Advertisement
Travelblog –journal for Rio de Janeiro/ Paraty / Ilha Grande (November and December 2015)
Sunday, 29 November 2015 – We arrived at Rio de Janeiro’s Tom Jobim international airport in the early evening, after sunset, and spent the next hour waiting to clear immigration. A KLM flight had landed prior to our own and there were only three officials processing the non-Brazilian arrivals. Our two small suitcases we waiting for us when we finally reached the baggage claim. We are travelling much lighter on this visit to South America – one carry-on sized suitcase each, which we checked, and our 15 (Joan) and 20 (Greg) litre backpacks that we carried on. Banished to permanent storage is the super-size suitcase we hauled from Medellin to Buenos Aires!
We found an ATM machine and withdrew some cash and purchased two bottles of water. As advised by the owner of the apartment where we are staying, we went outside the Arrivals area to flag down a taxi that had delivered outward bound travellers. (This is a trick we have used in Morocco also!) We were advised to expect to pay about 50 Brazilian Reais, about 13 Euro/15 USD). The first driver, an old man (we both hate using taxis anywhere and prefer to use older drivers as they tend to be less like frustrated rally drivers) who quoted us 100 Reais. He was not open to negotiation so we flagged down another driver, a bit younger, who wanted to use the meter. We had been advised that there were two reasons to disallow this: they are sometimes rigged to cheat, and the driver may give you an unwanted scenic route tour thus increasing the cost. We indicated we wanted a fixed price and he quoted 80 Reais and we showed him then printout advising us to pay about 50 Reais. A policeman approached and gestured him to move on and we walked off to try another taxi driver. The driver nodded and gestured to the policeman and offered us a fixed price of 70 Reais, which we accepted. All this happened between us without a common language: we speak no Portuguese and he spoke no English.
It is late spring in Rio. It is very humid. One forgets that Rio is a city carved out of the edge of the jungle. A soft drizzly rain and low hung clouds shielded the iconic views from us. We could not see the sweeping vistas of the coast nor the spiky mountains nor the statue of Jesus Christ which sits atop Corcovado. We could only see the heavy traffic around us. The driving was neither overly cautious nor aggressively manic.
We are staying in a small apartment in the neighbourhood called Gloria. Unusually, it sits atop one of the smaller hills and above a favela (shantytown). Favelas are very-congested dwelling areas with poor quality housing clinging to the sides of the hills and mountains that encircle the city. The houses seem to be stacked one upon another. They are without foundations, and sometimes whole sections of housing will collapse and slide in avalanche down the mountainside during heavy storms. The favela areas are notorious for poverty, lawlessness and drug-related violence, although in recent years a government initiative to put police stations and heavily-armed officers within the favelas has reduced much of the crime and violence. Having been chosen to host the soccer World Cup last year and the Olympics next year created the need to address the issue.
The taxi climbed the slippery cobblestone Rua Santo Amaro and turned right at the Federal Police barrier. This station seems to mark the division between the favela below and the legal housing above. Less than 100 meters from the turning, Maria was waiting for us outside 909 Rua Pedro Americo. We unloaded the taxi, paid the driver who accepted the cash with a nod and a smile, and followed Maria into the small apartment which will be our home for the next 35 days!
Monday, 30 November - We have been in Rio two full days and have yet to see the iconic statue of Jesus Christ atop Corcovado mountain as it has been shrouded by mist, fog and low clouds. We spent the first day walking the streets of our neighbourhood of Gloria and those of the nearby neighbourhoods of Lapa and Saint Theresa. From afar and high above the incredible romantic vista of Rio de Janeiro is one of beauty and magnificence. On the streets, however, up close and personal, another and completely different picture emerges very quickly. Rio is a very dirty city; dirty in the sense that buildings are covered in ugly graffiti, piles of uncollected rubbish block the footpaths, many homeless and hopeless people hang about, drug addicts trip outside the local pharmacy. There is a thick stench of diesel fumes and other pollutants in the air.
On our first morning, as we walked downhill along the long and winding cobblestone road to our local metro station and to the central area where the shops are located, we noticed that all the houses were reinforced with caged windows as well as steel bar doors, as though the people live imprisoned in their homes. Every wall was topped with razor wire. Yet we felt no sense of tension or danger while walking along there, nor in fact anywhere that we walked during our first two days.
At the bottom of the hill, we stopped into a local bakery for breakfast, which consisted of large mugs of strong coffee and two donuts stuffed with the cream Dolce de Leche, a product that we had previously discovered in Argentina . Dolce de Leche is a smooth, caramel-like cream that is quite delicious and very addictive. (Greg strongly recommends seeking it out in your local specialist food store!) Joan had a light Madeira cake with cream frosting. This bakery offers an extensive range of inviting-looking products and visiting it could easily become a habit!
Our first ‘site’ was the Escaldaria Selaron. This landmark stairway leads from Lapa to Saint Theresa. The stairs are covered in very colourful mosaic tiles. The back-story: In 1990, Jorge Selarón, a Chilean-born painter, began renovating dilapidated steps that ran in the front of his house. At first, neighbours mocked him for his choice of colours as he covered the steps in fragments of blue, green and yellow tiles – the colours of the Brazilian flag. It started out as a side-project to his main passion, painting, but soon became an obsession. He sold paintings to fund his work and by 2013 had covered the entire set of steps in tiles, ceramics and mirrors. There are 250 steps measuring 125 metres long which are covered in over 2000 tiles collected from over 60 countries around the world. He constantly changed it so that it became an ever evolving piece of art. Selarón considered the work as "never complete’ and claimed that "this crazy and unique dream will only end on the day of my death”. Originally, tiles for the work were scavenged from various construction sites and piles of urban waste found on the Rio streets, but in later years most of the tiles were donated by visitors from all around the world. Of the 2000+ tiles, 300-odd are hand painted by Selarón depicting a pregnant African woman.
Even during the drizzling morning, the colourful stairway attracted many visitors. We climbed up and took a few photographs on the way. Instead of walking directly back down, as every other visitor did, we took another way and walked down along a crooked cobblestone road featuring dilapidated houses with caged windows and which emerged beneath the next ‘site’: the Arcos da Lapa. Also known as the Carioca Aqueduct, it was built in 1794 to transport water from the Carioca River to people living and working in the city. Since the end of the 19
th century, the aqueduct has served as a tramway bridge connecting the elevated Saint Theresa neighbourhood with the city centre below. Unfortunately, the arches are a popular hangout spot for the homeless and drug addicts.
The area known as Lapa was once considered the ‘Montmartre’ of Rio de Janeiro. Our Footprints guide to Rio states that only a decade ago it was a ‘no go’ area, ‘tawdry and terrifying, walked only by drug addicts, prostitutes and thugs.’ While it is no longer terrifying, it remains tawdry, and perhaps still a bit edgy. There are a number of theatres and performance spaces recently opened that have rejuvenated the area. Ringo Starr is performing in one next month. We walked the length of its main street, Avienda Mem de La. It is lined with the crumbling facades of once beautiful colonial, early 20
th century and art noveau buildings. Many of these are now cafes and it is one of Rio’s most popular nightlife streets.
After a short sit-down in a concrete park in the centre of a roundabout, where we watched the down-and-outs cadge cigarettes from each other, we ventured uphill again via a long switch-back road and emerged at the turnaround square; Largo das Neves, of the tramway in Saint Theresa. We were hoping to find a place for lunch there. Our DK Top Ten guide suggested there were several ‘botecos’, little restaurants that serve food and frothy beers, located there, but we found none. There is a cute small church overlooking a city vista. We followed the tram tracks, which ran down the centre of the cobble stone road. The houses along this road are well-maintained. At the main square, Largo dos Guimaraes, we had a wonderful lunch at Cafe do Alto (photos already posted). After lunch we followed the tram tracks back downhill and emerged once again at the plaza below the aquaduct. (We saw the trams passing only from the plaza; no tram passed by the entire time we were following its tracks.)
Saint Theresa seemed an interesting area, cute and funky. We passed some beautiful old colonial houses and some interesting street art work. Many of the restaurants and cafes, shops and galleries in Saint Theresa were closed on the Monday, and a return visit will be required.
We walked back to our apartment, stopping on the way to stock-up with bottled water and provisions. Unfortunately, there are no shops at the top of the hill where our apartment is located so we have to carry everything uphill for about a kilometre and a half (about one mile). There are motorcycle taxis serving this route, but Joan won’t ride on a motorcycle, and it would be more difficult holding plastic bags of groceries and bottled water. There is also a VW mini-bus taxi that waits until it is chock-full and then ascends. It looks very cramped and uncomfortable. We walk slowly and steadily and arrive in about twenty minutes.
