Rio at sunset

Given that the bulk of the Carnival experience takes up about four days, ten days in Rio de Janeiro sandwiching the festival allows for an interesting tourist vantage point: From a bustling, oversized beach city, Rio swells up uncomfortably to “Disneyland on acid” proportions, only to fizzle back down into whatever passes for normalcy.  I slacked on lodging and found myself short of accommodations with only a month to spare prior to Carnival, and only through one of my friend Pete’s connections was I able to secure a spot in an apartment owned by the mother of one of his friends.  She was incredibly sweet, though once the festival kicked off, I realized this probably wasn’t the optimal lodging situation for what could potentially have been a sloppy, sweat-and-alcohol-saturated week.  I’ll get into my Carnival failure in the next post, but even if I completely failed at the Carnival experience, there are worse places to be than Rio.

Rio de Janeiro — literally “River of January” and also known as A Cidade Maravilhosa, or “The Marvelous City” — once served as the Portuguese empire’s capital here, and is still the second largest city in Brazil after the far more sprawling and uniform Sao Paulo.  After seeing City of God, I was naturally worried about crime in the city, though most of that takes place within favelas, which are supposedly among the worst slums on earth.  Adding insult to poverty, tour groups now run through the favelas in bulletproof vehicles, giving tourists a chance to see just how terrible it is to be poor.  Jaimee and I opted out of this tour.

A Quick Geography Lesson

A fairly accurate cartoon map of Rio.

The steep, rocky peaks that break up Rio’s otherwise flat, beach paradise stand poised around the city like a rocky crown, less a mountain range than a series of individual protests from the planet against man’s slow encroachment.  It’s no surprise as Rio’s Tijuaca Forest and White Stone State Park are the largest and second-largest urban forests in the world.  Few places on Earth better exemplify the contrast between city and nature, as massive skyscrapers and cityscapes trail off into tall, foliage-covered crags shooting off violently, improbably, into the sky.  Every square meter of developable real estate has been utilized here.  Anything else gets a teleferico or big Jesus statue put on it and turns into a tourist attraction.  Win-win.

Sugarloaf

Flamengo – Meaning “Flemish,” it likely got its name from its central beach being owned by Belgians in the city’s very early years.  Not the most happening spot in Rio, but fairly calm and quiet.  This is where our apartment was located.  Its beaches aren’t terribly good, but it’s not more than ten minutes away by cab or bus to Copacabana or Ipanema.

Pao de Acucar – “Pao” meaning “bread,” and “Acucar” for “sugar.”  Literally, Sugarloaf.  A tall peak accessible only by cable car (used in a famous battle scene between James Bond and Jaws in Moonraker) that provides a fairly outstanding view of the city and surrounding islands.  It costs money, of course, so if you’re on a budget, it’s not that different a vista than what you get from Corcovado.

Corcovado – “Hunchback” in Portuguese.  The big Jesus.  I wanted to suavely hang-glide by the guy and wave, but it turns out he’s too far from the cliff you jump off of to be anything but sacrosanct background scenery.  Like Sugarloaf, it’s a great vantage point, and a place where it is apparently cool to do the Jesus pose in a photo-op without it being frowned upon.

Corcovado

The Red Curvy Line on the Left Side of the Map – That’s the cliff I jumped off of with the help of a large kite-like device.  The updraft is strong enough to immediately carry any jumpers brave or stupid enough to take the leap (assuming they’re wearing the right apparatus).  How anyone figured out this was possible in the first place is beyond me.

Copacabana – It turns out the Barry Manilow song has nothing to do with this world famous beach.  It was in my head for days before I actually listened to the words — it’s about some far less interesting nightclub in Cuba, apparently.  The beach is tremendous in length, heading west towards a large breaker that separates it from the equally large Ipanema on the other side.  Despite its proximity, the sand and ocean look and feel different here.  I’m told it’s less popular as well, and admittedly I liked Ipanema much better, but both beaches appeared to be equally packed.

