RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (part two)

It was on a Thursday, which was the day after I moved into the apartment, that I first tried to go see the Christ The Redeemer statue on top of nearby Corcovado Mountain. I went to the main Copacabana tourist info office, which also happened to be right across the street from my pad, and asked about tours to the statue. Surprisingly enough, the adorable girl working there recommended going alone on the city bus, then taking the train up the mountain. The bus stop was actually right in front of the front door to my building so there I waited. A young man who spoke no English was selling tickets, supposedly to be used on the bus for the exact fare of 1.60 Reals, but I was told I could pay cash on the bus. Once again, my suspicions were raised. Why would I buy a ticket from some kid when I could just pay on the bus? I first refused, but after I saw a bunch of locals doing it I was sure it was safe so I bought one. It turns out that the transit company must allow or even encourage this to save the cashier on the bus the trouble of giving out change to some people. A pair of Dutch guys approached me while I was waiting and one asked, “Are you a tourist?” which at the time seemed like an odd opening line. He then asked if I knew where to get the bus to the Christ statue so I told him he was in the right place. I chatted with those guys all the way up on the bus ride. Rio is another of those cities where the bus drivers drive as fast as they possibly can, regardless of the comfort or safety of the passengers. Some people complain about that, but I’m sure I would complain if they drove slowly and more cautiously.

We weren’t sure we would know our stop on this local bus that was winding through town, but when we got there the driver shouted out “Corcovado!” to signal to the tourists they were in the right place. We stepped off and were met by about a dozen tour touts who were trying to convince everyone to pass on the train and go up with them in a van for the same price. It sounded suspicious at first, but the Dutch guys (one of whom spoke Spanish) opted to go with a Spanish driver/guide up the mountain. If they had only walked a few steps more they would have realized that most of the other drivers actually speak English, but they took the first one they met so I suppose the one guy had to translate for the other guy. I decided to go on the train as I had heard that it’s a worthwhile attraction unto itself. I walked up to the ticket window and the only people in line in front of me wanted to buy tickets and the cashier squarely told them it was cloudy up there and you can’t see anything. They left and I asked myself, “Do you mean you can’t see the city views at all?” and she said, “No, you can’t see anything”, meaning not even the statue itself. The Dutch guys were only in town for that day so they had to go then, but I’m pretty sure they had a disappointing trip. Since I had another week I decided to get back on the bus and wait for another day.

That other day came on Sunday, when it was totally clear for the first time in a week. That Sunday was also the second official day of Carnaval so the town was as crowded as it possibly could be. The morning was actually a bit cloudy, but around 10 a.m. it was suddenly nothing but clear, blue skies. I knew it would probably be crowded up there, but I decided it would fit perfectly into my schedule since I had a few other things planned for other days. I took the bus and already I was getting suspicious since just looking around I could tell nearly everyone on the bus this time was a tourist and was also headed for Corcovado. There was even a traffic jam while still on the bus, so when we arrived I jumped off first since I knew exactly where I was going and I wanted to get in line before the other 30 or so tourists on the bus.

I found the end of the line, but it was actually the middle since it was bending at that point and when I found the actual end I could tell this was going to be a long day. There were hundreds of people in line in front of me and the trains can only take a fixed number of people each trip. In front of me were David, a guy from New Zealand, and Jackie, his English girlfriend. We discussed the dire situation and I mentioned the guides I had seen 3 days earlier. They were strangely absent that day and were probably all taken at that point. We were then told the line would be about two hours long and then another hour or so wait to actually board a train for the 25-minute ride up the mountain. The three of us agreed to try to find a guide since the train was going to be an all-day thing. The guy flagged down a taxi that said he would take us for 60 Reals, one-way, as opposed to the 30 Reals each, round trip for the train. We didn’t know how we would get down at that point.