Tuesday, 1 December - On Tuesday we woke to a bright but still grey sky. The drizzle, however, has stopped and the humidity is a bearable 40 per cent. (Yesterday it hovered near a very sticky 90 per cent all day.) We meandered downhill to the bakery for coffee and only coffee this morning! We have decided to attempt to limit and control our pastry consumption to afternoon tea or evening dessert! (Bon chance!)
We walked into Centro, Rio’s bustling commercial centre. We paused briefly at Floriano park, which was the liveliest part of the city in the 1920s and 30s when Hollywood glamour arrived in Brazil. All the best cinemas were located here and their popularity was such that the area was renamed ‘Cinelandia’. We walked along the 30-metre wide Avienda Rio Branco, which is lined with banks and is the financial heart of the city. One lane of the wide boulevard is currently being transformed into an above-ground rail track for a tram for the Olympic Games in August 2016. Like most public works projects, there seemed to be more workers standing around with arm crossed or hands in pockets than those wielding pick axes and shovels.
A bustling street, it consisted primarily of non-descript skyscrapers. One exception is the beautiful Municipal Theatre building. This splendid building is French-inspired, neoclassical and lavish, with gold-tint, and was a luxurious and ornate temple to early 20
th-century Carioca high society. (The citizens of Rio de Janeiro are called ‘Cariocans’.)
We continued walking, window-shopping and people-watching. We entered a shopping plaza where over 30 electronics goods outlets were located in search of a portable speaker to use with our Sony Walkman cd player, but none were to be found; all the portable speakers were wireless and Bluetooth enabled. (We did manage to find one but found it wouldn’t work with the cd player even though it had the correct jack.)
We lunched at Bravo Ricardo, a ‘Comida par Kilo’, which is a self-service buffet where you pay for the weight of the food on your plate. The cost was about 2 Euro per kilo of food. The buffet offered a wide variety of choices: salads and vegetables, pasta dishes, various fish and meat dishes, rice dishes, potatoes. We chose small portions of many options and brought our plates to the station where they are weighed and a smiling attendant placed a sticker on our entrance/exit ticket with the price (19 Reais for one plate and 24 Reais for the other which included a tin of local lager). The comida was packed and we stood looking around for a place to sit. The attendant shouted to a colleague who gestured to us toward a table where an older couple were eating. We then understood that all the tables were shared. All the food was fresh and delicious and the serving trays were being constantly replenished. The clientele were mostly people working in the offices in the nearby tower blocks; there was a steady stream of people at the buffet the entire time we were in the restaurant. There was an option to fill Styrofoam containers to takeaway. We decided to have a shared second-helping and I approached the door attendant to inquire if I needed a second ticket to do so. She had no English and neither did the two other attendants who offered their assistance. A customer noticed our gathering and offered her assistance, as she had a small bit of English, and I was advised that I used the same ticket and would get a second sticker on it. Our second-helping plate cost 19 Reais, including a second tin of lager. When we had finished, there was a line of about 20 people at the cash desk waiting to pay and exit. It moved swiftly; everything was well-organized and efficient. We will do this again!
We walked into the Campo de Santana, a city centre park famous for the Capybara, the largest rodent in the world, who seem to live quite contentedly in the park along with many cats. There is also a rock-and-water feature, numerous ugly duck-like creatures, and a few pheasants in the park. We sat on a park bench to watch the wildlife and consult the map. We decided to visit the Central Station which was located opposite.
Rio’s Central Station is very crowded. It is the setting for a wonderful film, also called Central Station, in which a woman who writes letters for the illiterate befriends a homeless boy and goes inland with him in search of his father. It is a lovely film, very un-Brazilian in that violence does not dominate it. We would highly recommend it and intend watching it again when we return to Europe.
The Central Train Station itself is not a beautiful space; it is purely functional and very busy. We walked quickly through it. The letter-writing scribes and their desks are long gone, a part of history relegated to memory and film. A building next to the train station houses the gondola station that brings people up into the nearby favela.
We decided to start walking back to the apartment. We had stopped in the garden of a Presbyterian Church to view some sculptures, one of which was a throne-like metallic chair with the initials GC, when we heard shouting from the street. We looked up to see a wiry young man running in amongst the slowly moving traffic being pursued by two older men. A builder was standing on the footpath waiting to cross. He had in his hand a kind of harness and he threw it at the running man whose feet tangled in the webbing and he fell down. The two men pursuing him pounced on him as he lay on the pavement. One of them was holding a revolver in his hand. Joan grabbed my arm. ‘He’s got a gun!’ He pressed the gun to the back of the man’s neck while the other man pulled his arms behind him. They were in plainclothes and we assumed they were police. They seemed to frisk him, and perhaps they took something from him. It was hard to see everything that happened while they had him pressed into the ground. They didn’t, however, cuff or arrest him. They seem to have retrieved what they wanted and they let him go. He rose up from the pavement, much like a young calf after branding, a bit startled, and scampered away down the street.
We talked about this incident while continuing to walk back to the apartment, trying to understand what we had witnessed. Very strange, indeed!
We stopped again at the supermarket and purchased some more bottles of water. We also stopped at the bakery to purchase a pastry for our dessert after dinner. Then we walked slowly back up the hill.
Wednesday, 2 December - We woke to yet another grey and humid morning. The residential building next door is undergoing construction and the workers’ radio has played Adele’s new song about love lost, I’m Sorry, at the same time each morning. It is our wake-up call, that and the rooster further up the hill, and then the dogs’ morning chorus that follows. We continue our routine of coffee at the bakery at the bottom of the hill. This morning we cannot resist the pastry temptation. I had another dulce de leche donut (they are irresistible!) and Joan had a walnut coffee sponge cake. We boarded the underground metro and headed for the iconic beaches of Ipanema and Leblon. It was very misty. Thick fogging clouds hung low over the box-like high-rise apartment buildings across the street from the beach. A few hardy and/or desperate souls swam. Waves crashed against the very soft sand. Cyclists and joggers used their dedicated lane. We stopped to watch some people playing a form of beach volleyball, but without use of the hands. A few people sat at the sidewalk cafes sipping coconut milk through a straw. Hawkers offered colourful shawls for sale.
The sweeping curve of the beach is truly magnificent. The sand is soft and tan, and the beach is very clean. (There are sets of ugly orange rubbish bins about every 50 metres.) We walked the entire length of Ipanema beach and about half of Leblon beach before the persistent drizzle caused us to turn in toward the tree-lined commercial district. Ipanema and Leblon are where the rich and beautiful people of Rio de Janeiro live. We were looking for the ‘tall and tan and young and lovely, the girl from Ipanema’, but she was nowhere to be seen. We will return when the sun has itself returned.
We had lunch at Bibi, a Brazilian juice and burger bar. Fresh squeezed fruit juices are very popular in Brazil. Joan had a baby-sized Acai juice; it was served in a small dish and with a plastic spoon. Acai is a purple Amazonian palm berry that has been popular with locals for thousands of years and is packed with vitamins. I had a Caju juice, which is an Amazonian cashew-nut fruit. Both were very nice, although they were very sweet and more like a dessert than a juice!
We visited the Leblon shopping mall, which was full of western stores and where all the western major labels and designs were stocked in abundance. Christmas bears were in abundance. We browsed for awhile is a very nice and well-stocked bookstore, Livraria da Travessa, which is a local chain of six bookstores according to their shopping bag. Joan also browsed in a few of the boutique stores.
We stopped for a strong coffee macchiato. We meet two pugs, one a husky ten-year old named Thor. Pug owners are always friendly, and any day we meet a pug is a great day!
Thursday, 3 December – Still misty this morning; walking through clouds all day is a bit disheartening. After coffee at our local we walked back to Centro to exchange the portable speaker.
Before that, however, Greg got his Brazilian ... haircut, that is! Shaggy Greg is no more! The local barber shop featured three immaculately groomed and coiffed old-school barbers. The leather chairs were classic vintage. An elderly barber shuffled around me for a full hour, using only a comb, scissors and straight razor to tame and trim my hair and bushy beard. Joan watched and photographed. The cost was 40 Reais (about 10 Euro/12 USD). Greg is now neat and tidy again!
