RIO

RIO?

Rio, that huge magical exotic city, land of samba, our final destination... Our guidebook says that the ‘insolent charm of the marvellous city is irresistible’.

Unfortunately at first it all seems very anticlimactic. We sail in under cloudy skies and arrive at our intended marina in the pouring rain. It is full. Instead we end up somewhere which is expensive, does not have a pool or laundry facilities or working internet, and is in a district about which the guide book says, ‘ take a taxi home’. The weather does not improve. It rains with a vengeance for the first few days. I wander about the city but, still spooked still from my experience in Salvador, stop at each corner and do a two second check asking myself, ‘Is it safe?’.

The things I most want to do; take the gondola to the top of Sugarloaf, hike to Chirst the Reedemer, and visit the botanical gardens, I would like to have sun for, or at least grey skies, but certainly not this continuous downpour we have.

I buy an umbrella. It helps with the rain. It helps with an old groin injury that has reappeared. It could even, I tell myself, be used it to fend off an attacker - though to be perfectly honest my real strategy here is to hope any such person becomes so incapacitated with laughter at my pathetic attempts to defend myself that I have time to get away!

The third day in the early afternoon the sun peeks out and I decide to walk along a series of bike trails and beaches to the legendary Bonofogo beach itself. The trails, beautifully landscaped on a wide strip of parkland right beside the ocean, are totally empty, which is sort of eerie. So too is the first beach. I assume the weather has something to do with this. I had expected each beach to be full of people. The infrastructure is certainly there; a line of booths selling water and beach toys stretching off down the top of the beach towards the horizon and dozens of permanent soccer goalposts and beach volleyball nets, but no people. Eventually a young gay Italian couple arrive and I walk most of the way along the beach with them until they stop and get out their towels. On the second set of bike trails I pass by a group of teens working out. A lone kid on a bicycle starts to pedal back and forth past me so I stop and sit beside an old fisherman, the only other person in view, hoping that eventually someone else will come by that I can walk with. No one does. I am in the middle of a city of 10 million, where is everyone? The fisherman speaks only Portuguese but I manage to ask him if it is safe to walk on the bike trails and his answer - which I had sort of guessed by then – is, ‘No!’. After a while he walks me to the nearest road and, disappointed, I flag down a taxi and take it back to the marina.

I have thanked HS profusely for taking me with him across the ocean. Despite our shared experience we have little to say to each other. I am cranky for the weather to change so I can go out and explore the city and it is obvious he has no desire whatsoever to do so. He is, apparently, content merely puttering about the boat. I consider moving into a hostel in the hopes of finding other people to ‘tourist’ with. In case I choose to do so I pre-write in his “cottage book”.

Herbert,

I am honoured to have been allowed to take part in one leg on Northern Magic. I will always remember how willingly you got up to sit with me during the night every time a squall passed by, or a ship, or even just a shadow that spooked me. Thank you for loaning your flippers, for allowing me to use your computer when in port, and for the many fantastic Stuemer Sunday breakfasts.

I hope you make it to China and walk the great wall.

Cheers, Emily.

RIO!

I take the plunge. I pack up my stuff and say goodbye to HS one last time. I check into the ‘Art Hostel’ which is not only filled with art but has as its logo, ‘the art of bringing people together’. Perfect. I choose a dorm room over a single room because my objective, is, after all, to meet people and though I end up with a room full of British teenagers on a GAP year who all take Portuguese lessons in the morning and volunteer in an orphanage in the afternoons they nonetheless manage to inspire me. Each morning over breakfast they ask what my plans are for the day and then later are keen to discuss what they should put on their list of things to do. They are young and vibrant and filled with a joie de vivre that is both fun and contagious. They have read the Rio guidebooks and have suggestions, things I would not have even considered. In the evenings our room is filled with laughter. The weather does not improve much but I take my trusty umbrella and go out and about and see what there is to see. The Rio I find is like Disneyworld, everything is larger than life and everyone is enjoying themselves. Carnival does not start for a week but fever is building; street performers fill the public squares, huge ‘block parties’ materialize as if out of nowhere, and free concerts on the beach are the norm. Even the local kids are out demonstrating their skills juggling or rope-walking. Totally in tourist mode, I tour the city proper, visit parks and markets and museums, climb the hills to marvel at the views and walk the beaches, which, now the sun has more of less come out, are indeed filled with a million people. Police are everywhere, usually four per intersection. There are ‘real’ police and tourist police, military police and members of the municipal guard and they carry, variously, real guns, or stun guns, or merely large batons. I have no shame; if I am out late by myself and the streets are clearing out too fast I ask them to walk me to the subway. It is all good.

Also I eat. On every street corner someone is cooking up and selling something delicious and the fragrant aromas prove irresistible. In one week I manage to gain back the 20 pounds I lost at sea. And it feels firmly put on. The most interesting snacks are sold in the old city, in amongst colonial architecture, by gentlemen dressed in stereo-typical African or far-eastern garb. I hand over money and shrug and am given a hot delicious curried coconut spring roll or a basket of deep fried squid or something so mysterious that even after having devoured it and licked my fingers to the bone I have no idea if it was meat or vegetable. The best deals however are in what I call the nick-nack market where thousands of stalls are selling used cellphones and CD’s and knock off watches and (stolen) cameras. There you can get an ‘Americano’ burger combo for $2.50 that starts with a fresh baguette bun and a huge beef patty and ham and a fried egg and cheese and generous layers of tomato and lettuce and then is topped with pickles and condiments of your choice. It comes with a milkshake, included in the price, in which a large blender is filled half and half with fresh fruit and vanilla ice cream and made for you on the spot. As they hand all this to you you think you will not be able to finish it but somehow you do, and it is so cheap that it hardly seems as if you have even had lunch so when you pass a popcorn stand an hour later you buy a $1 bag, which is large, and you accidently choose the caramel coated option, and then they pour a can of condensed milk over it before handing it to you, which is, of course, another gazillion calories.  For supper the girls and I often go out to one of the many small corner store restaurants where I generally choose something totally indecipherable off the menu. For $5, which includes a generous tip, we each get a meal large enough for three, which usually comes with a salad, a drink, and a pastry for desert. And then, of course, we all go out for beer.

I try not to think of the many many people starving a mere stone’s throw away. I actively choose not to visit one of the many flavelas (the Rio slums that cling insect-like to the steep hills surrounding the main city) though I feel I ought to. Armed guards take you up a back path by motorcycle and then walk down through with you one-on-one explaining the cultural significance of these neighbourhoods and making sure you are not mugged by the omnipresent drug dealers. I have unintentionally seen enough poverty over the last few months that I cannot bear the thought of deliberately rubbernecking through such a desperately destitute area merely to take pictures of others’ misfortune. I feel that, if I were to go, it ought, theoretically, somehow enrich me, give me greater perspective and understanding about my own existence, perhaps through allowing me to see another side of our mutual human condition, but I am too tired to participate intelligently in the exercise.

It is, I note with shock, time to go home.