We jumped in a taxi with a non-English speaking driver, but Jackie spoke enough Spanish to communicate some. Our driver sped up the hill and we were sure we had just scored a big transportation coup. The cab went around one corner and then another and another. The trip was longer than we expected and then suddenly we were stopped in traffic. To make a long story a bit shorter, we were in stop-and-go traffic for another 45-minutes or so up a steep mountain and when we suspected we were close enough we all decided to get out and walk the rest of the way since pedestrians were all making better time at that point. Our driver said it was a 30-minute walk from there and was very happy to get his money and turn around and go back down. We jumped out and only a few hundred meters later we got to the official entrance to the park. A fork in the road gave us two options and we first walked a bit up the wrong one, then back down, then back up the right one. We thought we were very close, but it turns out it’s more than a mile to the top from there and it’s steep uphill and winding all the way. David and Jackie were lagging behind so I eventually just went on my own. It was only about 70 degrees, but I was starting to sweat since it was basically like being on a stair-climber for 30 minutes. I was happy that my aerobic health seemed to be good since I didn’t get out of breath at all, but it was still aggravating because every turn in the road held out some hope that the top was near, but one after another the hope was dashed as another corner was revealed.

I finally made it to the top and was not at all surprised to see an enormous crowd there. Once the road ends you have another few sets of long, cruel stairs until you get to the final two escalators to get to the base of the statue. Christ The Redeemer is enormous, but in itself it isn’t worth the headache. The problem is it’s one of those tourist attractions that you can’t just pass on. Even if people were to say it’s no big deal, you can’t go to Rio and come back and tell people you didn’t even bother with it. The thing that actually makes it worthwhile is the view on a clear day. It was clear that day and the statue is on the highest peak offering 360-degree views of the amazing city. It really can’t be stressed enough how unusual the setting of Rio seems to be with beaches and lakes and mountains and hills and bays and everything else.

One annoying thing about a crowd like that at a place like that is that it’s such a hassle to get there that people lose all respect for anyone else when they finally get there. There is a large area below the statue tailor-made for photographing the thing, but people were all trying to get themselves in the photograph too so there would be one person with a camera carelessly backing into other people while their friend(s) pose up the stairs so everyone else has to scramble to try to avoid coming between them. That wouldn’t be so bad, but it seems like most people with digital cameras are incredibly slow photographers. I don’t mind pausing in my tracks while someone is taking a photo, but TAKE THE GOD DAMN SHOT! Life is short!

After taking a few quick snaps myself I bought two beers and a couple of delicious chicken-filled croquettes for lunch at the snack shop there. Once again I was astounded that the prices were just about as cheap as they were in town. I think two beers and a filling lunch of those chicken things cost me about $3.50 total. I then had to figure out how to get back down. There was still an infinite-seeming parade of taxis and tour vans coming up and going down the mountain so I decided to walk down to where the traffic jam stopped. A taxi driver on top quoted me 60 Reals ($23) to take me down, but there was no way I was going to do that. I walked down about a mile, which was obviously far less work than the walk up, and the traffic jam seemed to ease, at least going down. I found a few taxi drivers who didn’t speak any English chatting in a parking lot outside of the main entrance and asked how much to go down. It took a few tries, but he told me it would be 20 Reals to the bottom or 40 Reals all the way to Copacabana. I was exhausted and wanted to just walk around the beach on this first beautiful day of my stay. I jumped in the cab and told him to take me to the bottom so I could catch the 1.60 Real bus back to Copacabana, but after a minute or so I had second thoughts and told him to take me all the way to Copacabana. I am glad I did. I was down the mountain in 10 minutes and at my flat 15 minutes after that. The bus option would have been another big, crowded headache and would have taken me probably about an hour longer. He dropped me across the street from my building and I went upstairs, showered and hit the beach for another couple of stress-relieving brewskis.