At the electronics stores, a refund was allowed and processed (with a short delay for bureaucracy, which included photocopying the two receipts and stapling them onto a form which I was asked to sign). We found and purchased another portable speaker at another store, after asking at about a dozen previous stores. (When we got home in the afternoon we realized that the clerk had neglected to enclose the connecting wire so we will have to return again tomorrow. This all because I forgot to bring our portable speaker and we must have music in our apartment!)
We lunched at another Comida buffet in the Cinelandia area. This one was also full of well-dressed men and women from the surrounding office blocks and businesses. The food was very good, fresh and inexpensive.
On our second walkabout the Centro area of Rio, we visited a second branch of the local bookstore which was compact and well-stocked, but without maps. Dark-wood shelving filled with books. We had a strong coffee on an overlooking mezzanine. Next door was a restaurant, a small, intimate fish restaurant rated Number One on Trip Advisor, called L’Atelier du Cuisinier, where Joan inspected the menu for a future visit.
We looped around toward the waterfront and headed back toward the apartment. We came across a protest outside one of the government offices. Impeachment proceedings against the country’s President had been initiated that morning. We were unable to tell if the protest was in support of the President or her impeachment. The evening news reported that the initiation of the impeachment proceedings had no significant effect on the Brazilian stock exchange!
We met up with Maria (born in Holland, living in Brazil for 6 years, married to a Brazilian) and her friend Pauline (born in Brazil of French parents, returned to France at age 4, living in Rio for two years) at 7pm. Maria had invited us to go with them to the Rio Scenarium music club where a friend of hers was performing. Rio Scenarium is one of the largest samba clubs in Rio. Upon entering, we were handed a personal menu and photographed upon entering the club. The entrance fee was 30 Reais. All of the tables with a view of the stage were occupied or reserved. Maria and Pauline, however, charmed the smiling waiter and we were allowed sit at the musicians’ table adjacent the large stage. There was an equally large dance floor in front of it. An open space above the dance floor allowed the sound of the live music to ascend to the other two floors. As the club filled up, so did the dance floor; people also danced beside their tables. Thiagu Gentil, Maria’s friend, is a singer-songwriter-guitarist who performs what is commonly known as MPB (Popular Brazilian Music), which is a melding of traditional Brazilian forms of Samba and Bossa Nova with western folk, rock, pop and (dare I say it!) jazz music. Thiagu and his band played two sets of mostly original music with a few classic Bossa Nova covers like ‘One Note Samba’. A local Samba band, Nando do Cavaco, followed, playing traditional samba songs, and the by now heaving crowd sang along with the band as they danced. A DJ was scheduled to follow the samba band. We paid our bill and exited. We walked passed a number of other music clubs, open to the street, with loud music of varying types pouring forth and people hanging about in the street. It all felt very friendly and social and there was no tension. All the people we have met so far have been very polite and cordial. (Regret we have no photos to offer.)
In the slightly rundown and seedy area between Lapa and Gloria a number of prostitutes were touting for business, one about every twenty metres or so. Cars cruised slowly. The streets were still wet from the misty drizzle and seemed to shine and sparkle. It was like a movie set. We ambled along, tired after our long day and night, minding our own business but sneaking glances nonetheless. We did not feel nervous or at all threatened.
Friday, 4 December
Like Ireland, Brazil is a country steeped in a rich musical history. Also like in Ireland, there is very little jazz! Rio has two jazz clubs, one called TribOz run by an ex-pat Australian (more on that venue in a future post) and The Maze.
The Maze is a music club that is located at the top of the nearby favela, Tavares Basto. It is owned and operated by a former English film producer called
Bob Nadkarni who decided he'd had enough of London and moved to Rio over thirty years ago. The club features live jazz only on the first Friday of the month. It is perhaps a bit of a cliché, a music bar located in a slum where the white middle class tourists gather to listen to local musicians and party while the locals cannot afford the entrance fee. It claims, however, that all the staff are all favela residents and is an important source of income for the local community. It claims to be a business helping to integrate the favelas with the rest of the city. The Maze was recently labelled as one of the ‘best jazz clubs’ in the world in a recent article in DownBeat magazine. The jazz was stated to commence at 10pm and continue until 3:30am. We had to go!
Near our apartment, we asked two schoolgirls in front of the social club how to get to Tavares Basto. Neither had English but were happy to point and gesture in assistance. We walked down the hill via a different road than the one we usually take, steeper but shorter than our normal route. The roadway was well lit and residential and we felt safe walking it after dark. When we reached the bottom, we had a short walk of less than ten minutes. At the foot of Tavares Basto, we climbed into one of the VW minibus community taxis. These mini-taxis ply defined short local routes, usually uphill. They wait until 10 customers have arrived and stuffed themselves into the crapped out little van before it sets off, diesel belching and engine grinding. The journey, which took about 5 minutes, was along a cobblestone road that consisted of nearly entirely tight switchback cuves. It costs 3 Reais.
When we reached the summit we were met by a guide in a florescent bib with ‘The Maze’ and he walked with us through the narrow alleyway to the club. We arrived about twenty minutes past ten. We paid the entrance fee and a band was wrapped around our wrists. The building is a series of white-washed concrete walls upon which hand the large Francis Bacon-influenced paintings of the clubs owner, Bob Nadkami. His name is even tiled into the floor near one of the bars. The stage is large and the flooring in front of it is without seating. There is seating in an adjacent room, concrete benches and a few small stools. This room is open to a view of the sparkling lights of Rio and the bay below. We nabbed two of the stools and purchased a bottle of the local lager, which is only served in 600ml bottles.
The venue slowly and steadily filled up with ‘gringos’, the locals label for western visitors. Most were much younger than ourselves, but there were a few other 50-somethings!
The music started, in typical jazz club fashion, a little more than an hour later than advertised. A septet consisting of pianist, guitarist, bassist, drummer, tenor saxophonist and two trumpeters played standards from the Great American Songbook. The Maze is not a ‘listening’ club; the jazz is background music for the social gathering. We could hear the music rising above the din of conversations, but we could only see the trumpets and saxophone if we leaned a bit forward and strained, but we were quite content to watch and listen and sip our lager. The space directly in front of the stage was jam-packed with people. The jazz performed was adequate if unexceptional. The owner sat directly in front of the band in a throne-like chair lined with a zebra fleece. A second set featured a female singer. We listened to her sing three standards, including My Funny Valentine.
The club also has a roof terrace, so we decided to have a look at the view from there before making our way back to the apartment. We pushed through the crush of people in front of the stage and climbed the very narrow, one-way-at-a-time stairway. The roof area resembled the architecture of Gaudi, with tiles and arches and curved lines. The terrace was also crowded with people chatting and looking out at the view over the city.
We made our own way back to the taxi drop off and caught another VW minibus to the bottom of the hill, then walked back to the apartment. We returned to our apartment around 2:30am.
Saturday, 5 December Maria had advised us to visit the Saturday market in Lapa, which she had described and ‘large and colourful and wonderful’. Even though the sun was shining for the first time since we have arrived and it would have been a ‘good beach day’, we took her advice and went to the market, and were glad that we did. The entire length of Rua do Lavradio, about 600 metres, was lined with stalls offering artisan and handicraft items, second-hand and antiques, silverwork. The range of items on offer was as varied as we have ever experienced. One stall sold only second-hand manual typewriters. Another had a selection of hand-painted t-shirts. There were artists and handicrafters of every type and description. Even the stalls displaying visitor items, such as the image of Christ on Corcovado mountain, were tasteful and the products handmade. We would estimate that there were a few hundred stalls on the street. We ambled slowly down its entire length, pausing frequently. There was a thick crowd of people browsing and everyone seemed to move at the same sedate and easy pace. And they were all Brazilian! We noticed no other ‘Gringos’ at the market. Usually, at markets such as these, we hear voices and other foreign languages, German or English mostly, or loud American voices. The western visitors seem not to frequent this part of Rio, nor in the city centre. We were, however, ourselves spotted as a visitor by a local woman who advised us to carry our packs in front of us in the crowded marketplace.
At the far end of the street we crossed into the Parc Tiradiente where a very large band was playing beneath a large canopy. There were well over 100 musicians seated beneath the canopy. It seemed a kind of ‘all-invited, bring-your-instrument’ arrangement. The band was encircled by its audience. We stood and listened for awhile, then browsed the snack and sweet and artisan beer stalls along the edge of the park.
Lunch was at, (you guessed it!) a comida! This one offered Asian dishes. We are becoming very fond of this option for dining: it is inexpensive; the food is fresh; we can have small tastes of lots of different food; there is always a friendly atmosphere; we can have brief chats with other diners.