Ipanema – If you’ve always wanted to sit under an umbrella by the ocean and have anything you could possibly want delivered directly to your seat, and you don’t mind some slight overcrowding, this is the beach for you.  You probably know the song “The Girl from Ipanema.”  You”d recognize it if you heard it, anyway.  Well, the girls are nice enough, but if you know that song and “Mas Que Nada” (by either the Tamba Trio or Sergio Mendes) and you’ll recognize half the music played in bars and by street bands in Rio.  It’s not the infectious nature of these songs that make them hard to get out of your head — they’re literally being played at all times throughout Rio.

Ipanema beach. The man in center is selling chips of some kind from an enormous bag, scooping them up with a plastic cup for all interested buyers.

Getting High in Rio

Despite the two craggy mounds of Sugarloaf with matchbox-sized cablecars riding small strings of thread upwards in the distance just outside our balcony, Jaimee and I avoid the obvious tourist destination in favor of the similarly high altitude Corcovado for all the obvious reasons:

1. Cooler sounding name
2. More centralized lookout point
3. Big tourist Jesus

Posing with Jesus

A train takes us slowly up the mountainside.  It strikes me that it’d be an ingenious — if slightly sacrilegious — photo-op to share Jesus’s welcoming pose.  Not wishing to offend, I do so from below, out of the gaze of the throngs of seemingly devout tourists (they’d have to be to buy all the Jesus The Redeemer magnets, snowglobes, keychains, ashtrays, aprons, t-shirts and commemorative plates on sale at the gift shop here).

My discretion proves unwarranted.  From above, a line of people wait to share the pose.  Jesus doesn’t seem to mind much — his large, giddy smile is almost reminiscent of Dogma’s “Buddy Christ.”  I consider retaking the shot, but following the universal “the more people do it, the less hip it is” rule, I opt out.  I’d always thought Rio’s Jesus was enormous, and it’s quite large from up here, though he’s just a small silhouette of a cross from anywhere else in town.  The location is central enough, though, that what he lacks in size, he makes up in ubiquity, as even at night (due to some powerful floodlights) Jesus is almost inescapable from anywhere in central Rio.

From all the way up here, Rio de Janeiro is beaches, ocean, islands, mountain with a small side of city.  Our presence is everywhere, but seems superfluous to the all-encompassing nature around it.  It’s beautiful.

One of the views from Corcovado. Ipanema and Leblon are directly behind me in this picture.

Sugarloaf as seen from Corcovado

Jaimee leaves with two days left on my temporary lease and little to do.  I don’t speak Portuguese and don’t know anyone here, and surrounded by one of the biggest parties on earth, these facts are starting to get to me.  I’ll save that for the next post.

Riding up to Sugarloaf. Apparently there is a club that operates at the top every Saturday night, though we never made it.

Sugarloaf is a bit of hike from the apartment, but its peak hovers above everything else for the entire walk making it an easy landmark.  Unlike Corcovado, the ride up is by cable car rather than train, but the view neither more or less spectactular.  My camera is new and terrible, and its pictures and my own inability to connect with anyone in the town whose tremendous fiesta is only beginning to simmer down begins to wear me down.  In line for pasteis, I misunderstand the order of the lines (One is to pay for a food ticket, the second is to trade said ticket in for food.  Guess what order I waited in…) and throw a pointless tantrum, unintelligible to any of the natives, and shamefully ignored by any english-speaking tourists.  I walk away hungry.

The view from Sugarloaf

Less and Less Sand Every Day…

It turns out we’ve made it to Rio with just enough spare time to get a few days of fairly genuine Rio de Janeiro before the Carnival crew sets in.  I’d imagine it’s very much like being in Daytona beach during the last few days before “college spring break” wave crashes down, bringing with it an unending supply of hedonism, lawlessness and general douchebaggery to the entire city.  Nearly everyone I’ve met from Rio since Carnival has made a point of telling me they make a annual pilgrimage out of the city while the festival’s in full swing.

A fried cheese vendor carries a portable oven with him. The cheese is dipped in oregano and cooked just enough to make it soft without melting it.

By Friday, Ipanema and Copacabana both are uncomfortably saturated with tourists and locals, looking less like a beach than a crowded music festival.  Tuesday is still pre-Carnival, and while the beach is dense with families, students, tourists and other assorted locals, it’s comfortable enough to settle down with a rented umbrella and seats.  The gear comes cheap (around five dollars) and with it, a full-service waiter specializing in all basic mixed drinks.  Not everything is available from the small, beachside shacks set up as bars, but caipirinhas are pretty much guaranteed.

