The Marvelous City

One city, several nicknames, three letters: RIO. In Portuguese they call it a cidade maravilhosa (the marvelous city) and any trip there, rain or shine, leaves no one doubting why. Having been to Rio before this time around was a different experience, although again nothing short of spectacular, from before. The past few weeks have seen me all over the place. We essentially had two mid-semester breaks with a week of school sandwiched in between. The first break was for my specific exchange program alone. That’s when I took off for the Pantanal and had my crazy rendezvous with jaguar, as previously blogged. Then it was back to São Paulo for the first week of the second half of the semester followed by another week of vacation – called semana de saco cheio (literally translated to “fed up week”) which is observed by most universities throughout all of Brasil. So we gringos got the benefit of two weeks of vacation. During the second break I visited Londrina, the city where I lived last year, immediately followed by 5 days in Rio.

My friend LeeAnn and I hopped an overnight bus to Rio on the same day that I got back from Londrina, making it my second red-eye bus in as many nights. We arrived Rio early Wednesday morning to clear blue skies and picture perfect 90 degree weather. By 9:30 am we were on the beach frying until about 12:30. We stayed in Ipanema this time rather than in Copacabana where I crashed with my buddy Eric who came down last year and hit up Rio with me. Ipanema and Copacabana are, on a smaller scale, like Brooklyn and Queens I guess. They share the same plot of land and essentially the same beach but are divided only by a huge set of rocks and an old fortress where the two beaches meet, yet have vastly different identities. It’s mainly the beach crowd that defines each neighborhood’s identity. Ipanema tends to have the younger, hipper, sexier crowd while the old, but still very plausibly sexy, hang out at Copacabana. Our hostel was actually part of string of rowhouses of about 5-7 different hostels that all shared a common patio area. So 5-7 hostels with 15 people staying in each one = a very diverse, extremely international, easy going group of foreigners all looking to let loose and explore the city.

The day we arrived just happened to be the same day that Brasil played Colombia in a World Cup qualifying match. Dam, what were the chances?! So Wednesday night we trekked over to the famous Maracanã – Brasil’s high holy shrine to soccer – to watch the match. It was a packed house and an energetic atmosphere of 54,000 fans waving plastic Brazilian flags rooting on the 5-time World Cup champs and the only country to qualify for every single World Cup……but a terrible game!!! The game ended in a 0-0 tie and admittedly, I found myself falling asleep at times because the game lacked action. Lately, the Brazilian team has only been playing well in World Cup qualifying matches outside of Brasil. But each of their past 2 matches in Brasil have ended in 0-0 ties against fairly weak opponents.

The Maracanã

The next day was more beaching, and unfortunately, the last day of good weather before the rain and drizzle set in for the next few days. We shot up to Corcovado (Christ the Redeemer statue), my second time there, but still well worth the time and price. We could have picked a better day to go. It was real cloudy, meaning we were literally in the clouds and had minimal to zero view of the beautiful city landscape below. With each break in the clouds all the tourists scrambled to get as many decent shots in before the clouds covered it up again. The clouds did produce an interesting view of the Christ statue, however. When the clouds came in we stood 20 feet away from the huge statue, yet, could not by any means see it. There was a really cool effect as the clouds passed and the sun broke getting spitting images here and there of the statue. The picture below of the whole city skyline was taken last year, just to give folks who hadn’t seen it an idea of what the view SHOULD HAVE looked like.

Also on the activity agenda we rented bikes from our hostel and cruised up and down the beaches stopping for a beer at the Copacabana Palace – the fancy 5 star hotel right on the beach where the white collared rich and fabulous stay when they frolic in Rio. On Saturday afternoon I took a ferry with some Italian girls I met at my hostel across the Guanabara Bay to Niteroi, a separate city across from Rio just to get out of the city and see Rio from an alternate angle.

The nights, of course, were consumed by the parties. Rio is the place to party in Brasil as far as my knowledge of the country is concerned. We spread our time across the local bars, Lapa – the crazy samba district, and a real down and dirty authentic neighborhood festival in the way northern part of town. I guess the best and most appropriate place to describe is Lapa. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures because it’s not exactly the safest place to bring a camera. Lapa is a small neighborhood in downtown Rio more or less where the industrial North Zone meets the luxurious and beach enchanting South Zone. Lapa’s cobblestone streets give it a colonial antique feel, and are enhanced by the still standing aqueducts built by the Portuguese in the 1700s that tower of the neighborhood and under which all the partying goes on. Lapa is the one neighborhood in Rio where it’s actually corny to go into a club. The clubs are admittedly really great and world famous, but all the jamming to live samba music rubbing elbows with gringos to Greeks to Cariocas (a native of Rio) goes on outside, in the streets. The place just has a ridiculous energy; the type of vibe that most people associate with Brazil. It’s like a mini-Carnaval that goes on every weekend.

Everything in Rio is beautiful. More accurately, everything in Rio is stunning – whether it’s stunning women, stunning scenery amidst the mountains and ocean, stunning sunsets, or stunning poverty seeing the favelas (slums/shantytowns) spread throughout the hills. It’s a very photogenic city. For good or bad, the people, the landscape, the scenery, and again even the poorer areas are worth taking a picture of. Picture taking in Rio is like one big photo-essay.

It made me miss the aesthetic beauty of a city. Every city I have lived in or am familiar with: New York, DC, Barcelona has a physically pleasing aspect to it. New York has it’s skyline and island appeal to it highlighted especially at night seeing the bridges lit up. DC has its monuments and the mall. Barcelona is like a European Rio in that it too is squeezed between mountain and water with hills spread out through the city. And then there’s São Paulo. It’s a great city with a lot to do, a wild party scene, brilliant professors, and a booming economy. But aesthetically, there’s no charm or good looks to it. For most of the seven hour bus ride back to São Paulo on Sunday I was consumed with thinking about the necessary steps I have to take to live and work in Rio in the near future – maybe for about a 2-3 year stint. It’s a quick ride away from São Paulo so I’ll probably be back again in November and then of course New Years. The invitation is still open to any takers for NYE2009 on the beaches of the cidade maravilhosa!

Corcovado from another angle

Just monkeying around