We stopped at a bar for a beer and to watch the passing crowd. We sat atop high stools. We were directly behind a stall from which two black women were selling brightly coloured skirts and blouses. They were doing a brisk trade. The stall next to theirs was vacant. The bar was a ‘boteco’, in which waiters carry around a platter of small portions of freshly made food items which you can select as they walk by. The servers are followed by an assistant who marks on your personal menu what you have chosen. Because we had just finished our lunch we didn’t try any of the food at the bar, but it looked interesting and we made a mental note to return.
We pushed onto a local regular bus which brought us up the hill to Santa Theresa. We had picked up a couple of brochures announcing activities there at the weekend. A local girl assisted us in choosing the correct bus and telling us the fare, and then telling the bus driver when we boarded. We have found all the locals that we have interacted with to be very helpful and cordial and friendly, even when they have no English and cannot understand us! This is a welcoming city and perhaps, like our experience in Colombia, the people are well aware of the violent reputation the city has and this is their way of confronting and dispelling and combating against it.
A band made up primarily of percussion instruments was playing in the street outside a bar on the town’s main square. They too were encircled with listeners. There were a few ‘gringos’ here. Santa Theresa is the prime destination of the over-ground tram (which we discovered stops running at 4pm). The tram ride is one of the ‘must-do’ activities of Rio, thus the more tourist oriented gift shops are located here. We listened to the band for a short while before walking to the Placa de Ruinas, which is a small park around a ruined building that is an open air art and photography gallery with a cinema/theatre in its basement. It also has an outdoor stage and children’s playground. It is located at the top of the hill and from the top of the building we finally got our first glimpse of the iconic Brazilian image of the statue of Christ the Redeemer atop Corcovado mountain! We expected this 30 meter-tall (about 100 feet) statue to be visible from all parts of Rio de Janeiro, as it is place atop the mountain 706 meters (2316 feet) high, but this is not the case at all. But, we have finally glimpsed it, and I will write more about it when we have visited it next week.
Sunday, 6 December – Our first stop on Sunday morning, after our usual coffee and cake breakfast, was the local colourful fruit and vegetable market. Wonderfully presented and packaged products filled the stalls which stretched for about half a kilometre along a closed-off street. Chillies and flowers of many colours, a wide range of fruits and vegetables (many of which we did not recognize), a few fish stalls and some selling herbs and spices. At one stall a woman was working twelve frying pans simultaneously. She was making what looked like a crepe, but the flour she used was very fine white flour, call from the manioc plant. Called tapioca, it is a very popular street food in northern Brazil. They are cooked to order with a variety of sweet and savoury fillings (cheese, shredded beef or sausage chunks, guava fruit, chopped vegetables, sweetened condensed milk, coconut and coconut mill, and even Nutella!). The chef shook the frying pans and flipped the tapiocas with grace and an expert’s skill. We will return here next Sunday for lunch! There were a few stalls that offered slim plastic bags with pre-chopped vegetables as soups are very popular in Brazil. All the produce at this market was very good, fresh and appealing, much better than the fruit and vegetables Joan has found in the local grocery store.
Although there was a haze, the sun was shining. We boarded a bus and headed to the beach. Ipanema and Leblon beaches were crowded with sun-bathers and volleyball players. One lane of the boulevard was closed to traffic and thronged with cyclists and people on skateboards and rollerblades, joggers and fast-walkers. We strolled and observed and photographed. There was a very heavy security presence, with officers from the various forces huddled into separate groups, especially at the very end of the Ipanema beach where the land juts out into the ocean. There were also security stands located on the beach itself. The sand is soft and very fine. It was hot, 30+ Celsius, with a slight cooling breeze. There were nearly 100 places to rent beach chairs and sun umbrellas. Along the sidewalk, about every couple hundred meters, small huts offered cold beers, soft drinks and coconut milk drunk directly from a chopped open nut with a straw.
We paused from our long beach stroll for lunch at a posh comida called Fellini’s. It was rated the ‘number one’ comida in Rio on Trip Advisor. And it was excellent; it was the best comida we have experienced so far. A chunk of filet steak we had was perfectly cooked and delicious. Also tasty were the sausage, lasagne, ravioli stuffed with sweet potato, salmon cannelloni. There was a range of wonderful salads, and a sushi bar. We filled our plates with many bite-sized pieces of food to sample. As I stood at the dessert bar, a local woman next to me seemed to be struggling with her decision. I said to her that it all looked wonderful. She said she found it very difficult to choose as she would allow herself only one selection, but not to forget the bowl of warm chocolate sauce!
We returned to the beach front and continued our leisurely stroll its entire length. At dusk we turned toward the metro station. We passed through still another large market, although the stall holders were packing up for the evening. We shall return next Sunday to investigate fully!
Monday, 7 December – We woke to pouring rain, but no building work. We caught up with the newspapers and emails and facebook before the rain stopped around noontime. We rode the metro and then a short local bus to Rotovario Novo Rio (Central Bus Station), which is located in the north part of the city. (We had intended walking from the metro stop to the bus station, but it was separated by a series of highways and overpasses and inaccessible on foot without traipsing a long circuitous route through some dodgy areas. The new metro line, being constructed for the upcoming Olympic Games, will stop directly outside the bus station.) Rotovario Novo Rio is very large and quite modern, but also similar to other South American bus stations we have experienced in that there are multiple bus company counters offering routes to various parts within the country as well as the major cities of Buenos Aires and Santiago among others. Brazil itself, as everyone, knows is a massive country. This fact becomes even more apparent when planning bus journeys! We purchased some of our tickets and collected information, prices and journey times from a couple other companies. (We found it difficult to access this information online. And we learned from our previous visit to South America that what is listed online is neither 100%!a(MISSING)ccurate nor comprehensive.)
We caught a return bus to Botafogo. Botafogo is a beachfront neighbourhood of middle class apartment blocks and a small commercial community. Coca Cola has its offices located here. Botafogo’s small crescent beach holds a small marina and is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by a jutting peninsula at one end and the Sugarloaf Mountain at the other. We had intended visiting the former home of Brazil’s most famous composer, Heitor Villa-Lobos, which is now a museum, but by the time we got there it was nearly time for it to close. (It is one of the very few museums open on Monday; we shall try again next week.) We walked around the bay toward the Sugarloaf, thinking perhaps we might take the cable car to its summit, but heavy clouds descended over it and we decided to leave it for another day as well!
We turned back and walked back toward Gloria along Rua Catete. This historical neighbourhood traditionally hosted the President of Brazil at Catete Palace, before the purpose-built federal capital of Brasilia was constructed and government offices were transferred there. It remains a decidedly middle class neighbourhood. As well as the nearby neighbourhoods of Gloria (where we are staying) and Santa Teresa, Catete was one of the most exclusive districts of the city during Brazil’s colonial past, with many of its houses built in the late 19
th century and early 20
th century during what is called the ‘Belle Epoque Rio’ era. There are also many non-descript and rather drab apartment tower blocks.
We meandered homeward. The rain started again and we stopped at a shopping mall where we found some wonderful fresh-baked soft cookies with melting chocolate centres and good coffee. We split up and I visited another bookstore while Joan checked out the boutiques. By the time we were ready to continue the rain had stopped. We stopped again at a small music store where I purchased a couple cds, including one of a selection of Choros composed by Villa-Lobos. (Searching for music presents its own challenges as Brazilian music is organized into a myriad of categories, none of which are jazz, and then sorted alphabetically by the artist’s first name, except if the performer has a well-known nickname, ie Antonio Carlos Jobim is shelved under ‘T’ for Tom!) We purchased a bottle of Brazilian Cabernet from another store. (Brazilians are neither big wine drinkers nor producers, but a service person was very keen that we try it so we will!) We stopped at a few other stores along the way, and window-shopped and people-watched as is our normal activity when walking. We arrived back at the apartment just as the rain started up again.
Tuesday, 8 December
We visited the Museum of National History which documents the human history of Brazil from pre-Colombian times to the 20
th century. Exhibits include a replica of a prehistoric cave painting from the northeast of the country claiming to be the oldest record of human presence in South America. There are other historical artefacts, paintings, sculptures and photographs, maps and armaments. A gallery illustrates the way of life of the indigenous people, while other rooms document the colonial, imperial and republican eras. A few interesting facts we learned: Brazil received over 40%!o(MISSING)f the entire slave trade from Africa, nearly double that of the United States. Brazil was the only country in South America to have a monarchy and vestiges of its royal past remain; the museum houses a collection of Royal carriages used by the former Emperor Don Pedro II and Empress Teresa Christina and well as their thrones. The museum is housed in a former arsenal.
