Rio de Janiero - Week 30

5th to 11th April

We arrived in Rio at 9pm after a good flight that actually arrived 1/2 hour early!! The bus was very safe (and airconditioned - hooray!) and took us to within 200m of our hostel, the Mango Tree in Ipanema. We had a double room with aircon which was great, but it cost 35 quid a night, not good. The hostel was very nice though and being in Ipanema, one of the richest areas of Rio, very safe which is important in Rio! We went out for a quick burger (80p and delicious - the first of one a day for James while in Rio!!) and then came home for an early night.

We woke up to beautiful blue skies on Friday so decided we had to go up to Christ the Redeemer, the most famous landmark in Rio on it's highest mountain to get our bearings. We took the train up through the national park that surrounds the mountain right to the top and the views were amazing. Everything we've ever imagined Rio was going to be - we were quite emotional to be there!

With Sugarloaf Mountain in the background

(borrowed from Google as we couldn't afford the helicopter trip!)

Big J.C. and little J.S.

That evening we met an English couple in the hostel, Darien and Jackie, and it was her birthday so we went to a upmarket kilo restaurant for some top scram. A kilo restaurant is a buffet with lots of salads, vegetables dishes, BBQ'd meat, and at this one sushi, where you pay for your meal depending on the weight. They're very common in Brazil and a good way to have a tasty meal with a little bit of salad to pretend you're eating healthily! After that we took a taxi to Lapa where they have lots of samba clubs, with live music going on late into the night. We got into one that seemed popular and busy, got our table, had a few beers and then the girls attempted to go for a dance. They were not reckoning on the Brazil woman though. Space was tight on the little dancefloor and so Katie and Jackie were pretty much elbowed off the after a couple of minutes by Brazilian girls aggressively and jealously defending their territory!! Needless to say the men didn't get involved in petty girl squabbles, as they didn't even get out of their seat to go dancing as their were to many fine looking women to gawp at, a common problem in the genetically blessed Brazil...

So on Saturday, feeling a bit sluggish after the drinking and late night, we decided to walk around the lake behind Ipanema & Copacabana to the botanical gardens, which closed 15 minutes after we arrived there, nice timing. So we made our way back around the lake into Leblon, next to Ipanema and probably the richest area in the whole of Rio. There we saw the rich and priviledged shopping in the huge shopping centre (with well needed aircon) and lots of Range Rovers and BMWs. We found (more food - which is clearly a very important part of our trip!) a little bistro/deli with a delicious make your own salad option. That night we watched the Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw (as we had just read the book) in the hostel and an early night.

Sunday we went to the hippie market in Ipanema. We cannot say what things we brought as some of the items were gifts, but they did have lots of great paintings at reasonable prices. Not a practical purchase though with months of backpacking still to do. Afterwards we thought we should go down to Ipanmea beach with the beautiful people for a bit of sunbathing. With all the chiseled vanity of the local gays and the ridiculous beauty of the Brazilian girls, obviously Katie and I stood out a bit, and it was flipping roasting. So after an hour we slipped away leaving the gays to strut around in their tiny speedos and stubble haired chests, regrowth from a recent waxing session no doubt, to cool off with a beer. Clearly James was completely jealous of the physiques on show!!

That night we went to the Maracana Stadium to watch a football match. The Maracana is the national stadium and used to hold up to 200,000 people e.g. for Pele's last game, but now is 100,000 all seater. We were hoping big things after not being able to get tickets in Buenos Aires for Bocas Juniors. We watched Flamengo Vs. Americanas, but the atmosphere was a bit flat with only around 15,000 people due the the weird set up of the Brazilian football. They have two seasons a year with the winner of the first going into the final at the end of the second to play the winner of the second season, or something like that with some other peculiarities. Flamengo had already won the first season and so were barely trying this second season game we were watching, and so very few fans turned up. Probably the best bit of the game was halftime when this old boy comes out and does keepie-uppies for the whole 10 mins without letting the ball drop once. He's about 70 apparently and has been doing his halftime trick for over 20 years!Never mind the atmosphere, it was dead cheap (2.50) for ticket and so we would return...

