Carnavale! - Blogabond

The most noticable thing that struck me upon arrival in South America was my utter inability to either understand or comunnicate with locals. Obviously the fact that they speak a foreign language came as no surprise, but the genuine lack of English has come as a shock. Still, just 3 weeks after arriving in Brazil, I have mastered at least 21 words (I know this as we had it as a category in categories recently), which means by the time I am 2,759 years old- I may well be fluent.

My first South American port of call was Santiago for a night. A city more developed and altogether less scary that I had imagined. I made a few friends and enjoyed dinner, drinks and a club before allowing myself the luxury of 3 hours sleep prior to leaving for Rio the next morning.

I say Rio. My flight actually went via Buenos Aires so I spent most of the day travelling. With the 2 hour loss of time by virtue of flying east, despite leaving Santiago quite early in the morning, by the time I got to Rio the sun was setting over the city. This meant for spectacular views from the plane window, but on the ground upped the scary stakes a few notches.

Prepared as ever, I failed to make a note of my hostel address or in fact anything that may be of use on arrival. So I first had to locate an internet cafe, get my address, then debate a 70Real taxi (nearly 20 quid- and apparently dad´s account doesnt work in Rio...) or a 6Real bus. Uncharacteristically I selected option b- which saved me cash but caused much traumatised sweating as I searched through the Botofogo streets in the dark on a saturday night with all my wordly belongings on me. Nothing happened to me, but I was dripping with sweat through nerves (and it was about 100 degrees) when I arrived at my hostel. Taxis are the new golden rule when carrying all my stuff.

Rio highlights included-

Christ the Redeemer and Sugar Loaf

These are the two most touristy things that are done in Rio. The statue of christ on the top of the Cocovarde gives panaramic views of the whole city and the sugar loaf at sunset lets you watch the sun set over christ and the southern beaches- Copacabana and Ipanema. Rio is undoubtedly the most beutiful setting for a city I have ever seen. Having said this, the buildings are not pretty and look like they could use a clean. But it is still spectacular- the mountains, sea and islands in the bay. People seem to settle where the geography allows.

Sambadrome

Carnavale in Rio comprises a lot of blocos (which are street parties with parades etc) and other concerts, beach parties etc but the most formal event is in the Sambadrome where the 13 best samba schools are allowed to parade for an hour or so in front of over 80,000 people. The sambadrome is effectively a 1km street with stands all down it. 6 schools parade on sunday and 7 on monday- the thing lasts all night. Literally. 8pm til 6am. The locals are mad for it. I thought it would be all tourists- but not at all. The locals are dancing away- all the family- for the whole night. We only had the stamina for 4 schools on the night we went, which I still felt was commendable. If you dont understand the words or the theme of the samba, it is quite easy to make the case that if you´ve seen one parade you´ve seen them all, as some of our hostel buddies did. Still very spectacular, over 35,000 people parade each night too- and half of them leave their gear behind afterwards so you can really get involved on the street at the end. All good fun.

Favela Tour

Favela is the name of a shanty town or equivalent where Rio´s poorest 20% of inhabitants live. Having watched City of God in our hostel, I felt that I should go on a tour and visit one. We went to Roshina- which holds 200,000 people and is the biggest in Latin America. We had an exceptional guide, who made us feel safe and told us a lot about the various aspects of favela life. Of particular interest to me, were the proximity of very affluent appartments to the favelas- literally next door (although I suppose London has shades of this too), the house prices 5 to 80 thousand Real in the one we were in (this is up to 20k pounds) quite a lot, due to the proximity to the city apparently, also the drugs and the gangs that control them. Apparently there are 3 gangs in control in Rio- this one was run by ADA as you can tell from the grafiti. 3 million dollars of drugs pass through it every month- and the police basically dont go in. 2 years ago, 40 people turned up in vans with machine guns trying to steal power away, but didnt manage it. Stakes are quite high.

Maracana

Despite the warnings of our hostel staff that we would be ´crazy to go on our own´- I reasoned that years of schooling at Chelsea Millwall fistures and the like, would adequately prepare me for a local Rio derby at the Maracana. We went to watch (our beloved) Botafogo against Flamengo in the pouring rain in front of around 50,000 people. Interestingly, even though there was lots of aggro between the fans- gun shots at the metro station after the game etc- as a gringo, it was one of the safest I´ve felt as no one is interested in the foreigners. Just each other and nailing one another. Game was a 3-3 thriller and we were only denied a winner by the linesman in the last minute. From a footballing perspective, I noted Brazilians cant defend- and the Makelele position doesnt seem to have been invented here...

written by

tevans1 on March 2, 2007 from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

from the travel blog: Tom's Travels 2007

Send a Compliment

Hello,

I'm a student from Brazil and I'm working on a research project about favela tours. We're now working on the tourists's perceptions about tourism in Rocinha and were wondering if you would like to articipate as an interviewer. We could send you the questions (about 15) by email and would appreciate it if you could get ck to us with any suggestions you find useful.

Thank you for your attention,

Palloma
pallomamenezes@hotmail.com

written by palloma on March 20, 2007

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