We lunched at the museum’s restaurant, The Line. This was the first ‘restaurant’ meal we have had since arriving in Rio. The room was very nice and well set with gleaming wine goblets and linen table clothes. Joan ordered a traditional Brazilian dish of a fish stew in a light fragrant coconut milk which contained shrimp and some local fish served with white rice and toasted crumbed manioc in a small bowl. I opted for a filet steak. (Brazil is the largest producer of commercial beef in the world, and third largest producer of pork.) The food was good but nothing extraordinary.
We returned to the temporary galleries after our lunch. One featured an extraordinary collection of Japanese ceramics and floral arrangements which were quite stunning. (Brazil has the largest population of Japanese outside of Japan.) The other temporary exhibition consisted of of 20
th century advertising posters from European ocean-liner and airline companies presenting Rio de Janeiro as a visitor destination, one of the most beautiful cities on the planet with breathtaking natural landscapes and naturally hospitable people.
We walked back around Guanabara Bay, through a long park beside the waterfront. This bay is still very polluted and quite foul-smelling; it is, controversially, where the sailing races of the Olympics will take place. At its far end is being constructed a competition pool. The park is a long tree-filled buffer between the waterfront and heavily trafficked roads that connect the city centre with the beach areas to the south. At its centre is a modernist but Soviet-looking War Memorial. A balanced plinth supports two concrete columns topped by a convex slab. It commemorates Brazilian soldiers who were killing fighting in Italy during World War II. A few bored servicemen in bright white uniforms hung around, languid in the shade of the building.
Wednesday, 9 December
A clear and partly sunny morning encouraged us to head for a day at the beach: Copacabana Beach. Our Footprints guidebook claims the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana ‘the most famous beaches in the world’. It also says that even though present day Cariocas are devoted to lazing in the sun, it was a phenomenon introduced by the French actress Sarah Bernhardt in 1886. She was in Rio making two films, Frou Frou and the Lady of the Camelias. During her time off from the film set, she caused great scandal by going to Copacabana beach, donning a swimsuit to sunbathe and even swim in the ocean. Prior to that Brazilians would only go into the sea if ordered to by a doctor for medicinal reasons! And a tan was considered ‘unhealthy’. By 1917 going to the beach had become fashionable, although strictly regulated: only allowed between 5 and 8 am and 5 and 7 pm, appropriate dress required, quiet and discreet. Failure to obey these rules could result in imprisonment for up to 5 years. In the 1920s, the magnificent Art Deco Copacabana Palace Hotel was constructed, attracting more foreigners visited who ignored the prudish laws and demonstrated the fine art of ‘sun worship’!
Like Ipanema/Leblon beach, which is essential one long crescent of golden sand, Copacabana is joined with Leme beach and at 8 kilometres (about 6.5 miles) a longer stretch of powder-fine sand in a magnificent arch. (Neither of the names of Leblon or Leme have the romantic intonations of Ipanema or Copacabana.) There are canopied-huts renting sun-loungers, chairs and beach umbrellas about every 50 meters or so. The beach is backed by a broad four-lane boulevard with hotels and apartment tower blocks. With a few exceptions, the prime one being the Copacabana Palace Hotel, their architecture is uninspiring, drab and dull. They are nearly colourless buildings, and even the balconies of the apartment blocks offer no respite in terms of flowers or plants. The avenue is lined on either side by wave-patterned mosaic pavement - there are mosaic pavements of varying designs and pattern throughout Rio – and has beer-and-juice kiosks along its entire length.
We stopped at a tourist information booth to inquire about the cost of renting chairs and umbrellas and safety on the beach. The round kiosk contained half a dozen agents, most talking among themselves. We caught the attention of one of them who, when we asked our question about safety, advised us to go to Ipanema beach instead! (We ignored this advice.) She told us a chair would cost about 5 to 10 Reais each. We walked along the promenade and selected a prospective stand offering sun-loungers (for Joan), a sit-up chair (for Greg) and umbrellas (also for Greg). As soon as we walked onto the sand and headed toward the water we were approached by staff from nearby stands trying to win our custom. The attendant quoted us a price of 60 Reais for two chairs or 75 Reais for two chairs and one umbrellas by drawing the number in the sand. With our knowledge from the information office, and our experience of ‘price-bargaining’, well-honed during regular visits to Morocco, we negotiated the price to an acceptable 30 Reais for one sun-lounger, one sit-up chair and one umbrella.
We settled into our spot in the hazy sun. Waves crashed against the shore. Many people stood up in the water, up to knees or waists. There we neither swimmers nor surfboarders. There was a security booth about 50 metres away, directly opposite the Copacabana Palace Hotel, and two dune buggies patrolled continuously. Joan settled in for some serious sun-bathing. I cracked open the one ‘real book’ I had brought with me, a Brazilian novel. The rest of our reading material is now digital, which means one less suitcase to transport. Immediately I was distracted by the nearly constant stream of beach-hawkers. I was so fascinated and intrigued by these wandering salesman that I started writing making a list of the various products there were offering: brightly coloured shawls and skirts, tattoos, water, soft drinks and beer, bird call whistles, caps and hat, bracelets and necklaces, plastic balls and other beach toys, ice cream, bathing suits, empanadas, t-shirts, biscuits and potato crisps (chips), hand-woven hammocks, cashews, Christ statues, sunglasses and sunscreen, selfie-sticks, tours, stuffed animals, and skewered prawns with soy sauce!
Three very fat guys purchased one of the plastic beach soccer balls and spent the next hour taking turns kicking it into the sea and waiting for the surf to float it back onto the land, hands either side of very wide hips or clasping cans of Brazilian lager.
The beach itself was very clean, with very little litter and no cigarette butts. In fact, we have noticed very few Brazilians smoke. Recyclers patrol the beach, collecting up the beer and soda cans.
We spent a very enjoyable and relaxing and entertaining afternoon on Copacabana beach.
About 6pm we vacated the beach and had a very cold and refreshing beer at a sidewalk kiosk. The neighbourhood of Copacabana is on a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and Rodrigo dei Freitas lagoon and consists of, in addition to the seafront boulevard, three parallel commercial and residential streets. My research indicated a music store on one of these streets and we walked in that direction. I had only begun my browsing when in walked an Irish musician with whom we were slightly acquainted. We decamped to a nearby bar for a drink and a chat. He had packed up his life in Ireland and permanently moved to Rio 5 years ago. He seemed completely assimilated into Brazilian life. He speaks fluent Portuguese, has a Brazilian partner, and performs full-time as a musician. He offered some tips on good music stores and jazz clubs and told us that he is playing in the TribOz jazz club on Friday night.
Thursday, 10 December
We visited the Sugarloaf Mountain, a shear and jutting peak of granite rising nearly 400 metres (about 1300 feet) located at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. Its name in Portuguese, Pao de Acucar, was coined in the 16
th century and refers to its resemblance to the traditional conical shape of a concentrated refine loaf sugar used in transporting the product to Europe. Rio de Janeiro is a city of magnificent and breath-taking views, and from its summit the panoramic views justify and warrant these descriptive adjectives: it is truly magnificent and breath-taking. We took the glass-walled cable cars, one from ground level to Morro de Urca, a smaller mountain of rock with a flat summit, and then a second cable car between the two peaks. The original cable car line was building in 1912, rebuilt in 1972 and then again in 2008. This is one of the top visitor attractions in Rio, and is organized to cater to hundreds of visitors during its peak season. Travelling off-peak, however, we had no waiting time, walking directly up to the ticket counter, purchasing our tickets and reaching the first peak within a few minutes of arriving by the local 107 bus. We spent a couple hours taking in the views of Copacabana Beach, Christ on Corcovado Mountain, the 10 kilometre bridge across the bay to Niteroi, Centro, our local neighbourhood of Gloria and Botafogo, Catete and Flamengo. We wandered around both peaks and took many photographs.
On the narrow wedge of land between the water and the two mountains is the neighbourhood of Urca. It was the site where the Portuguese first settled when arriving in Rio. It is a wealthy residential neighbourhood with many colonial houses lining its three residential streets. We walked the length of one of these pleasant and unspoiled streets, the back along the waterfront.