For the next couple of days the weather was perfect. It was around 80 during the day, sunny, and not particularly humid. At night it was around 65, which was very comfortable to sleep in with just the top sheet on my bed. I had a problem the day earlier when I kicked the power cord out of my laptop and the end came off. It was already partially broken from all the abuse of this trip, so it seemed like it was only a matter of time before it needed to be replaced anyway. I found out that Macintoshes are incredibly rare in Brazil, partially due to the enormous cost of them in relation to the low wages of most Brazilians. I think PC clones can be brought in for a reasonable cost, but it turns out a Mac that sells for about $1,000 in the States goes for more than twice that in Brazil, which is a lot of money for them. It was a real scavenger hunt trying to find a new cable. I looked on the apple.com website and saw nothing about a retailer in Brazil and I was also shocked to see that the part costs $80 in the U.S. Uh oh!

I asked around and found a store that sells Macs nearby in Copacabana. I was thrilled they were actually open because even though it doesn’t look like it, Carnaval is actually a serious religious holiday there and everything not directly related to tourism is closed for the duration. I found the place and went in only to discover what could only be described as a Mac museum. It was, in fact, full of Macintosh computers, but I saw nothing manufactured since maybe 1999, which is like 100 years in the computer world. Nothing was being sold as new, of course, and everything was just stacked on top of each other on shelves. Thrift stores in the U.S. are better places to find computer gear than this place and obviously they didn’t have my power cable. The helpful woman running the place told me there was a store in Barra de Tijuca (about 10 miles south) that would be open and have what I was looking for. She told me which bus to get on, and about 45 minutes later I was at an upscale shopping center called Barra Shopping in an upscale southern suburb. I found the FNAC electronics store she was talking about and they did actually sell new Macs, but they had no replacement parts. One guy there told me to go to another shopping center in town called Shopping Downtown that would have it.

I had to take a taxi to that one, which cost about $5, but at that point I was determined to get the thing. This was an outdoor mall with no visible directory, but a girl at an info booth told me where to find the Apple store. It turned out not to be one of the new, glitzy company-owned Apple Stores opening up around the world, but it was in fact a store that sold nothing but Apple computers. They had the cable and it cost 440 Reals ($169). Ouch!!! I almost walked out without the thing. I figured I could pick one up in Lisbon 5 days later for less, but I thought about it and figured it might not be much cheaper and I really needed to work and keep track of my photos and keep my journal and whatnot. I bought the thing and took the bus back to my pad.

The only other touristy thing I intended to do was go on a tour of one of the Favela neighborhoods. Those are the disgusting and crowded slums built on the hillsides of Rio and throughout Brazil, and strangely enough have become a big tourist attraction. I wasn’t sure about even doing it so I put it off until my last day. Mainly I just did computer work in the morning then marched up and down Copacabana Beach, occasionally straying up to Ipanema, which again, is identical for all intents and purposes. My theory about why Ipanema is so much more expensive that Copacabana is that the subway from downtown reaches Copacabana, but the link to Ipanema has not yet been completed. This means most locals from inland parts of the city head to Copacabana while Ipanema remains the bastion of the rich and the tourists.

I walked on the beaches and on the sidewalks for a while then would sit down at one of the plastic-chair cafes spaced out every 100 meters and order a coconut water or a beer or two, then move on. There was always decent music in the background and it was very pleasant for long periods of time in the nice beach weather. In the evenings I would find an affordable restaurant and then go back to my place fairly early. It was strange to me that the nightlife in Copacabana was almost non-existent during Carnaval. I think a few really touristy places were jumping, but overall the streets were pretty empty after dark except the sidewalk across from the beach with all of its overpriced outdoor restaurants. I ate at a few of them, mostly because the ambience actually justifies the price of the mediocre food to some degree.

My last day in Rio had arrived and I finally booked the Favela tour. My flight to Lisbon didn’t leave until 8 p.m. so it was extra nice to have an apartment I could leave late instead of a hotel where you are usually forced out by noon. I was picked up for the tour in front of the tourist info office across the street at 9:30 a.m. along with a couple from Ireland. The 8-passenger van already had 7 people in it so we had to be shoehorned into very tight spots, then we were on our way. We actually stopped another time to pick up more people at a hostel, but this time the driver met the new passengers and then hailed a taxi then told the taxi driver to follow the van. I thought this was very smart. It turned out this guy owned the company and the van, so instead of restricting the tours to a set number he just hires a taxi for any overflow and the cost of the tour more than takes care of the cab fare.