For food — or anything, really — beach-goers instead rely upon traveling vendors, continuously making their circuit through all nine of Ipanema’s postos.  Rising up at regular intervals above the throngs of people like miniature versions of Rio’s mountains behind them, the postos mark the different segments of Ipanema’s beach and provide (for a fee, paid after waiting in a ridiculously long line) bathroom and shower services.  Posto 9 has been famous for decades as the “hip” posto where all the artists, painters and interesting and attractive characters hang out.  After spending our first visit, I was informed it’s now the gay hangout, though few displays of affection, gay or straight, took place by us on the crowded yet lackadaisical beach.

Another vendor, this one selling heated pastries filled with some form of meat.

Vendors loop through umbrellas as thought on a regular trail, with familiar faces showing up every twenty minutes or so in case I might have changed my mind about buying a Brazilian flag beachtowel that turns into a tote bag.  Food is in abundance here, generally kept hot in insulated container or cooked fresh on the beach with small, portable coal-burning ovens.  Several men carry miniature barrels — one under each arm — serving mate, a popular buzz-inducing tea (that is even more wildly popular throughout Argentina).  Any other potentially necessary beach accessory comes directly to our chairs with only a brief flash of eye contact as a signal of intent to buy: sunglasses, tanning lotions, jewelry, towels, swimwear, assorted tourist kitsch and drugs.  It’s likely the most full-service beach in the world.

But because the water’s just too damned cold, it easily loses any “best beach” awards in my book.  Nice place for tanning and people watching, though…

Boardwalks stretch along the vastness of both primary beaches (Ipanaema and Copacabana) but don’t connect, requiring a slight detour into the city to cross from one to the other.  Copacabana doesn’t seem geographically different, and the bars and sport-oriented attractions (volleyball courts, handball courts and other derivations of internationally popular beach games, combined with pull-up bars and other means for the physically fit to casually display their fitness levels publicly) are just as abundant on either side.  One popular variation of volleyball involved only using heads and feet, a la soccer.  It would’ve been far more impressive if any of the rounds got past two volleys, though.

A coconut milk vendor. These guys have stacks of coconuts which are freshly cut for buyers and served with a straw. Probably Jaimee's favorite purchase, though they did nothing for me.

I can see why Ipanema fans feel the way they do.  The beach just has a better vibe…

Assorted Others

• 

  My room in Flamengo

  I’m pretty sure Brazil has the worst napkins on Earth.  I think I’m going to dedicate an entire post to “The Napkins of South America.”

• My waterproof Olympus 1030 died off the beach of Ipanema, causing me to seek out a new camera.  Electronics are extremely expensive in Rio, and based on the selection, close to a year behind in terms of the newest models.  My first camera purchase was terrible and while I was allowed to return it for an exchange, it was necessary that the new camera be as or more expensive than the original.  As the one I wanted was not, I was forced to buy diapers as well.  For whatever reason, diapers were the only thing in the electronics (???) store that covered the gap in prices.  Upon paying for merchandise in these stores, you are given a ticket and sent to the back where the ticket is given to a stockroom boy to retrieve your new gear from the back.  After ten minutes waiting, the guy returns with my camera and starts to explain those diapers are not available.  Despite my explaining that the diapers are not necessary, he calls the manager over, who follows me out of the store stating something in Portuguese while I walk rapidly out the store, head down, saying “no diapers!  no diapers!”  I was worried he was going to send people after me, but he stopped pursuit after I left the store.
• Buses have turnstiles on the inside that are impossible for all but the most slender people to get through.  It’s horribly designed, and borderline cruel to fat people.  It is also borderline entertaining.

The only thing that could make this experience more awkward for this woman would be a tourist snapping pictures of her.

• Trash.  They don’t use trashcans here so much as open metal baskets attached to poles, raised up about four feet into the air.  Likely this is to protect the trash from rampant, feral dogs which roam the streets of nearly every South American town.  It’s not exactly clear how these baskets are collected by trashmen as sometimes the trash is thrown sans bags, which would be a nightmare to collect.

This shot of a South American trash pedestal was taken a few weeks later in Argentina, but since I'm discussing it here, I wanted to have a picture to go along with the description.