Joan had researched the restaurant options and after inspecting each of them she chose Julius Brasserie, where we had a very fine meal. This restaurant was created by a Dutch economist and a Brazilian chef. The room is small but not cramped, charming, thirty covers only, and has a nice view of the waterfront harbour and small beach (when a delivery truck is not parked out front!). The cuisine is quite creative and sophisticated. Joan’s local fish dish had a hint of Moroccan flavouring and sat on a bed of fragrant and flavourful rice. My tenderloin was very tender indeed and the Peruvian parsnip also full of flavour. The wine list was international; no Brazilian wines were offered. Joan had a glass of French wine (the only wine offered by the glass) and I had a Brazilian lager. We shared a Ducth apple pie that reeked of cinnamon (as we like it!). With two espressos, our bill came to 145 Reais including tip (about 37 Euro / 45 USD).
The Sala Cecilia Meireles is a concert hall that is a converted early 20
th century hotel and named after the Brazilian writer who is generally considered one of the great female poets in the Portuguese language. The venue was hosting a Celebration of the 100
th Birthday of Frank Sinatra, featuring some of Brazil’s best jazz musicians. (Gilson Peranzzetta, piano, arranger and director; Zeca Assumpcao, double bass; Ricardo Costa, drums; Jose Arimatea and Diogo Gomes, trumpet and flugelhorn; Idriss Boudrioua, alto sax; Marco Tulio, tenor sax; Jhonson de Almeida, trombone; Joao Senise, vocals. Special guests: Mauro Senise, alto sax and flutes; Aurea Martins, vocals).
The venue reminded us of the National Concert Hall in Dublin, but in miniature. And the clientele was decidedly similar, made up predominantly of the very elderly dressed in their finery!
The program consisted entirely of songs Frank Sinatra had made famous during his illustrious career, all his ‘greatest hits’, including Strangers in the Night, My Way, The Lady is a Tramp, Night and Day, I’ve Got You Under My Skin, New York New York ... We found the singer Joao Senise, however, to lack any stage presence or charisma; his voice was mostly flat and uninteresting. He sang the 15 wonderful love songs without any passion or sense of enthusiasm. The musical arrangements flowed easily, and the musicians were competent if a bit restrained, allowed only short solo segments. The guest sax player, Mauro Senise (father of the singer) achieved a piercing sound on his alto and a flowing smooth sound from two flutes. The pianist and the two trumpet players also impressed.
Friday, 11 December
We visited the newly-opened Museum of Art in Rio. Located in the port and docklands area of Rio, Porto Maravilha, the museum was inaugurated in 2013. It consists of two buildings connected by a ‘fluid catwalk’, one ultra modern and the other a former colonial palace building. The building won the world’s most prestigious Architecture A+ Award in the museum category. It is part of a massive and controversial revitalization project of the entire docklands area. It is seeking to reintegrate the run-down area of the Port Region, over 1200 acres, back into the city of Rio de Janeiro. Another new museum, called the Museum of the Future, a purpose built building designed by Calatrave, is being completed on a dock nearby and scheduled to open next week. The upcoming Olympic Games are the impetus for much of this city-transforming development work.
The large exhibition rooms in the Museum of Art in Rio display temporary exhibitions. The top floor housed a display of 18
th century items including much religious iconography. There were two photography exhibitions, one a survey of work by Austrian photographer of Jewish descent Kurt Klagsbrunn who escaped Nazism, fleeing to Brazil in 1938. His images document the urban, social and political changes in Brazil from 1940 to 1960. The other photography exhibition was a retrospective of nearly 60 years of Brazilian photo-journalism of Evandro Teixeira. Both of the photography exhibitions of mostly black-and-white photographs caught and held our attention . The last exhibition was by a artist called Fernando Lindote entitled ‘ Messing with Parrot’. The image of the parrot is a symbol for the average Brazilian. This exhibition was very bright and colourful and amusing.
We viewed the spectacular blazing-white Calatrava building from the roof terrace of the museum and then again from the Olympic City courtyard. We met a very friendly tourist information attendant who complained about the amount of money being spent on museums in the run-up to the Olympics when more schools and hospitals were urgently required. This seems to a universal complaint.
We had great burgers at Beco do Hamburguer for our lunch! This compact burger joint was packed and selling burgers as fast as they could grill and bag them. Photos of old-time Yankee burger joints adorned the walls.
In the evening we went to the local jazz club, TribOz, where Irish flautist Red Sullivan (formerly known to us in Dublin as Colm O’Sullivan) was leading a trio. With Nelson Faria on acoustic guitar and Rodrigo Villa on contrabass, they played two long sets and a third mini-set (a kind of long one song encore) consisting of Bossa Nova and American Songbook standards. An American pianist, Cliff Korman, sat in on the second and third set. TribOz is a wonderful room in which to hear live music. Its Australian owner is passionate and fussy about this space he has created to showcase local jazz. It is also very friendly and inviting space. The owner’s wife was amazed that we knew ‘Red’ in Dublin. She introduced us to two young Brazilian women seated next to us and we chatted with them before the music started, and later brought down an Irish meteorologist working in Brazil and his visiting musician son to meet us during a set break. By the end of the evening the two Brazilians were offering us tips on other places in which to hear live music; one was especially keen we visit Godofredo in Botafogo to hear some real Bossa Nova!
TribOz Entrance fee: 30 Reais each (about 7.50 Euro/9 USD). Three beers, three glasses of wine, a delicious chicken wrap and a plate of Oz fries which were sprinkled with herbs and melted parmesan cheese came to 138 Reais including tip.
Saturday, 12 December
We rode the Sanata Teresa Tram on its short upward journey from the Carioca station behind the ‘bee-hive’ cathedral in Centro, over the 45-metre (148 feet) high aqueduct, to the Largo do Curvelo station, a distance of about 1.1 km (about 1.7 miles). The tram opened originally in 1877, connecting the city centre with a primarily residential neighbourhood, and is one of the oldest street railways in the world. It has been electrically powered since 1896. It is a ‘heritage tramway’ and was designated a national historic monument in 1988. It has run continually since its opening, with a pause from 2011 until reopening in July 2015 with new carriages that are replicas of the previous vintage fleet. It rattled and lurched up the hill and around sharp bends and deposited us a short walk from the village centre.
Sunday, 13 December
We started our day at the Gloria Market where we again wandered through the stalls of brightly-coloured and wonderfully-packaged fruits and vegetables. We had a Brazilian tapioca for lunch. This was our first experience of this traditional Brazilian street food. The food stall contains many workers, including one woman managing about a dozen frying pans at the back. The cash desk in front had a plastic menu hanging from a nail. We pointed to an ingredient we didn’t know and asked for a translation. The cashier reached for the menu, pulled it off the nail and turned it over: the menu was fully translated into English! I ordered a tapioca with a local sausage and cheese and Joan ordered one with lightly-spiced shredded chicken, cheese, tomato and basil. We shared a local soft drink called Gutarti which is derived from one of the local fruits (it was so laden with sugar that we couldn’t drink it). We were given small plastic disks with our order printed on them and joined the line that stretched around to the back of the food stall. As we neared the chef we presented our disks to a colleague and collected our tapiocas in a short few minutes. The tapiocas were cooked like omelettes, with the pure white powder thrown into a dry skillet and the topping tossed on top and then sprinkled with a thin layer of the flour. They grill for a few minutes, flipped and grilled for a few seconds only, and then presented folded like a calzone wrapped in plastic and paper and eaten by hand. The stall offered a small seating area of a couple tables and a bunch of plastic stools; we sat and ate our lunch with the locals (there were no other gringos around that we could spot).
We took the metro to the Feria Hippie Market in Ipanema. Started nearly 50 years ago by a few of the local hippies selling twisted string necklaces and the like, it now covers the entire large square and contains predominantly hand-crafted items and art works. There are over 700 stalls offering all manner of crafts, jewellery, leather works and clothing. There was one stall selling small statues of scenes of Brazilian life set inside a seashell that were quite remarkable. There were colourful shawls and hand-painted shirts. There was no evidence of mass-produced imported-from-China ‘I Love Rio’-type offers. Even the tourist-oriented stalls were selling statues of the Christ statue and other Rio that looked original and unique to their stall. One man, who was offering magnets and bookmarks with original paintings of Brazilian musicians and scenes, played an alto sax between serving customers. We wandered the aisles of stalls. Joan inspected the leather handbags and silver necklace chains. There was a dry fountain at the centre of the park, around which were displayed original paintings by about thirty artists, all of which were of a high standard. We spent about 90 minutes browsing and taking photographs and listening to a singer and an alto sax-man play karaoke-like versions of Bossa Nova standards.