We pulled up in front of a supermarket at the bottom of the hill containing the Favela. We walked across the street while the guide told us we would get up to the top of the hill in the traditional way of the locals, which is on the back of a motorcycle taxi. I was not thrilled about that. There were about 10 of us and one by one the others got on the back of a small motorcycle while a local man drove them up the steep hill. I was the last to go since the guide had to find a larger motorcycle to handle me because of the steepness. The men were instructed to sit on the back and hold the post behind us while the girls were instructed to hold the driver. Motorcycles are already dangerous enough without extra passengers in already dangerous countries. Surprisingly, the ride was not as terrifying as I had anticipated, but the motorcycle stalled near the top of the final and steepest hill. That was only about 100 yards from the top so the guide, who was on another bike next to mine, and I just walked to the top to meet the rest.

The first thing you notice is the unbelievable view. Once again, Rio is a breathtaking city and it’s sort of ironic that from the slum on the mountain you get a view of everything around you except the slum you are standing in. In other words, it’s just amazing in every direction. The guide began to explain a bit about the neighborhood, but it didn’t seem nearly as ragged or scary as I had imagined. We started just walking down the same road the motorcycles came up on for a while, then we detoured onto a very thin sidewalk path for the rest of the tour. Basically, it’s a shabby, mostly paved staircase that winds down and down and down the mountain to the very bottom. He pointed out a few kids who were guards for the drug dealers that in fact make up most of the economy of the neighborhood. We were told when the lookout kids see any police they light firecrackers to let everyone know where the police have been sighted. The guide said he hadn’t heard anything in a few days because it was Carnaval and the police were preoccupied with that, but this was the day after Carnaval and sure enough, we heard some firecrackers before we reached the bottom.

We stopped at an art studio where some local painters were selling some really overpriced local paintings and amazingly a few people in our group actually fell for it and bought some paintings. They were well done, but not worth the $60 or $80 they were asking compared to anything I had seen elsewhere. We also stopped at a childcare center where a few hammy kids would pose and insist that people in our group photograph them. The guide told us this would happen and our group contained about 5 girls and they kept snapping away, even though the kids didn’t ask for anything in return. We met quite a few kids who just approached us and asked for money directly, but our guide encouraged us to ignore those pleas, and we did. Most of the children were just normal looking poor kids, but for some reason the girls in the group kept taking pictures and a few of the guys did too. The only one that was even sort of cute was a two-year-old boy who insisted on high-fiving everyone in our group.

The one thing I will never forget about that tour is the smell. The sewage system consists of open canals, many running alongside, or even crossing the sidewalk on which we walked. A few times the smell was so bad I could barely breath and it definitely made the whole thing a semi-miserable experience. For $25 I thought this 3.5 hour tour was a bit of a rip off and I was very glad to get in the shower upon returning to my apartment, but the more I thought about it I am glad I did it. It really isn’t much different from touring a slum in any developing country, but seeing it up close like that actually did give some real perspective to neighborhoods like that. Most tours are actually a bit more expensive than that and just include a short walk through the neighborhood or a ride in the back of a jeep, but I was told this was the most real and I’m sure it is. It was basically a two-mile walk down a winding staircase and afterward my calves hurt quite a bit, similar to how you feel after going skiing for the first time in a long time.

I became friends with a guy named Lucas who works at the tourist info office. We talked a lot about music, as he is a singer and guitar player. He gave me his CD and I was surprised when I played it and he is very good. He sings in English and French, strangely enough. We hung out for a few hours on Ipanema one afternoon and he gave me some local perspectives and insights and we discussed him recording some vocals for a Bossa Nova-inspired track I would like to do when I get back to a studio.

I was able to get the $2 airport shuttle when I was leaving and I got to the airport early for my short flight to Sao Paolo followed by a long, overnight flight to Lisbon.