On Monday we went on a favela tour to the largest in Rio, Rocinha, and a smaller one called Vila Canoas. We thought carefully about the voyeuristic aspects of doing this type of a tour and so looked into where the money went before we took the tour. Rocinha has 120,000 people living within it and is one of 750 favelas in Rio. There are only 5 schools in Rocinha for all these people. The profits from this tour go to run a school in the Vila Canoas favela, so a worthy cause we decided.

The guide was excellent and explained the acute social problems facing the majority of people in Rio and especially the people living in the many favelas. We were staying in Ipanema one of the richest and privileged (therefore safest) places in Rio and so the guide gave us a real feel for how Rio works as a city and how it is to live in for most people to live in. Many problems! See below for James's synopsis...

Ivson Lins, samba musician from Rocinha. You'll have to wait till we get home to hear his CD...

Anyway back to our privileged stay in Brazil. After the tour we went to a fab restaurant for eat-as-much-as-you-can and then we wanted to go up Sugarloaf Mountain for the sunset but it had started raining so we sacked it. As we were walking back to the hostel wondering what to do next we bumped into Esther and Patrick, a dutch couple we met in Panama so we ended up in a pub drinking caiparinhas (local firewater with crushed lime, sugar and ice) all night, setting the world to rights!

After an annoying start on Tuesday (trying to get washing done, nowhere in Rio having any change, losing things etc etc), we got our arses in gear and made it into the centre of town to check out some of the old buildings and churches. We weren't massively impressed (I think we're getting picky after 7 months - not good!) but we did go inside a beautiful reading room/library which had four walls covered in 350,000 very old books. It was a lovely building.

We then took the 'bonde' (very old tram) to the nice little district of Santa Teresa. The tram was originally built to take the rich businessmen down into the city centre from their mansions in the hills above. The tram was hilarious, almost like a run-away mine train type of thing from Alton Towers. You really had to hang on as it accelerated through the cobbled streets and precariously over the Lapa do Archos (below) up the hill to Santa Teresa. We had a fabulous traditional Brazilian lunch in Bar do Mineiro of Feijoada, which is a huge meat and bean stew served with rice, spinach and slices of orange - delicious!

The weather was lovely all day so we took our chance (it had been cloudy every other day) and took the cable car up to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. Lovely clear blue skies as we got in the cable car. Twenty minutes later we were at the top and as it started to get dark it covered in cloud!!! Sooooo annoying. So, didn't see much of a sunset as planned but actually, as it went dark, the city looked beautiful through the clouds and they cleared now and again so it was all worth it!

View towards Copacabana Beach

Botafogo Bay looking towards Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer

J.C. mysteriously rising out of the clouds...

A borrowed picture from Corcovado showing just how stunning Rio is...

On Wednesday we decided to have a final look around Ipanema and Copacabana before we left Thursday. It was the middle of the week but there was still people toasting themselves silly in the sun. We walked to the rocky point between the two beaches for a good view of Ipanema (below) and found a little beach gym in the style of the famous Venice Beach in California, but with the added value of everyone training in speedos - disturbing, very gay, but hilarious. So James joined in with a few chin-ups, dips and press-ups while Katie sat at a distance watching, wetting herself laughing as the gay guys came up to James to offer him technique tips. One particular guy in pink speedos took a real shine to him!!

That night we went again to the football with Pablo to try for a bit of atmosphere. We hoped for a more exciting game as Romario was trying for his 1000th goal. He had been on 999 for a few games/weeks and the papers were reporting that his team mates were getting cheesed off trying to carrying some fat 41 year old up front as a lone striker.

"why won't they pass to me..."

Waddling around up front on his own.

