The Redeemer, Sugar loaf and a feast

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A tour guide entered the Hotel Augustus loby shouting names that sounded nothing like Lou or mine. She flaps around agitated and flusterted at not being able to find the final two people to complete her tour party. I ask her what tour she is taking ´Islands tour´she says and waves a piece of paper with illegible squiggles on it under my nose. She repeats the two names to me that she has been shouting. Neither of the names are mine of I conclude that she is not looking for me. I sit back down and wait for our guide to arrive.

Forty five minutes later no one has come to collect us for our ´Islands tour´. I call the tour organiser, Gus. 'Where have you been?´he asks ´Right here in the loby waiting as instructed´ I reply. It transpires that the flustered woman was looking for us. It´s now too late to do the Islands tour so we rearrange it for a weeks time and grab a taxi to hook up with another tour visiting the ´Christ the Redeemer´statue and ´Sugar loaf mountain´.

I spot the ´Grey lines´tour guide who is ment to be meeting us at the foot of the mountain where the train station is. She is being given a sevear ear bashing by a grey haired, red faced gentleman. He turns out to be an Armenian who has been living in LA for twelve years and for some reason expects the same level of service that he recieves in La in Rio. He is very disapointed. The tour had left without him from his hotel as he was a minute late. He has just caught a taxi to catch up with the tour costing him twenty five reals and he wants his money back. The tour guide looks tired. Her heavy eye lids only pop open when she gets the opportunuty to interject and defend her professionalism and good service. I butt in and confirm that she is ment to be meeting us. She had been distracted by the irrate American Armenian and was walking away from our agreed meeting point towards the ticket office. Had we been a minute later we would have missed our second tour of the day.

A slow train packed with an excited clatter of souvineer snapping tourists, all elbows, sweat, fat, chatter, click, flash and camera whirr crawles up the steep mountain side towards ´Christ the Redeemer´. We walk the last hundred meeters or so up flights of stairs in to the clouds that flash across the massive statue. His arms are outstretched in crucifix pose. It is a very powerful sight. We see Rio below in patches through occasional clearings in the clouds. I wonder if the people of Rio feel freer to sin when the statues view of them is obscured by the clouds.

Our guide does not know how much the statue cost to build but that the money for it was raised through donations. People wanted to celebrate Brazil as the largest Catholic country in the world. I think Jesus would have said not to bother spending all that time and money on a statue but to concentrate on feeding and housing the poor and tending to the sick and needy. However it is a very impressive sight both close up and when viewed from far away watching over Rio. We walk back down past many gift shops selling Jesus T-shirts, Jesus pens, Jesus key rings, Jesus statuets, Jesus laser sculptures in plastic with glowing lights shinning through them, Jesus tea towls and much other tourist tat with Jesus on it. And Jesus saw this and said ´KERRRRRRCHING!´.

In the afternoon we head to Sugar Loaf Mountain passing some ´Love hotels´that people hire by the hour the mirrored rooms complete with a menu of sex toys by the bed. On the way we stop off to visit Rio´s modern cathederal which is as ugly on the outside as it is magnificent within. Four huge stain glass windows run from top to bottom of the building one on each of it´s four walls. The base of the cathederal is much wider than the roof so that the windows lean in towards you as you look up at the life size crucified Jesus carved in wood that hangs in the cathederals center. A PA plays monks singing hymns. Its a ver contemplative place both somber and magnificent.

Two cable cars take us up to the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain. I am not very keen on being suspended hundreds of feet in the air in a small metal box that is ramed full of sweaty tourists but the view from the top is well worth it. There are no clouds to get in the way of fernominal views of the city. Rio streatches below us seaping between lush green mountains. The Streets reach towards the huge bay which is crossed by a huge bridge. Islands dot the horrizon the Atlantic ocean lies beyond in one direction and mountains fade away into the distance in the other. The view is breathtaking.

That night we walk along Avenue Cococabana to a Lebonease resturaunt called Amir where we eat the best food that I have tasted in South America so far. We start with a flava bean soupy broth followed by the special veggeterian plater that consists of rice and lentals, falafel, stuffed vine leaves, two types of humus, grilled oberjean, salad and spicy fried potatoes. We eat and eat and leave with what we cannot manage in a doggie bag.

Walking back the eight blocks to our hotel I am on my guard. I have heard and read so much about muggings in Brazil and it´s making me feel quite tense. I see other people on the street as a potential threat but they are doing nothing threatening and there is no evidence of any danger, well no more than would be found in any large city around the world. There are a few people sleeping rough, young lads hanging around laughing, a drunk nursing a bottle on a bench but I have no sense of any real threat to me. I feel safe here, well safer than I do walking down Broad Street in Birmingham or Kings Cross in London on a Saturday night. I relax a little and we stroll back to the hotel hassel free. It´s midnight in Rio. A man walks his dog , the flower stall is lit up and open for business, presumably selling peace offerings to late, drunken and guilt ridden men. A ´working girl´stands on the corner in very short shorts made from jeans and a sparkly black top, a drunk is asleep on a bench an empty bottle at his feet, people are laughing and drinking in the bars that spill, gentally onto the street.

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