Rio de Janeiro

What can I say about Rio de Janeiro? I flew in on Thursday and arrived at the hostel before noon. It was a little early and the room wasn’t ready yet so I left my bags and searched out an internet cafe to finish some email work. On the way back to the hotel I passed a Japanese restaurant and was pleased to have a great sushi lunch. This was my first introduction to the high prices of Rio.

Back at The Mango Tree Hostel I got into the room a little after 1 pm. The Mango Tree is a step up from a traditional hostel but not quite a hotel. There are dorm rooms with shared baths and single rooms with private baths. We had the private room which had both a double and a single bed. The hostel also has a TV/living room and a common eating/bar area. Even though it is not a party hostel, as many can be, the bar can be a little noisy in the evening which is undoubtedly one reason the owners have instituted a number of rules, like quiet after 10 pm.

The hostel is only two blocks from the beach and in the center of Ipanema. I quickly headed to the beach. I got a good four hours in on the beach on Thursday. The beach is amazingly beautiful, and I don’t just mean the sand and the waves. The people definitely take pride in their small suits and what the suits cover. There is nothing left to the imagination. Thursday the beach was fairly crowded but people were mostly massed in large clumps (hundreds of people per clump) and more widely spaced between the clumps. The massing of the people seems to coincide with the end of the streets as they dump people on the beach. Further back from the surf is a line of tents where the services for the beach are stationed. There are occasional showers further back as well. Shade umbrellas and beach chairs are readily available for rent (about $6.00 for the day) and very necessary unless you are blessed with naturally dark skin.

Friday there were more people on the beach and I got in a good five hours before Bruce arrived in the evening. Saturday it rained so we didn’t go to the beach. Sunday Bruce and I spent a short one and a half hours at the beach and it was absolutely packed. There were no widely spaced areas. Close to the surf it was solid skin, umbrellas and chairs.

The surf at Ipanema is very strong. The slope into the water is quite steep so there are large waves very close to the beach. I don’t know if it is a natural phenomena, but there is about a two to three foot drop off in the sand down to the surf area. All the umbrellas and chairs are above this ledge. The rip tide as the water rushes back from the ledge is quite strong and creates a very deep pull. Within a matter of seconds the depth of the water can change from four feet to four inches. It can create some dramatic play in the water which adds greatly to the people watching. I actually took newspapers and magazines to read but I didn’t get much reading done.

Ipanema has a very comfortable combination of casual glitz. It is completely acceptable to walk around town in a speedo though the box cuts are a little more attractive. Even late into the evening people can be seen in their bathing suits but at that time they have become the exception rather than the rule. There is a wide range of restaurants from small kiosks to large buffets and casual cafeterias to nuevo hip high design. I wouldn’t call any of it inexpensive. I especially liked the juice places serving dozens of different fresh juices including my favorite, acai.

Our last day in Rio Bruce and I met up with Hillary (another teacher at the school who I actually met in Vancouver before both she and Bruce moved to Sao Paulo) and Gabi her Carioca (what native folk from Rio are called) friend. We ate at the Copacabana Palace Hotel where Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire filmed a movie in the 30’s. It is old style sheik and classy. We ate inside the restaurant that is poolside. They were serving a grand buffet as it was Sunday. We opted to forgo the $100 per person buffet and simply ate off the menu.

The night before Bruce and I had sampled the night life. We started at Gabi’s 30th birthday. It was on the terrace of a high rise residential building near Copacabana Rio. There were about 30-40 people and other than Gabi’s mother I think Bruce and I were the oldest there. They had been partying for a while and the revelry continued well into the wee hours. Bruce and I stayed about an hour and then made our way back to Ipanema. As the taxi was driving through Copacabana I noticed the Boy Bar complex. So we stopped the taxi and checked out the scene. It was only 11:15 pm and there were only a few people in the bar, so Bruce and I went around the corner and had a meal in busy piano bar. We couldn’t figure out for the longest time if the music was live (there were percussions and strings at times). Finally we spotted the performer inconspicuously situated in a corner behind tables playing his electronic keyboard.

After midnight we ventured back to the video bar and watched classic 80’s music videos as the bar filled up. The nightlife doesn’t really get started to well after midnight. Around 1 pm we headed back to Ipanema. Bruce went to bed and I checked out a few more bars in our neighborhood. Finally around 2 pm the bars were really packed.

Flying out of Rio was a treat. I had the window seat and we took off to the north and circled around east out over the ocean finally heading south. The view from the plane was phenomenal. It really gives perspective to the geography and layout of the city. It is also easy to locate the various beaches. Flying along the Brazilian coast it looks as though the whole coast line in this region has long stretches of sandy beaches.

The flights into and out of Sao Paolo are equally impressive, but for different reasons. It is really hard to grasp the size of a city with 20 million inhabitants. But from the air it becomes evident. There are numerous regions of the city with Manhattan like conglomerations of highrise buildings. I flew in and out of Sao Paulo three times and was never able to identify a center. The city stretches for scores of miles with 20-30 story buildings dotting the landscape. On the outskirts, near the major international airport I saw large subdivisions under development, houses with pools, tennis courts and large lots.

Back in Sao Paulo Bruce and I prepared for Monday. He had to go back to work and I had to catch my flight to Buenos Aires.