I left Iguazu Falls in the morning (not having paid any excess baggage taxes, by the way) and arrived in Rio mid-day. By the time I arrived at the hostel, Sheberon (Sweden) was already there. When I had planned to go to Rio, I was expecting to be there by myself, but fortunately, Sheberon was traveling on her own, too, and it just so happened that our Rio trips overlapped, so we arranged to stay in the same place. So in the afternoon we set out to explore. We got lunch at a pizzeria in Copacabana by the beach and then went for a stroll along the beach, before hopping the bus to go see Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf . We had heard that the best time to go was at sunset, so we went with enough time to get there by then. From the top of the mountain, we had spectacular views of Corcovado, also known as the Christ the Redeemer statue, who seemed to be just peeking out of the clouds. Afterwards, we took the cablecars back down (the same way we got up the mountain -- you actually need to take two sets of cable cars up; one to Morro da Urca, and then another one to Sugarloaf), and then found our way back to our hostel. We hung out in the neighborhood, getting some dinner and some açaí and then we hung out with some people in the hostel, where there seemed to be a large concentration of Israelis. We talked to these two girls in particular who were traveling for several months after having gotten out of the Israeli army last year, I think it was.
Thursday, Sheberon and I had a full day ahead of us. We had seen a couple of advertisements in the hostel for some interesting things to do in the city. The first activity sent a car to pick us up at 10am. We had about a 25-minute car ride to Pepino Beach, where we had to sign a couple of things, and from there we got into another car, where we drove up into the Floresta da Tijuca, or the Tijuca Forest. We stopped right by Pedra Bonita, where we got out with our bottles of water in this lush national park. There were lots of people gathered atop this big rock, but we ended up hanging out there for the next two hours or so. You see, the wind wasn´t right, and when the wind isn´t right, and even our guides say, ´´I´m scared to go,´´ you do *not* strap on the harnesses and go flying into mid air. And for this reason, we waited until the wind *was* right. And when it was right, Marcos, my co-pilot, harnessed me up, tied me to the hang-glider, and told me, ´´Now, when I say go, you just run. Just keep running. You stop running, and we crash!´´ And those were my instructions. We had a couple of practice runs beforehand, and then since the wind wasn´t right, there was more waiting time. And then when it was our time to go, since we had been waiting for awhile, I asked him if we could do one more practice run, and he said there was no more time to practice. We just had to go. (There was a line of people behind us waiting to go.) So, we got ready to go. He said, ´´Go!´´ (I had asked him to give me instructions in Portuguese, as his Portuguese was easier to understand than his English -- and there was no room for miscommunication!), and we went running, running, running down this platform (maybe 20 feet or so) until the platform stopped and we were hang-gliding -- flying, really, over the city down below known to all as Rio de Janeiro. What a *fun* seven minutes those were, even though it felt like much longer! We went over a favela, over buildings, over the water, and then doubled back and ended up landing on Pepino Beach, right where we started.
We then got the car back to the hostel, where we had five minutes or so before our next car picked us up for a tour of two favelas: Vila Canoas, and Rocinha. Vila Canoas is a smaller favela, and here we visited an after-school program that is partially funded by the tour we went on. There are 63 children enrolled, and they had a couple of classrooms, games, etc. After we visited the school, we walked through some of the favela streets, which were very small, and though we didn´t go into any homes, since the streets had a more alley-way feel to them you could kind of get a glimpse into people´s lives without walking through their actual apartments. We then continued on our way to Rocinha , the largest favela in Brazil. We walked through one of their main marketplaces, stopped at place where local artists were selling their works, etc. The whole tour lasted about 3 hours, and it was definitely worth it. When I was in Salvador, I had had discussions with people on several occasions about visiting favelas in Rio and doing a tour to see what they´re like, and people always seemed to have mixed feelings. Well, wait -- let me rephrase. People wouldn´t have mixed feelings. Different people would think differently. Some people had the attitude of, ´´the only reason for going would be to know how much better your life is and how awful their lives are.´´ Others thought, ´´what´s the point? You know how it is. You´ve seen ´City of God [a movie based on a Rio de Janeiro favela of the same name].´´´ Well, yes, I have seen the movie, but how many times have people told you that the media doesn´t accurately portray real life? Am I actually to believe that every single favela is the same? Every person is a drug dealer, every person owns a gun, it is a miserable existence, etc. etc. etc.? Confucius once said, ´´I hear and I forget. I see and I remember. I do and I understand.´´ While I am not a philosophy buff or anything like that, I am a firm believer in having to see things in order to believe. You never know unless you try. Now, I did not bring a camera on this tour -- I did not snap pictures of the locals and put a lens in their faces, even though some locals might not have minded. Sometimes the eye is enough to capture the image of a place. Of course, having pictures of the tour would be a great reminder of where I was, but had I brought my camera for that reason, those motivations would have been purely selfish. Impressions of people in the favelas, though? Kids were laughing, the marketplaces were running, Rocinha operated like a small city (it had buses and everything), and honestly, had I not known it was a favela, I just might have wandered into there on my own. Just because the economic situation isn´t the same as the rest of the country (where, remember, it´s mostly extremes anyway -- the rich seem richer and the poor seem poorer), doesn´t mean that everyone mopes around all day, every day and doesn´t appreciate what they do have. Now, tell this to the British lady on my tour who wore her British-brimmed hat (lined with her straight-out-of-a-movie-British accent, of course) and her best jewelry ...what a riot she was! She was a character everyone would have gotten a laugh at -- both people from inside the favelas as well as from outside. Some things are just universal.
