While at a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro, I met an Australian expatriate and his Brasilian best friend who had found each other through the surf. Perhaps what they say is true, and the beach culture that is so prevalent in Rio is largely universal.
In any case, Rio de Janeiro is a city that reminds me much of home. We're staying at the very friendly "Stone of a Beach" hostel by Copacabana beach; a location which is, too, reminiscent of home in Bondi. This is especially true during the weekends, when locals and tourists head to the sand in force. Weekend or not, Jim and I were relentless in our pilgrimages to the salty ocean air, and made the effort to walk a 500 meter stretch each day just to feel the sand between our toes with fresh, juicy coconuts in hand.
At 90 reais (45 dollars) a night and with food prices almost equivalent to those at home, our week in Rio has been the most costly this trip has seen. By the fifth night, we decided to bite the bullet for the sake of budgeting, and relocate to the cheapest dorm room there was. Even with 24 people to the room, shoddy air-conditioning and an external bathroom, however, dorm accommodation set us back a shocking 30 reais each. It took only two nights before the pain of sleeping in a dorm became too much to bear, and I took to sleeping in the TV room instead.
The party never stopped at our hostel, which was home to a host of cheery staff, gregarious backpackers, and a constant barrage of organised social events. With budgets to consider, we bypassed the usual tourist attractions like Cristo Redentor and tours of the favelas, in favour of witnessing a soccer game at the Maracana, and attending a massive street side Samba party,
Touted as the largest soccer stadium in the world with a 95000 person capacity, the Maracana is a must-see for most visitors of Rio. We had the good fortune to be in town for the Brasil cup finals on Saturday, where the country's top team, Sao Paulo, played a local team, Fluminense, which was ranked 6th in the country. It was a very dirty, very exciting game, with a total of six yellow cards dealt out for an array of delectable sporting violence. We attended the game with Pedro who worked at the hostel, and were consequently urged to sit and cheer with the emotionally charged Fluminense supporters. Ole ole ole!
Wednesday night's Samba party was another eye-opener, as the samba band that had earned the right to perform at the February 2008 Carnivale put on a spectacular rehearsal-cum-show on the outskirts of the city. Accompanying the show was a rocking street party complete with food stalls, beer vendors, and a tonne of people flooding the streets to the beat of samba music pumping through the many massive amplifiers lining the street. I was initially intimidated by the sea of locals - not to mention the colt carbine-wielding police officers stationed near the entrance of the party - but soon realised that everyone was just there to have fun and get their samba on.
On Sunday, Copacabana beach hosted a gay pride parade to promote the criminalisation of homophobia. Having never attended Sydney's Mardi Gras festival, I watched in wonder as float after float of gay men, transvestites, bisexuals, lesbians and transexuals passed us by, leaving a sea of dancing revellers in their wake. But the parade was much more than just another party - each float told the sad story of persecution and even murder in the name of homophobia.
The friendliness and genuine helpfulness of cariocas (Rio locals) has been truly impressive. During our city-centre sightseeing on our third day here, we were approached by a retired high-school English teacher who had noticed our lost expressions and offered to point us in the right direction. Coincidentally, he lived in Santa Teresa - a beautiful cobblestoned suburb to which we were headed - and accompanied us all the way there. Our serendipitous meeting also birthed some stimulated conversation about the political history of Brasil, with our new friend carefully explaining how Brasil might have been much improved had it remained an empire. His views certainly shed new light on the anti-socialist graffiti I had noticed throughout the city, as well as on the bus ride towards Rio.
We had some initial troubles in planning how we would spend the rest of our time in South America. Air travel in Brasil is horribly pricey, and being the fifth largest country in the world, overland travel is no small feat. Hostel staff and the backpackers we spoke to were no help; apparently, most people travel around South America in a clockwise direction - opposite to our rather poorly planned venture. We eventually settled for the cheapest possible mixture of overland and air travel, and purchased bus tickets from Rio to Sao Paulo, plane tickets from Sao Paulo to Manaus, with plans of catching a cargo boat from Manaus to the Peru-Colombia-Brasil triple frontier. This certainly will be an adventure!
posted by liz at
1:22 PM
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