The game itself was crazy. We got there about 7pm as we were told the game started around 8:30pm. After many beers and almost 3 hours of waiting the game started at 9:45pm, with about 60,000 fans and a much better atmosphere. Lots of fireworks, singing and samba drums. 5 mins in and it was 2-1, 3 goals!! If you thought that Brazilian national teams had moments of dodgy defending, then you can imagine how bad the club teams are. They had a real attitude of never mind we'll just score more than the other team. At halftime (with the crazy old guy again doing keepie-uppies) it was 3-2. Next half each team had a man sent off for outragous tackles. Romario probably ran about 1km to his team mates 8km, just missing to get a body part on a team mates long range goal, poaching it for himself, and so still he is on 999 goals. It ended 4-4.

The crazy end score.

Afterwards I headed down to the beach for a few last 'on the beach in Rio' beers with Pablo as Katie was knackered. All in all a top week. An amazing place.

James's favela thoughts:

The favelas are of course known to be violent places, which they are. They are run completely by the 3 main drug gangs and drug money, with the obvious problem of drug addition amongst the poorest people in society.

The crazyness of Rocinha, Rio's largest favela

There are also postitives to the Favelas though. There is a real sense of community and although the goverment has not forgotten the plight of the people in the favelas there is only so much they can do, and so the people of the work together, not waiting for government to help solving problems within. There is minimal crime (outside of rampant and blatant drug selling of course!) with any theft or assaults dealt with by the people/drug gangs, as they do not want the police to get involved and come into their favela. The police get paid very little ($300/month) and have little guns compared to the US Army machine guns that the drug gangs have so there is not too much motivation amongst the police and a lot of corruption. The police watch the drug deals happen across the street from them and do not intervene - as long as they get their cut and nothing kicks off they turn a blind eye!

Although it all sounds chaotic there seems to be a fragile stability/equilibrium in the favelas most of the time, but when the stability stops...! A couple of years ago there was a massive fight between drug gangs with gunfire and fighting for days. The people can only lock there doors, lie on the floor wait and hope until its over, one gang wins or the police are driven back and the stability returns.

The only real hope for these people is education (or becoming a football player!) to leave the favelas. The education system here is the main problem. Although 97% of kids are in school the quality of teaching is generally poor. Teachers only get paid $500/month and so the best ones get easily poached by the good private schools. The good schools cost $400-$600/month in fees, the average salary in the favelas is $200/month. There are excellent public universities but only the best educated children can pass the entrance exams, and so only the rich kids can make it to Uni. So what happens to the kids that don't make it? The have very few options. Get a job earning maybe $150/month collecting rubbish, helping people park cars, selling sweets and drinks to the rich/tourists, or join a drug gang for $600/month, twice the likely amount their parents earn combined. Although the most people in drug gangs die before they are 35, many well before this, it is an easy option and many choose to join the gangs. The school we visited has made the difference to a few kids and they have gone to uni, but this school can only take 30 kids after they have finished at their other school...

Recently people from middle classes have moved to the favelas. The rent is much lower than in the rich districts, like Ipanema and Leblon, and so they have more disposable income and a better standard of life than comparatively poor in a rich area. Again there is also the sense of community that people feel in the favelas, the working together and looking out for one another.

The one stand-out thing from the tour was the nonchalant way that the drug problem was talked about. It seems like it has become an accepted part of everyday life to have drug gangs supplying drugs to the people of the favelas, they becoming addicted, providing more wealth to the criminals. It must come back to the fragile stability that the whole crazy system seems to provide within their particular favela, and the close-knit, shut off comunity closed it creates. There are 10 million people living in Rio, 2 million in favelas. 30% of the population earn 70% of the income. With such prejudice of the rich to the poor, the disparity of income and therefore education, Brazil's huge debt and interest payments to the world bank and the deep rooted drug gangs supplying drugs to the poor, there are no foreseeable improvements in the near future.

Books we read: Moby Dick by Herman Melville - very hard going, just about worth it!

As threatened here's a 'pleasent' picture of James doing the Copacabana thing, arse out in his pants on the beach. We cannot be held liable for the likely trauma and any long-term psychological problems induced by this picture. You read this blog entirely at your own risk!!