kind of fun and wrong, that is at least during the day. At 11pm at night when they are still walking around in bathers only slightly more bashful than speedos it is completely ridiculous! For all its life and energy though Rio seemed to be in a pre carneval calm and the rest of my time there was just spent hanging around Santa Teresa, apparently the ¨bohemian¨ part of the city, the suburb where I was staying. It was quite nice during the day but felt bloody dodgy at night!
So after my bried Rio stint I headed upto Salvador for Carneval. For me Carneval was really always about meeting up with Ree, Rach and Bec and having one last hooray before the 3 moved to London, althoguh I was quite keen to see the specticle
itself too. Now let me first preface this by saying that carneval in Salvador is neither traditional nor cultural (nor religious for that matter) but it is a hell of a lot of fun! I was initially disappointed that there was no Sambadrome (you know the parade-competition with all the feathers) but this quickly deminished as all the dancing and street parties began. Salvador basically has 2 main circuits (plus 1 small walking circuit in the old city) where from 2pm - 6am different blocos (floats) roll down the street with bands and singers on top and hundreds of people dancing behind them, often in the rain as it were but in the immense heat and humidity this just added to the fun. On the saturday night we all went down to one of the Camarotes (make shift clubs on the side of the curcuit with parade viewing areas) then backed this up on both the sunday and monday night when we went to the offical carneval after party (another makeshift club this time in an emptied out kids swimming pool on the foreshore) where we danced late into the morning after watching the sunrise over the Atlantic. It wasn´t
completely all partying though. We did manage to make it into the old city on one of the days and had ice cream and saw some Capoira, the Afro-Brazilian martial artes dance thing but when I finally arrived in Sao Luiz after 6 days of Carneval action I slept solidly for about 16 hours.
Sao Luiz was quite a different experience. Although carneval was in its last day when I arrived and the town was fairly touristy, I seemed to be the only non Brazilian tourist there! I meet a group of young Brazilians in my hostal the first night and we headed out for dinner then kept drinking for a few hours after that. With me speaking in Spanish and them in Portugese with a little bit of english and a little bit of spanish we managed to get along pretty well, although I was quite the novelty and the butt of a few jokes I´m sure. Yet still a really fun night. This new found friendship, however, was tested on the following day when I did a tour to the Lencois with two of them. The Lencois (translated ¨sheets¨) are actually sanddunes with lakes in the dips
between them which apparently look like sheets (actually quite a common Brazilian convention). The tour was alright, I have always had a fondness for sanddunes, particularly rolling down them, but spending 7 hours in a car with my new brazilian friend speaking non stop as loud as possible (in Portugese of course, although I couldn´t understand I could understand he was speaking shit) almost killed me! This was followed up the next day by hours of battling Brazilian Post Office bureaucracy and just when I was about to write the whole place off as a complete waste of time I met another Brazilian girl this time from Sao Paulo who told me about a local traditional Afro Brazilian dance and drumming group which perform in various places in the city every Friday night. It was not put on for tourists or anyone but was just like a dance, drumming and singing (more like chanting really) session just for the love of it. It was one of the best things I have ever seen. This day though in many ways typifies alot of what I think Brazil is like. Trying to do anything official or even remotely practical or mundane, whether buying a bus ticket, going to the post office, getting carneval ticekts or even going to the ATM, takes hours and is inherently frustrating but when it comes to spontaneous celebrations of everything and anything at all Brazil has it covered! I had a similar experience in Manaus the day I left. After hours of trying to find the bus station and buy a ticket (I was consequently sold a ticket on the wrong bus!) I just happened to walk past this tiny cafe packed with people. It was sunday afternoon and everythng was closed but this group of maybe 20 - 30 people each either a singer or musician were all sitting or standing around this cafe jamming out this amazing Afro-Brazilian souly blues. One of the waved me over as I walked by and I ended up spending the rest of the afternoon dancing away with them. And their voices! Kind of like the old high voices of the Afro Cuban musos in the Buenos vista social club but a bit smooter and more soulful. It was beautiful!
I did, however, end up cuttig out most of my amazon time, with a lot of regret. Although I love the idea of sailing down the Amazon, I just never really took to Portugese (a kind of Spainish-Slavic cross???) and it certainly did not take to me and 6 days by myself on a boat more than likely with only Portugese speakers just seemed too much. While I´m saving any jungle trip for Bolivia with Katie, at this point all I wanted to do was see the river itself. So on my only ¨Rio Amazonas¨day I caught a ferry to the other side. At twice the size of Sydeny harbour this was not a short trip mind you and hung out at this ¨stilted¨little town on opposite bank. The river looked gorgeous, the sky loomed over it large and dynamic and was increadibly impressive! While there I found an awesome little restuarant and had the most delicious fresh caught Amazonas fish. The guy who ran the place was lovely and by the time I left, a couple of hours later it was like saying good by to an old friend.
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Bryn
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Fantastic mate. Beautiful photos (again!). Pity didn't get to talk more on the phone the other day... but this makes up for it... the place sounds great, and topped off by meetings with random strangers on chair lifts and restaurant-owners - that's what travelling is all about. Glad you got to see the Amazon! catch you soon. bd