South America trip 2018 - Rio de Janeiro
First stop Rio. We were in a nice hotel right across the street from Copacabana beach. Here's a picture from the hotel rooftop.
As you can see, although it was close, it was still a challenge to run across six lanes of traffic to get to the beach! Notice the lines in the sand? They had sprinkler hoses running from the sidewalk to the shoreline, making a path of slightly damp sand that wouldn't burn the bejesus out of your feet if you were walking across barefoot.
We were told to be careful and not to wear any nice jewelry, but I didn't see any problems. I thought the beach was fantastic, very clean and open to everybody, unlike some beaches I've seen where all of the hotels set up reserved areas just for their customers. There were lots of wandering vendors but they weren't too obnoxious if you waved them off.
It was a pleasure to enjoy the sunshine and waves as a respite from Minnesota in November, but one thing’s for sure - I was the palest person on the beach!
The first evening we had a group dinner at a Brazilian steakhouse - one of those places where they just keep bringing out skewers of different grilled meats. I'm going to be a grump and say that it actually wasn't as good as my local Fogo de Chao, but it was still pretty good. And we had our first Caipirinha cocktail of the trip - cachaça liquor, lemon, ice, and sugar. Yum.
The second day started with a trip to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks the city. We boarded a small two car train and commenced a very fast, very steep ascent toward the top of Corcovado mountain (2,300 feet above Rio). The summit was shrouded in clouds when we got off the train.
We then took an elevator and two escalators to get all the way to the top. Coming up on the last escalator I could barely see the outline of the statue, then miraculously a breeze came up and we saw this:
Quickly the clouds cleared even more and large crowds of tourists started to arrive, most of them vying for pictures of themselves in the same pose as the statue (which I found somewhat obnoxious, oh well...).
Initially there were still clouds below us...like we were an island in a sea of clouds or like being in an airplane above the clouds.
But then those clouds cleared as well and we got a 2,300 foot view of Rio:
Our next stop was the Selaron steps - Escadaria Selarón. Jorge Selaron was a poor artist living in the neighborhood of the steps who disliked how dirty and rundown they were, and started a labor of love to cover them in tiles (red, green and blue to represent the Brazilian flag).
Initially he procured the tiles himself, but over time, he started to receive donations of tile from visiting tourists, so in the designs one can see tiles from all over the world in different colors. One of Selarón's recurring themes was the favelas. Favelas are the crowded hillside neighborhoods created by poor people with nowhere to live. They are kind of a no man's land - no zoning, little regulation, lots of flaunting of the rules (e.g. getting electricity by jerryrigging a connection to a city source), some crime and gangs but also a strong sense of community.
His recurring image is of a pregnant woman (sometimes with his own mustached face on top, which is disconcerting to see!). He refused to reveal why, only saying that it was "very personal". Here’s a set of tiles with Selaron himself in the middle:
Sadly, in 2013 Selarón was found dead on the steps, with burn marks on his body. It is a mystery whether he was murdered or took his own life.
We had lunch at a restaurant up in the hills of Rio and got to experience a unique form of local transportation. The hills are arduous to climb by foot so there is a fleet of locals with motorcycles who wait at an appointed spot, and for about $1.50 US you can get a ride up the hill on the back of a motorcycle. It was fun and slightly scary/exhilarating- the guy was zipping around cars, bouncing over cobblestones, and we leaned in and zoomed around corners. And in a few cases, barely chugged around steep corners, lol. I had the feeling that I might have been testing the limits of the weight that a small motorcycle could take up a steep hill.
Safely arrived, we had a traditional lunch of feijoada (black bean stew) with a grilled pork chop. Delicious.
Day three started with a bus ride to a samba school, where we learned all about the Carnaval tradition in Brazil. Did you know that working on the floats, costumes, and dance routines is a year-long process? We walked into a large warehouse where workers were welding huge iron frames that would form the underpinnings of the floats (no pictures allowed! each samba school's floats and costumes for the coming year are top secret). Then we climbed the stairs and got to see some costumes from previous years, and large sewing workshop where people were working on next year's.
Our charming host told us about the history of Carnaval, we viewed a video, had a caipirinha. We got to play dress-up with a large stock of Carnaval costumes!
We thought we were done, but then we were led outside, under a large canopy where drummers and a beautiful dancer were waiting. She led us through same basic samba steps. Almost everyone in the group was a good sport and gamely tried to dance. After about 10 minutes I had increased appreciation for the Carnaval dancers who had to do this for an hour in high heat, wearing heavy costumes.
Then we each got a drum or a tambourine and got a drumming lesson from the drummers. I wish I had pictures of the drummers and dancing but, sometimes it is more important to do the experience than take the picture!
However I did get a picture of the beauty from their crew who came out and danced with us:
We walked up into a hillside neighborhood to have lunch. On the way we passed a group of middle school kids hanging out, and our group stopped for a conversation. A couple of them were eager to practice their English.
Here’s the restaurant owner/chef in traditional dress, telling us about the lunch we were going to be served.
This place specializes in putting together menus with cultural symbolism - but all I remember was her saying that the black eyed peas symbolized eggs in an ovary! At any rate, it was a delicious combo of black eyed peas, shrimp, rice, and a fried thing that was like a hush puppy.
The third activity of the day was to take the cable car to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. It's a two step process where you take one car to an intermediate hill, get off, enjoy the view there, then board a separate cable car to the summit. Beautiful views and a gorgeous day with a breeze to cool us off. Here's a view across the city to the Redeemer statue where we were the day before.
In the upper center of this photo, you can see one of the hillside favelas.
And of course, the lovely beaches:
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