Day Three in Rio

Yesterday was such a full day that I neglected to include one of the best views from Corcovado – that of the Lagoon off Ipanema and Leblon beach. The track in the lower right is the horse track (hippodrome).

Today we set out on foot to the south end of Copacabana. From our hotel, which is pretty much in the centre of Copa, that was about four kilometers. At the beach end is the Copacabana Fort that is an operational fort with fortified bunkers and large swivel guns protecting the harbour entrance. We stopped here for coffee and juice and watched the standup surfers search for waves.

As we left the fort the fishermen had just brought in the day’s catch in their small boats. They were repairing their nets and selling their wares in a little makeshift market.

There was still lots of action on the beach with most girls wearing what the Brazilians call “dental floss”. Apparently the reason why most young Brazilian girls are carrying a little more “junk in their trunk” is because that’s the way Brazilian men like them. Classic! Every hundred metres or so there were also sand castle builders extraordinaire.

Our route back to hotel took us two blocks up from the beach to the main street of Rio with all of its bustling commerce. We thought we should top up our Brazilian currency and had difficulty finding a bank that would accept our bankcard. Four institutions later, we finally succeeded with the Citi Bank. We arrived at the hotel in time for lunch and chose to eat on the hotel terrace around the pool. This was our idea of lunching on the beach, Dawn in her bikini and me on my computer. We had lunch and tried the Brazilian drink specialty the caipirinha that is a delicious lime drink made with cachaca, the Brazilian sugar cane liquor, not unlike rum.

The next photo is a significant one. The wave pattern in the walkways along Copacabana symbolizes the waves of the Atlantic. There are three colours of stone used in these patterns – white for the Portuguese, black for the African slaves brought here by the colonists and red (not seen in this picture) for the aboriginal people. If you go to Ipanema the pattern is more geometric but the colours of the stone remain the same.

We walked back to the night market tonight and Dawn had fun with her try-ons. We thought we did well with the steps yesterday, but topped 17 000 today. We feel we’ve got to get the walking in before we hit the days at sea, where we can walk, but it won’t be nearly as interesting. On the walk back to the hotel, we stopped for a drink at one of the beach cafes. I finally had the coconut water, which was ice cold, but not as coconuty as expected.

For dinner, we returned to La Trattoria and once again shared, this time, a caprese salad and a garlic fettuccine. We have the tried the Brazilian wine – red and white – and although not offensive and definitely not expensive, it’s also not remarkable. Tonight we had an Argentine malbec – delicious – gotta try more of those at home.

Rio de Janeiro – The Big Tour

Before I begin with today, did I mention it was hot here? As we head towards the last day of summer in Brazil, the daytime temps are still hovering in the low 30’s and even better, the night time temps don’t go much below 20. Last night before we cashed it in, I took some night shots of Copacabana from our hotel window. It’s safe to say that this place is special day and night.

So…. Today was a big one! We saw it all! Not really, but it seemed like it. After a very nice North American style buffet breakfast at our hotel, we met our guide for the day, Olivia Alves. According to the internet, the number one guide in Rio is Neyla and since she was busy, she proposed her coworker, Olivia. On our first stop of the day we did meet Neyla, but at no time did we feel short changed. In fact, as the day went on we really loved Olivia and really appreciated the fact that the two of us had Olivia to ourselves.

Because the weather changes rapidly here, due to Maritime influences, we started with a visit to Corcovado, which is the mountain location for the Christo Redentor statue that looks out over Rio. It was early, the skies were clear and so far the cruise ships hadn’t unleashed their hordes. The trip to the summit of Corcovado is generally made by cog railway through the Tijuca Rainforest and we embarked right beside a kiosk for Hard Rock Café, which was nice to be able to get the T-shirt out of the way. Along the ascent, we viewed a variety of rainforest vegetation, not all indigenous to the area, but impressive none-the-less. Among this vegetation was the tree bearing the jackfruit. Presently it was out of season, but it is a huge growth that when picked smells bad but tastes good – kind of like stinky cheese.