Ending on a High Note

From the start, “hanggliding by Jesus in Rio” has been high up on the to-do list, so it was a bit of a disappointment to see how far we’d actually be flying from the guy.  I wasn’t looking to high-five a statue or have any kind of profound, adrenaline-fueled religious moment, but if nothing else it would’ve been a good photo-op.  Still, jumping off of a cliff while attached to a glorified kite still makes for a filling morning.

"There've been almost no accidents this year..." I'm told.

Waivers signed, we — the instructor, two other riders plus gear, all crammed together — ride to the top of peak in an old hatchback that often seems unwilling to take on the steep, windy road.  Disassembled next to me is the glider in a large tote barely bigger than a glorified gym bag.  This gym bag is going to carry me off of a cliff.

At the top, a runway trails off into a long wooden ramp that descends off of the cliff at a slight angle.  A line of fliers are queued leading towards the start of the ramp, and expectant gliders not yet paired with a device wait to either side of the runway in harnesses and helmets, adrenaline building as each jumper makes his way into the air.  Those waiting listen in on the instructions given verbatim in broken English to each nervous rider:

“You put your arm around me here,” the instructor says, guiding his tandem pupils arm around his own back to a flap of canvas along is shoulder, “and don’t let go. When I say ‘RUN’ you run with me.  You move like I do.  Look forward.  When we reach the edge of the ramp, you run.  These are most important: You do not jump!  You do not stop running!  You run with me off the edge.  Wind does rest.”

Near the edge of the runway

I nod and know this will not be a problem for me.  Whatever fear might grip me as the space before me dwindles down to nothing will always come second to my deep fear of embarrassment.  I will not be that guy that trips up at the end of the runway, plunging awkwardly forward and down, while onlookers wait to determine that I’m well before allowing themselves to be amused by the somersaulting pile of nylon and skin that just plummeted down before them.

My turn arrives and the instructor reviews everything.  Hands, feet and all other assorted limbs are in the right places.  I stand looking forward — forward and not down — my eyes affixed far in the distance, past city, buildings, beaches, certain death, out onto the vast expanse of ocean before me, waiting on my cue.  A countdown from three is given and we jog at a surprisingly leisurely pace downward, matching strides as though in a three-legged race.  At the end, I don’t stop, nor do I jump.  The runway ends and we are flying.

Into thin air

The descent is — oddly pleasant.  Adrenaline fuels the initial jump — or run, rather — but once aloft, the sensation is one of floating slowly downwards, with barely more than a light breeze marking our passage through open space.  The expanse of northwest Rio spreads out below me, a large hillside made up of enormous homes with impossibly large yards this close to the city’s center, often with pools and tennis courts as well.  “Our most famous director lives there,” the pilot tells me,  pointing at one of the larger mansions.  “Our Spielberg.”

He swirls the glider in an endless series of interconnected ‘S’ shapes, steering it through almost imperceptible motions of the central bar that his hands stay perpetually gripped to.  His hands push softly to the right and the bar moves mere inches that bring about a massive spin rightwards.  My only rule now that we are aloft: Never touch this bar in any way.  Instead, my only attachment to anything really is to a strong canvas harness that connects to my groin and upper back.  I’m flying.

The view from above, including the pole that appears to be the sole means oof steering the glider.

We’re surprisingly far over the ocean now in a trip that’s lasted every bit of the promised fifteen minutes.  I hadn’t expected riding a kite off of a mountain to be so relaxing.

“I’m going to spin around now to the beach.  It’s going to get fast as we get close, but don’t worry — we’ll slow down right before landing and you just run.  Ok?”

“Sure!”

It all happens as promised.  The ground comes fast and hard — seemingly too fast to possibly slow in time to a brisk run, but a light pull at the last moment on the bar catches a billow of salty air.  We land together in a jerky, arrhythmic jog, but manage to safely avoid the ignominy of falling to our knees into the sand.  Two quick clicks free my harness from the glider (that’s all that was keeping me attached through our descent!?) and the experience is complete.

A glider darts in for a landing

The trip almost hadn’t happened.  My bus to Sao Paulo leaves in 45 minutes, and my lugguge still waits for me at the apartment across town.  But some things are worth taking risks for.