We spent a few hours of the afternoon sun-bathing and people-watching on Ipanema beach.
In the evening we went to the cultural centre in Botagogo to hear the Ricardo Herz tio with Toninho Ferragutti. (Ricardo Herz, violin; Pedro Ito, drums and percussion; Michi Ruzitschka, 7string Violao (guitar); Tonniho Ferragutti, accordion.) This was a free concert in a very comfortable auditorium with wide leather chairs and an enthusiastic and friendly audience. As soon as we sat down a lady in the row in front of us turned and asked us where we were from. Her name was Lila and one of her grandfathers was from Dublin. She asked us how we had heard of this concert and I told her the Veja Rio magazine, and she exclaimed ‘so you are here with the locals tonight!’ We chatted a bit before the concert, and then more afterwards during which she gave us some wonderful ideas and tips about travelling in the north of the country. The music performed was mostly from northern Brazil and was a fusion of the local folk music, Portuguese music with other European influences including Celtic music. The violin player sounded like he would feel quite comfortable sitting in in a session in Castlebar, and the guitar player even looked Irish! There was a considerable amount of jazz-like improvisation in their playing. A very enjoyable gig, it was obvious the musicians were thoroughly enjoying performing. Afterwards, they hung around in the lobby chatting with friends and fans and signing cds.
We stopped for an excellent pizza on the way back to the metro at a place that had three in the kitchen, three on phones and cash desk, and four or five motorcycle delivery men continually arriving, collected boxes of takeaway and departing. The pizza we shared was excellent: a simple pepperoni pizza with a base lightly seasoned with herbs. (The Brazilians know and love good food. You can barely walk one hundred meters without passing a place offering something to eat!)
We returned to Gloria by metro, discussing our day and determining that it was ‘a great day’, then the mini-bus up the hill to our apartment just as thunder roared and lightning flickered and the rain came down!
Monday, 14 December
The statue of Christ the Redeemer is located at the top of Corcovado Mountain. At 30 meters in height (about 100 feet) it is one of the tallest statues in the world. It spans 28 meters from fingertip to fingertip. A small chapel is housed in its base. It was designed by Paul Landowski, a French Art Deco sculptor (also responsible for the statue of St. Genevieve in Paris), based on artwork by Brazilian artist Carols Oswald, and a local engineer, Heitor da Silva Costa, supervised its construction. The statue is built with reinforced concrete, with its external surface in soapstone because of its resistance to wear over time and its malleability. The foundation stone was laid in 1922 and it was inaugureated in October, 1931. In 2007 it was voted one the ‘New Seven Wonders of the World’ in a global internet poll and claims to be one of the ‘world’s greatest attractions.’
Located atop Corcovado Mountain, it is certainly a very impressive statue, with amazing views of the city and bay and vast forest stretching inland. We caught a local bus to Cosme Vehlo, and then the electric tram for a twenty minute journey into the Tijuca Forest National Park to the summit. We spent about ninety minutes walking around the base and gazing out at the view while occasionally glancing up at the hovering figure with outstretched arms (along with a few hundred other visitors). A very clear and sunny day, the views were spectacular (see photos provided).
Tuesday, 15 December
Rio de Janeiro (River of January) is a city much like New York City. The city itself has a population of over 6.5 millions people. Like NYC, however, Rio extends into a number of distinct municipalities or boroughs, and it has a total population of over 15 million people. The Centro metropolitan area is much like Manhattan island with commercial skyscrapers, streets clogged with buses and taxis, business people with purposeful strides, retail outlets and shoppers. The southern residential areas of Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon are very much like Brooklyn without beaches. The streets are tree-lined, the traffic less congested, the shops more boutique-like. We live in Gloria, which, with the adjacent neighbourhoods of Lapa and Catete is the equivalent of the Lower East Side. It is grungy and full of character (some of whom you wouldn’t like to meet in a dark alley!). Tuesday we boarded a passenger commuter ferry for a twenty minute journey across Guanabara Bay to Niteroi, the Staten Island of Rio. Cariocans claim ‘the best thing about Niteroi is the view across the bay to Rio!’
And, like many locations in Rio, the view is indeed fantastic! A tourist information point outside the ferry terminal was our first stop, where we learned that the Museum of Contemporary Art, the city’s landmark building, designed by the famous Brazilian modernist architect Oscar Niemeyer, and the primary purpose of our visit, was closed for renovation. Several other Niemeyer-designed buildings, including the Popular Theatre whose shape echoes the mountain backdrop of Rio, are located near the ferry terminal, and we were directed there where we received a short private guided tour. We then walked along the waterfront for 3 kilometres in 40 degree Centigrade heat, admiring the views and sweltering in the sun. The museum building itself is quite spectacular! (We later heard from Maria and a friend of hers that the building itself was the main feature and the exhibitions inside less interesting. That assessment was similar to our experience of the Guggenheim museum in Bilboa.)
We paused at a comida for lunch and ice cold beer, then walked back a shorter, more direct route to the ferry terminal to take a forty-minute bus journey to the far side of the island to Itacoatiara Beach. An Atlantic Ocean beach, it is tucked between two small rock mountains. A strong breeze blew in from the Ocean. The beach was crowded with young kids arriving after school, groups of friends and couples. We spent a couple hours baking in the strong sunshine, before heading back to mainland Rio de Janeiro, a bus journey of 100 minutes, which took us over the 13 kilometre (about 8.3 miles) bridge. When it was built, in 1974, it was the world’s second longest bridge (only the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway was longer). We saw much of the island of Niteroi on our winding bus journey back across the island. It was dusk as we crossed the bridge, and the traffic into Rio flowed freely while the commuter traffic returning to Niteroi was very slow moving. We disembarked in Centro and walked back to our apartment.
Wednesday, 16 December – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Messages day: We visited a CVC Travel agent to inquire about package holidays trips/tours within Brazil. Then we went to RCS Viagens office to purchase Sambodrome tickets for Carnival (as their website wouldn’t allow me to complete the purchase). We exchanged some cash – to local currency is falling against the Euro and Dollar as Brazil’s economy worsens and plight of its beleaguered President Dilma continues to deteriorate. We had lunch at Comida Degustto (vegetarian again for me). We spent the rest of the day meandering around Centro. When we got back to the apartment I became aware that the growing pain in my right toe was not from the heat and constant walking but from an attack of Gout: too much red meat at comidas, beer with meals, desserts three times a day! Serves me right!
P.S. The sunshine has arrived ‘big time’. Each day the temperature hovers between 30 and 35 Celsius (86 – 95 Farenheit). One day was 42 (107.6) – that was a hot one!
Thursday, 17 December – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
We went Copacabana but not to the beach. The Gout inflammation and pain made walking difficult. We bumped into Christine, a girl we had met at TribOz, on a street corner. We had a vegetarian lunch at Comida. We walked-about in search of health food stores for apple city vinegar and other anti-gouties! We found the apple city vinegar and I immediately started treatment. I also at a banana (for potassium, why else eat a banana!?). I visited the CD store and purchased a couple more Brazilian jazz/bossa cds to add to my slow-growing collection.
In the evening I went to TribOz and bumped into Floriana, the other young woman we had previously met there, and shared her table. Live jazz: EuroRio Quartet led by drummer, Zaza Desidero. Danilo Silva, alto sax; Eduardo Farias, piano; Adalberto Miranda, bass. Their first set consisted entirely of original music. Silva’s alto was a little sharp and piercing for my taste. For the second set, the quartet was joined by Idriss Boudrioua on alto sax; aFrench man living in Brazil more than 30 years. He had a fuller, warmer sound. They played standards ‘All the Things You Are’ and ‘Body and Soul’ and a couple others. The pianist, Farias, was very impressive. The encore set was jam session consisting of one long song with a second pianist sitting it and Red Sullivan on flute.
Friday, 18 December – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
We visited the Catete Palace which is now the Museum of the Republic. It is a beautiful urban mansion with a wonderful garden space. It was constructed between 1858 and 1867 and was the residence of family of the Portuguese-born Brazilian coffee producer, Baron of Nova Fribugo, António Clemente Pinto. From 1894 until 1960 it was Brazil’s Presidential Palace, when the capital and the Federal District were transferred to Brasilia. Various historical events happened in the palace halls, including the signing of the declaration of war against the German Empire in 1917 and against the Axis armies in 1942, and the death of two presidents: Afonso Pena in 1909 and Getuilio Vargas who committed suicide by shooting himself in the heart of this third floor bedroom in 1954.