Friday morning, I went to the beach with Sheberon, and then I moved out of my hostel because my cousin flew in from New York to come meet up with me in Brazil for just over a week. So I went to meet up and move in with Gail (USA) in Leme, at the end of Copacabana beach. After meeting up with her, we went out for a stroll along the beach and walked from Leme to Copacabana, where we picked up Sheberon and went to get lunch. Later, Gail and I continued walking along the beach and walked all the way to Ipanema, people-watching all the while. For awhile, we couldn´t figure out while everyone was suddenly wearing zungas (speedos) and looked all glam, and then the lightbulb went off: we had stumbled into the gay beach! Since that wasn`t our final destination, though (well, we really didn`t have one), we continued along our way. We ended up going to a bar called Garota de Ipanema, the bar that was made famous by the song of the same name (``The Girl from Ipanema´´), because the song was written there. Afterwards, we walked around Ipanema for a bit, and then later on, we met up with Lisa and Sheberon. We returned to Lapa, but to a different hotspot, this time where there was more traditional dancing. This place, called Democráticos, was straight out of a movie from several decades ago. It felt like we were in a ballroom, and though there was samba and forró dancing just like the previous night, you had to know the steps (and if you didn´t, there were people to teach you). Contrary to the previous night, this spot was absent from tourist radar, so it really felt like an undiscovered hole-in-the-wall place...that is, if holes in the wall have super high ceilings and people who *know* how do dance.
When you get home at 4:30am, it´s a good thing not to have a strict schedule to follow, so the following day, when it was too cloudy to go visit Jesus on the mountain (Corcovado), Gail and I met up with Sheberon and Lisa to go for a bike ride. We went to Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas , where we rented bikes and went on an 8km path around the lagoon. Sheberon and I even tested out corn on a stick before the bike ride, and that was mm-mm good! Following the bike ride, we all went to the botanical gardens, which turned out to be closed, so we hopped the bus to Leblon (Lisa´s neighborhood), where we walked around there for a bit and got dinner, before catching the bus to Ipanema, returning to Garota de Ipanema and then hanging around Ipanema.
Sunday marked Gail´s and my last day in Rio, which meant that was our last chance to see Corcovado. We got up early to meet Sheberon and go, but since there are few buses that run there on Sundays, we got a taxi to take us, and though it was very misty, we made it up there no problem. It ended up being neat to be up there when it was kind of cloudy/misty because Jesus would be fogged in one second and then totally visible the next. Once we left there, we went for a quick drive through Santa Teresa (a neighborhood known for being bohemian, but in our case was just rainy), and then Sheberon and I left to go to the championship soccer game between Botafogo and Flamengo in Maracanã , Rio´s 100,000-person capacity soccer stadium, making it the largest in the world. Botafogo and Flamengo were the two teams in the finals last year, so now it was time for the rematch. Sheberon and I decided to root for Botafogo (the underdogs). We ended up scoring tickets when we got to the stadium, and something interesting about stadium ``seating´´ there is that *no one* sits down. Everyone stands on the seats the entire time. Nor do the ``assigned´´ seats matter. Soccer (``futebol´´) games in Brazil are out-of-this-world. Just the crowd, for starters. We made friends with some people next to us, and one of those guys had a little radio, who was listening to the commentary as the game progressed. Anyway, Botafogo scored the first goal (hooray! our team was winning!), and then in the second half, Flamengo tied it up. In the injury time, however, just a few minutes before the game would go into overtime, Flamengo scored the game-winning goal, making it 2-1 and, thus, a heart-breaker for all Botafogo fans. It was a sad, rainy Sunday, and an unfortunate way to end the Rio portion of my trip. We got the subway back to town, however, and I said goodbye to Sheberon. Then, I met Gail, so we could hustle to the airport, only to find out that our flight to Manaus was going to be delayed by said rain -- delayed by the tears of Botafogo and probably Jesus on the mountain as well (who I´m willing to bet is also a Botafogo fan and, therefore, caused it to rain over Rio).
´til next time,missy
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