We departed July 4th on an overnight flight to Rio de Janeiro. Fear not, however, as we were able to see the fireworks display from the plane: literally hundreds of separate events, all looking like psychodelic exploding fireflies across the state of Texas.
We arrived July 5th to bright and sunny Rio de Janeiro, capital of the world’s tiniest bikinis. We successfully survived our first cab ride through the winding back roads of the city, to arrive in our “gated community” hostel. Casa6ipanema was our home for the next three days and located three blocks from the world famous Ipanema beach.
Due to the many warnings we had received regarding the safety (or lack thereof) in Rio, we did not carry a camera with us for most of this time. We hope to get more photos of Rio soon. For now here is a picture of the hostel kitchen and this next one of our courageous, enigmatic, and vivacious Brazilian “guides” whom we met the night of Live Earth. We hope to get some photos of the concert which included Macy Grey, Lenny Kravitz and many great brazilian artists, at Copacabana beach, soon. However, the event was spectacular, with great music, dancing crowds on the beach, tequila vendors selling shots by the glass complete with limón and salt, and small toddlers who ran around collecting all the cans until almost 1 am.
Our days were spent organizing future travel plans for the next few weeks (see below), lounging on the beach, and writing our masterpiece. The beach in Ipanema is worth the reputation, with a culture unlike any other. Imagine a long strip of fine white sand, perfect for sand castle construction (which many do as a form of income), bordered by clear, blue waters on one side and a screaming fast city street on the other side, with a tiled boardwalk running the length of the strip. High-rise hotels and apartments line the street, and cast long shadows in the late winter afternoon. In fact, the funny thing about Ipanema is, you have to turn your back to the water, to face the sun.
The vendors are a colorful variety, selling all sorts of products from sunglasses to jumbo shrimp to gigantic beach balls to unidentified bags of poofy, salfty, dried, mystery items that had a disturbing resemblance to pork rind (or grind, we are vegetarian, its something like that). Our favorite purchase was a daily dose of fresh coconut water, served right out of the coconut. Now, in Spanish, coconut is Coco. Like as in the coco bean. However, in Portuguese, evidently, coconut is pronounced, COH-co. Where the second “co” is almost swallowed, not very pronounced at all. This is a very important distinction, the reason of which is the following: Coco, with equal emphasis on both “co’s” means poop. Not coconut. So Marah had the fantastic experience of asking the vendor for Two Poops Please, with a big smile. The things your learn, eh?
The beach go-ers are an assorted collection of men and women from all walks of life. Both sexes tend towards small bathing attire, with the men in speedo-like suits, often white, often sheer, and often the chosen uniform for biking riding as well as swimming. The women tend towards colorful, and often sparkely mini micro bathing suits- mind you, none go topless, though we don’t really understand why, (though see theory below) given that the triangle of coverage on the top leaves hardly anything to the imagination. This same sized triangle wedge is also placed along the bum. We promise to photo-document this fascinating apparel upon our return to Brazil in a few days. We also noticed an unusual form of exercise practiced by a good majority of the folks along the beach. We like to call it the sand shuffle. It consists of a very slow jog, only the feet are slid/dragged in the sand, creating small clouds of sand around the feet, while the arms pump vigorously, as if in a sprint. We haven’t yet given this a go , but will attempt it upon our return. This exercise is done while wearing the above described attire. Instead of this native practice, we chose to do yoga in the hostel and on the beach each morning, which was really beautiful.
Overall, the people in Brazil are nice, but Portuguese is a VERY challenging language. The sounds change drastically, depending on the letters preceding or following them. Thus, while a little Spanish knowledge helps in reading, it is completely useless for understanding/listening. Just to test your tongue twister tenacity, here is a Brazilian favorite, that our hosts at the Live Earth thoroughly enjoyed watching us struggle through:
O RATO ROEU A ROUPA DO REI DE ROMA
Remember, it’s a tongue twister, so try to go fast…
A little faster now…
Think you’ve got it??
Feeling confident?
Ok, champ, now for the real test…
This is how it SHOULD be pronounced:
O HATO HO-EY-OO A HOPE-AH DO HEY-YEE DEE HO-MA
Yeah. Gotta love that Portuguese…
Rio is an incredibly densely populated city, with little personal space, from restaurants to the beach (we in fact had the pleasure of awakening from an afternoon snooze on our towels to see a large woman’s rear within 6 inches from our face…nice). But, the scene is lively, and the energy of the people is great. We are looking forward to returning so that we can pay our respect to the big attraction of Rio: a 36 meter tall statue of Jesus Cristo that lords above the city, looking down on all- in fact, his view of the ladies on the beach is quite spot on. Funny that. We think that perhaps that’s the reason for the lack of topless bathing…?