We spent about ninety minutes touring the magnificent rooms with their heavy, dark wood interiors and inlaid flooring, large mirrors and chandeliers, and then also strolled in the garden, around the pond, pausing briefly for coffee and even more briefly to peek into a gallery where an exhibition titled: Fliudostatica’, a selection of ceramic pots by Ursula Tautz were placed on hanging shelves and illuminated to intriguing effect.
From the palace we crossed the wide boulevard to Flamengo Beach of Guanabara Bay. The beachfront is separated from the roadway by a park of nearly 300 acres of land reclaimed from the bay which was completed in 1965. While the water in Guanabara Bay is polluted by waste and effluent (a foul smelling river flows into it at its southern end), the fine-sand beach was crowded with local people with many children playing in the water. There was a visible security presence on the beach, but not as numerous as at Ipanema and Copacabana (probably because fewer ‘gringos’ come here). We strolled along its length and then turned toward Catete and walked slowly back to Gloria.
Saturday, 19 December – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
World-renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava’s science museum, the Museum of Tomorrow, opened to the public today. With a skeletal roof structure, the museum offers 5,000 square metres (53,819 square feet) of exhibition space surrounded by a 7,600-square-metre (81,805 square feet) plaza on Guanabara Bay. We arrived at the plaza about noontime to find a winding line to the entrance doors that contained thousands of people. We walked around the building and admired its unusual structure (and took loads of photos), and decided to return another day to view its exhibitions. After all, it is the museum of tomorrow!
We had a very good lunch at Brasserie Rosario, a French bistro-style restaurant recommended to us by Floriana. Joan had a delicious seafood cassoulet and I had a roast beef sandwich. While dining there we met a young French couple who were working and living in Sao Paolo and had come to Rio de Janeiro for the weekend. Whenever they get homesick for France they go to this restaurant. They had been living in Brazil for one year and gave us some tips and advice about potential places to visit during our stay. He even offered his wife’s services as a tour guide should we decided to visit Sao Paolo!
After lunch, we went to the Arlequim bookstore which was offering a live jazz gig at 3pm. We arrived about quarter to three only to learn that it had already sold out. We listened to the sound check and then walked back to the plaza of the Museum of Tomorrow. The line for entry had not shortened; if anything it had grown longer. We sat in the plaza and watched a troupe of about a dozen actors and singers on stilts recreate the story Saint Sebastian, accompanied by about another dozen musicians. We watched the setting sun spotlight the Calatrava skeleton and wondered with what kind of witty name Dubliners would christen it!
Ilha Grande, Brazil
Monday, 21 December to Wednesday, 23 December – Ilha Grande, Brazil
On Monday we boarded a coach for a four hour journey south along a mostly coastal route to Angra Dos Reis (King’s Cove) and then boarded a ferry for a ninety minute crossing to Ilha Grande (Big Island), where we spent three days doing ‘our beach thing’ ie Joan baking in the heat and direct sunshine and Greg cowering in the shade with a book!
Ilha Grande recently received the title of ‘Second Wonder of the State of Rio de Janeiro’. It has a very rich history. Since the island is strategically located on the sea route, it was colonized by the Spanish, French, Dutch and Portuguese at various points in time. Once a hideout for pirates who made their money by looting European trading ships, the island remains covered with a thick tropical canopy forest and is fringed by beautiful beaches. The island was also a hub for the slave trade in Brazil. After Brazil banned slave trading in 1831, the island became a centre for smuggling. Still later, things got even worse. With immigrants pouring in from Europe in the late 19th century, the Brazilian government began to detour ships suspected of harbouring cholera to Ilha Grande. Sick passengers would be quarantined -- and often left to die -- in stifling island hospitals. For nearly one hundred years it housed a prison in which some of Brazil’s most notorious criminals were housed, and was known as ‘Brazil’s Alcratraz’. Drug lords, street thugs and criminal masterminds were crammed into maximum-security cells with ocean views.
The prison was closed down in 1994, and, previously spared from development, eco-tourism has now flourished. Ilha Grande is largest island in an archipelago of 187 islands and islets. There are over 1000 unspoiled and undeveloped beaches within the archipelago (106 on Ihla Grande), most accessible only by boat. The island contains one the best-preserved sections of Atlantic rain forest on the Brazlian coast. A network of foot trails links secluded coves with mountain peaks and sparkling lagoons. All development, such as it is, is restrained to the small town of Abraao. There are no vehicles on the island and no paved roads (with the exception of one dune buggy for the forest service and a JCB, and perhaps a fire truck but we did not see that). Only one road is cobbled, the others are all hard-packed dirt.
Abraao, the only town on the island, was once a fishing village. Today, the fishermen are fewer and their boats have become water taxis and ferry shuttles. There are dozens of waterside restaurants (many of which feature a singer-guitarist during meal times) and even more small guesthouses called ‘pousadas’. There are numerous dive sites around the island and many shop fronts offering diving equipment and transportation to them, in addition to day-long round the island tours that stop at a few of the more isolated beaches. Less than five hundred meters, in either direction, from the small main square, the village’s few streets abruptly give way to sandy trails and hard-packed trekking trails into the jungle.
The whole island is a nature preserve and in 2011 registered as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We spent the first morning wandering around the village and then the afternoon walked to Praia Preta (Black Beach), passing the ruins of the prison on the way. The sand was a soft mixture of a black volcanic base covered with the soft brown washed up from the ocean. The next morning we boarded a ferry to Lopes Mendes Beach, a beach that was recently voted one of the top 10 most beautiful beaches in the world by Vogue Magazine. Both beaches were quite spectacular and absolutely beautiful (our photos do not do them justice).
A peaceful and relaxing island, Ilha Grande calls itself a ‘paradise’ (who are we to disagree!). With its slow and relaxed pace, its beauteous nature and quaint restaurants, it reminded us of some of the Caribbean islands we have visited in past years flavoured with a spice of the Galapagos Islands we visited in 2013.
Paraty, Brazil
Christmas & Stephen’s (Boxing) Day, 2015 – Paraty, Brazil
We spent Christmas and Stephen’s (Boxing) Day in Paraty, a coastal, historic small town further south from Rio de Janeiro on Brazil’s Costa Verde. It boasts an incredibly well-preserved Portuguese colonial centre with stone-cobbled streets, called “
pé de moleque” (“boy´s foot”) paving, and 17th- and 18th-century buildings dating to its time as a port during the Brazilian Gold Rush. Its historic centre was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1958. It is cute, quaint, pretty, charming. We loved stumbling along the stone streets of its centre, browsing in the art galleries and craft stores and inspecting restaurant menus. (The stones for the streets were imported from Portugal and laid by slaves.) Nearly equidistant from Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paolo, it is a very popular destination for middle class Brazilians, and subsequently there were many interesting-looking restaurants to choose from (too many for such a short visit!). Brightly painted fishing boats were tied up to the pier. Behind the town rose the deep green of the rain-forested mountains.
Like all Brazilian colonial towns, Paraty’s churches were built according to status and race. There are four churches in the town, one for ‘free coloured men, one for blacks and two for whites. The Santa Rita church, built in 1722 for ‘free coloured men’ is in an elegant Brazilian baroque style and faces the bay and port.
Established in the 1600s, Paraty became a busy trading port because of its strategic location and was the second most important port in Brazil by the early 1800s. Gold and coffee were exported while slaves, spices and luxury goods were imported. A railroad connecting Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro in 1870 affected the port. And the port declined further with the abolition of slavery in 1880, which resulted in an exodus of over 16,000 persons by 1891. At the turn of the century, the population consisted of 600 persons, mostly elderly with a few women and children.
While roads were being built in the rest of the country, the access to Paraty was done in the same old way as during the Portuguese occupation: by boat, coming from Angra dos Reis; or, from 1950 on, through a dirt road, coming down the mountain from Cunha, a road which could be used only during dry weather, which was partly the old route for transporting gold and coffee. This involuntary isolation was, however, what preserved the urban structure of the city with its immaculately preserved and distinguished Portuguese colonial buildings. Bright white-washed walls with colourful shutters and window-frames, these buildings were formerly residences and are now pousadas (small hotels), restaurants, art galleries and craft and gift shops.
We were quite charmed by this city. We had a couple excellent meals. Many of the restaurants feature guitarists/singers covering bossa nova classics. It is a place to which we would happily return!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.295s; Tpl: 0.023s; cc: 11; qc: 47; dbt: 0.0752s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