Before we boarded the train, Olivia beat everyone to the train and saved the best seats for us. As a guide she is obliged to stand, to make room for the touristos. When we reached the summit, we discovered that we had not, in fact, beaten the hordes, as we could hardly make our way through the throngs assembled beneath Christ, at which point I looked up and said, “Christ, there are a lot of people here!” Not really, but I did think it. This statue finished in 1931 is now one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World and there’s no question that he has a fabulous view of Rio.

After taking many pictures of Rio and the Christ, we descended to make our way to our next destination, the cable car ride to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain. Now any true fan of James Bond movies knows that this cable car was made famous in the movie Moonraker and although we weren’t allowed to ride as James on the roof, the ride up did bring back memories of the movie. The cable car he used is on display at the top, but today the car is larger and more modern.

The trip to the top is actually in two stages and cars, as it goes from the staging area to peak number one, the Morro de Urca and then continues on in car number two to the summit of Sugarloaf.

The weather continued to favour us and we got great vistas, back towards Corcovado, down to the city centre and back to Copacabana.

Now it was time for some lunch, so Olivia took us to a little hole in the wall in the Urca neighbourhood beneath Sugarloaf. Here, we sampled some authentic Brazilian snack food that included little tarts of cheese and shrimp, cod-balls, packets of meat and seafood, Brazilian beer and for me, fresh squeezed lemonade. Excellent!

Next, was the historic centre of Rio, which included, first, a visit to the staging area for Carnaval. The Sambodromo shown below, houses over 100 000 people viewing the elaborate costumes of the locals. Olivia told us she didn’t work Carnaval because she wanted to dance and dance they do, from morning day one to morning day two.

Then we visited the oldest area of Rio called, Santa Teresa. Much of this area is in serious need of reformation, but with both the World Cup of Soccer and the Olympics coming to Rio, it was nice to see a slightly more authentic area than I’m sure will be seen in a few years from now. One major feature in this area is the Laderio do Selaron, which is an extensive ceramic staircase.

As the day was getting shorter, we opted to visit an area of Rio familiar to Olivia – the favelas. These are the slums of Rio, originally inhabited by the ex-slaves of the Portuguese colonists. Today, it’s pretty much still the ancestors of the slaves who live here. But, until six months ago, no tourists would visit here because drug lords controlled the favelas and foreigners were easy targets for crime and violence.

The favlelas we visited was called Rocinha and it was a little self-contained city of 150 000 people. Things are changing. The King drug lord is in jail and no longer does this area market drugs in the way they used to, in a similar fashion to any vegetable market we’ve visited. There is a huge, heavily armed police presence here now and for the time being anyway, drugs have been pushed back underground. The former drug mules are now moto-taxi drivers – motorcycle taxis. There was some noteworthy evidence of drug use among inhabitants, but by enlarge the people were very friendly and the ex-drug dealers stood about idlely watching the world go by. We actually bought a Rio specialty at one of the shops – Acai, an ice cream-fruit snack – delicious! You’ll notice the beehive of wires in many of the pictures, because until recently, most residents of this favelas stole their hydro by splicing into existing lines.

Olivia lives in the favelas next to this one. She’s a bit of a Bohemian and after she gave up a good career in the export industry and a marriage to become a tour guide, her family considered her the black cat – not sheep – of the family. As it turns out, her favelas, shown below, is in huge regeneration and as real estate escalates, she doesn’t look quite as crazy anymore. Her place is in the white apartment to the lower right.

Our return to the hotel took us down the stretch of what people consider the elite beaches of Rio – Leblon and Ipanema. From our perspective, Copacabana is every bit as nice, but real estate for these areas is definitely the tops for Rio.

Back at the hotel, we bid farewell to Olivia and I began the enormous task of cataloguing the day’s photos. As day turned to dusk, we broke the first rule of tour guidebooks and took a walk down Copacabana to an evening market. We wouldn’t have felt safer walking in downtown Kitchener after dark. There were hordes of walkers, joggers, bicyclists and lots of juvenile soccer matches taking place on the sand.

Dawn got into the bikini-shopping mode, but I doubt the result of this expedition will ever be viewed, so I include the try-on photo as proof.

