Rio

I started and ended my journey in Rio de Janeiro. It wasn't really anything like I was expecting.

I had thought it might be something like, say, Miami in Florida: a party town beach city.

The first thing you notice coming from the airport is a police car which appeared to be doing random "stop checks" on the cars coming out of the airport. I asked the taxi driver why they were pulling people over. "Oh, just to get some money" she said in a resigned manner. Apparently, the idea is, they pull over cars that don't look like everything is in order. Does the driver have all of the right documentation? Is it fully in order? Of course, it probably won't be. So at this point the negotiation starts - you pay some amount of money to avoid being thrown in jail, fined or whatever. Your advantage in this negotiation is that the police don't really want to throw you in jail. They just want some money, then they'll let you go on your way. Of course, this is just second hand knowledge - none of this actually happened to me.

So anyway, the first day I was there we cruised past the police car but quickly encountered rush hour, and the traffic was crawling. Our taxi driver asked us to close the windows, because another common scam is for people to ride past in bikes and reach through the window to grab your bags.

The highway from the airport passes through seemingly endless Favela, stretching as far as the eye can see:

"Favela" is the brazillian word for a "shanty town". The wikipedia article linked above actually provides a pretty accurate description of the Favela situation in Rio, and has some better pictures than the ones I took. When I arrived at the hostel, I found out you can actually take a Favela tour - but I did not go on it. The most noticeable favelas are built on the steep hillsides and are easily visible from the famous Ipanema beach, where the rich and beautiful people hang out. 

Further along the road from the airport, we passed under a bridge where I spotted a policeman camped out with a enormous machine gun. It must have been an AK47 or something. Apparently, they used to have a problem with this particular bridge we passed under: people would come down from the surrounding favela on to the highway and rob the people in their cars. So he was there to prevent that, at least in that location.

I saw a lot of guns in my first day in Rio:

• The AK47 held by the policeman under the bridge.
• Four policeman driving through a favela-landscape, each with machine guns hanging out the window.
• Later in the same day, while walking along the famous Copacana beach a guy gets into a loud argument with another guy and pulls his pistol out of his pants and waves it threateningly at him.

Despite this, my worst memory from Rio was from a conversation on the last night. Another guy from the hostel was out with us - he was a really "matesy" alpha-male macho bloke. Along with dropping hints about the people who worked for him at his winery (to indicate how successful he was presumably), he also said something like: "Yeah these brazillian women: Down in Leblon there are some beautiful girls there, and they're just looking for a way out. If you've got a gringo passport, then they're all over you. So see, there's even hope for you!" he says, slapping me heartily on the back, "We'll even find someone for you!". I told him I didn't need any help. Certainly not from him. I should have probably said more than that.

Well, other than that, I just did touristy things in Rio like hanging out outside the famous post No 9. at Ipanema beach (where the beautiful people hang out - and not a single one-piece swimsuit could be seen - it was all bikinis). Alas, I didn't take my camera for this, as the risk of it being stolen was too high.

Here's a bit of trivia for you. The name "Rio de Janeiro" means "River of January". The original navigators who discovered the area found it on the 1st of January and thought that the bay was actually a river. The story I was told is that traditionally, the Brazillian cities were named after whichever saint was to be honoured that day according to the Catholic calendar. Supposedly 1st January did not have an associated saint. So instead, they named it "River of January". Now that I look, 1st January is named after "Mary, Mother of God" - but maybe this wasn't the case back then, or it wasn't considered appropiate to name a city after Mary, or some other city was already named after Mary.... or maybe the story is all crap.

Still, it was a good interesting topic to bring up with local brazillian girls. I went out and experienced some of Rio's nightlife quite a bit, and had a great conversation with a very nice girl visiting from Brazillia, who also taught me how to salsa... until I stepped on her feet too many times and she wanted to try "dancing with other people". Now that I think about it, possibly talking about saints and the Catholic calendar wasn't really the right topic to talk to a brazillian girl about after all! ;-) For the most part though, the alpha-male guy was right in one sense - being a "gringo" definitely seemed to help matters when going out.

Of course, I had to go up to the top of Corcovado mountain, where the big Christ statue can be found. Here are some pictures, including one of me looking about as dorky and touristy as you can get:

Here also is a movie I took from the top.

Geographically Rio is amazing - huge, humid jungle covered mountains spring up throughout the city, some of them covered with favelas, with long winding dark tunnels for roads that pass through them.

The first time I stayed in Rio it was at the "Mellow Yellow" hostel near Copabana beach. However, we always just went to Ipanema when we went to the beach, and in general, Ipanema is a much nicer part of town than Copacabana. So the second time, I stayed at the "Ipanema Beach House". This is where I would recommend you stay in Rio if you're on your own and would like to meet people. It has a great atmosphere and a bar inside the hostel, as well as a swimming pool.

All in all, Rio trully is an amazing place. The taxi driver I talked to said that Rio was generally in a "crisis" - business was moving out to Sao Paulo, and the crime situation discourages tourists from visiting. I can understand that. But it's also exotic and exciting, and trully unique in the world.... I'd like to go back there for New Year's Eve some time... as I was told it's better even than Sydney's celebrations (which I will experience again this year).