Tonight, we chose to eat at a restaurant recommended by the concierge, La Trattoria. It was only two blocks from the hotel and we barely managed seats at 7:30. This place was hopping! There was almost never an empty table. The Italian fare here was also considered quite Brazilian. We returned to the hotel with 13 000 some odd steps under our belts for the day, which oddly enough was largely spent in Olivia’s car. Right now we’re feeling pretty good about what we’ve seen in Rio and look forward to a more relaxed day tomorrow.

And So Begins the Four Continent Tour

We realized shortly before we set off on our latest adventure, that by the time we returned home, would have touched down on four continents and therefore, this trip will be labeled thusly. For us – well, me anyway – the biggest deal about this trip is that we finally get south of the equator. Getting a taste of Brazil is a good start. So, on Saturday, March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day, if you weren’t paying attention – we flew with American Airlines to New York City’s JFK Airport. We’ve never been to this airport before, but in comparison with, say Schipol or OHare, it’s not the greatest place to hang out.

Our layover was less than three hours before we continued with American to Rio. I’m always happy to report when flights are uneventful and although it was a little like traveling on the rough surface of a Californian highway, it was a pretty quick ten hours. As we began our descent, we had some nice, albeit cloudy, overviews of Rio.

Our bags all arrived – breath a deep sigh of relief – and we quickly connected with our pre-arranged ground transportation to the hotel. Because we landed a little after 8:00 in the morning, we got to our hotel – the Arena Copacabana - way too early to find our room available. We were able to check in, left our bags and then headed out for a wee walkabout.

Almost immediately behind our hotel was a fresh Sunday market. I’ll tell you. We can find a market almost anywhere we travel. Of course, we were in no position to purchase much of anything but a few spices, but there were lots of produce we couldn’t identify and some rather unusual ways of displaying product, like the live crabs tied to the outside of a basket, below.

Following market we settled at a beach-front café for lunch and had fish. Dawn’s was fairly plain with vegetables, while mine had tons on mini shrimps in a mango sauce. Guess whose lunch won the prize?

The four-mile stretch of Copacabana beach is lined with juice joints, each one offering something a little different than the one before. Some of the juice may be of the alcoholic kind. C’est la vie!

Once we finally found a room available – and we did upgrade to a beach-view room - we got horizontal. We economy flyers dream of being horizontal. After a few down hours we awoke refreshed and ready to do some more exploring.

We first checked out the roof top pool and terrace. The pool is essentially a large kiddies pool, but I’m sure it will do the trick on those hotter, sticky Rio days. The remarkable feature here was the panoramic view of Copacabana. Wow! Plus, add in the fact that both major attractions in Rio, Sugarloaf Mt. and Corcovado with the Christ statue, are visible from the terrace.

As we strolled along the beachfront, we quickly noticed a couple of things. There are tons of dogs being walked, some like the one below that no longer have the use of hind legs.

It was a Sunday, so the beach was full of families and every woman was in a bikini, most with thong bottoms, despite the fact that the typical Brazilian woman appears to be fabulous from the waist up and a little round below that. Having said that, there were also lots of men and woman with serious guts obscuring the view of their footwear. They were still in bikinis and speedos!

The beach appears to have a sharp drop off into the water and as a result, the surfs come pounding in very close to the shore. Few swimmers ventured out into the breaking surfs, but just in case there was an extremely visible lifeguard presence that would make David Hasselhof proud. Sorry Pamela, they were all men.

There was a great variety of play going on as well, everything from beach volleyball and soccer to some kind of paddle ball and of course just old fashioned messing in the waves and sandcastle building.

Back at the hotel, we headed back to the rooftop terrace for cocktails, where, due to limited offerings, I opted for a mango frozen daiquiri – quite delicious. As we sipped our drinks, I began working on the day’s photos and we watched Copacabana Beach close up shop.

For dinner, we chose to eat at Fennel, the hotel’s restaurant, which ended up being an excellent choice. Dawn had seafood pasta and I had a Brazilian specialty with marinated chunks of beef topped by a poached egg. We had an Argentine red with dinner after discovering that it’s just too darn hot to make wine in Brazil. Apparently they do make excellent beer, which Dawn will attempt to confirm tomorrow.