Travel : South America: Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rio de Janeiro Carnaval Week (February 2002)

Nobody's hands are clean: Rocinha (Rio de Janeiro Part III) 2/21/04 12:26 pm

Nobody could go to Rio, and not go to.....

Rocinha.

Well, just what did you expect me to say? Rocinha (pronounced Ha-seen-ya) means "my small plot of land," is the biggest (and most dangerous shantytown) in the mountains of Rio de Janeiro. It's where all the drug and cocaine deals take place at night. It is called Rocinha because when it first started many years ago, it was a farmland where farmers settled. They'd harvest their vegetables and go down to the beaches to sell it. When people asked them where they got such beautiful bounty, they'd say "Rocinha." Decades later, it started building on top of one another, sprawling, much like the impromptu street fairs around town.

Water trucks come and pump water into plastic hoses that go up to the small shacks. A primitive garbage chute consists of tossing garbage down a mountain side, which would then empty onto an open air trash pile, which the trucks come to fetch. Trafic is a big problem in the small main street. Since people don't have addresses, postal routes consist of dumping mail into a basket where people would come and periodically check for anything that has their name written on it.

If you ever go to Rocinha, keep your eyes above street level. Since the town grew skyward, you'll see many things where you normally would only see sky. There's kids laughing, flying a kite, waving, and people looking out windows. Deep in the heart of the labyrinthian closes, a light shone from a small cavelike cubicle. I looked inside, and it was a dvd rental shop, with a poster of Lord of the Rings (or trilogy ring, or whatever it is you guys call it).

The duality of Antonios Carlos Jobim's "Quiet night and quiet stars" that lies in the line "And a window that looks out on Corcovado" can be discovered in Rocinha. The shantytown has many shacks that look out on Corcovado (where the statue of Jeebus stands). And the truth is, the Girl From Ipanema does not necessarily live in Ipanema. They may be coming down from the mountains to get a bit of the high life.

I asked my guide, "are the cocaine deals that take place in Rocinha for consumption in Rocinha?" already guessing the answer. She shook her head disgustedly. "It´s for the rich people in the Ipanema beaches."

So I said, "so where did all the money go?"

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The Good People of Jacare (Rio de Janeiro Part XI) 2/23/04 01:58 pm

The single comment I get from people the most is "You have a criminal mind" (also, in another variation: "You should be a lawyer.")

I was waiting for the bus to get to Pao de Acucar when I lost patience and hopped on the Central bus (which passes by the Sugarloaf road as well). A travel guide book I once had mentioned that the non-Air Conditioned bus is one of the spookiest rides around town. People have been known to get robbed, to the extent that they have now repositioned the ticket collector's chair mid-length of the vehicle. It didn't seem that scary to me on the first few days in Rio, but when it's completely packed like a sardin can and I was standing, Spooky would be an understatement. All my pockets were at eyelevel to the seated passengers. The only thing that saved them from entertaining any thoughts of bopping-for-cd332's-empty pockets was that they were all glaring at me with stabby eyes.

So I got off at the next stop by Flamengo. Surely it must be better than being on the bus, I can at least run off. Then I noticed that the only path was a bridge, and there were five young men on it. Any path that restricts your points of escape is not recommended, but I kept my cool. How bad could it be? I got to the beach and headed for Sugarloaf. Then it suddenly got dark. Ok, I can take my time walking. Then it started to drizzle. (I was carrying a camera). I ducked into a bus stop, but I didn't have a bus route map. So I took the next one that had "via Copacabana" on it. I could always get off and walk in a safer place. Then it started to pour. Tropical rainforest pour. Ok. So I'll get off at the central terminal. The bus bypassed the central terminal. Now it is pouring, I am on a bus going in the opposite direction, and nobody speaks English. No big.

Here was my dilemma. If I opened my mouth to ask the ticket collector, I would immediately draw attention to myself. And though the ticket collector's intentions may be good, the other passengers could easily pick up on the conversation. I had two choices. I could ask, and the ticket collector could tell me which empty stop to get off at (and make an exchange) and someone presumably could get off at the next stop and walk back towards me. Or I could hang tight with the bus and hope it turns around at the end of the line.

With each successive turn though, the bus went deeper and deeper into an abandoned ghetto. I got a map, I kept calm. I can always go back to town. No. The streets were now flooded from the tropical rain. Up to a foot in some areas. The underwater streets have no lights. The roads were now twisting and turning uphill. The bus wasn't even able to stop anymore. There wasn't orderly perpendicular town planning, so I couldn't memorize "two lefts, and two rights, then another left...." No, it was twisting uphill, towards another shantytown. It was pitch black. One by one, the passengers got off.

If it weren't for the fact that I have sat at convenience stores in towns that looked like this, back home in my father's hometown Taiping, Malaysia, and watched residents come in to buy 3 inches of steel wire for 1 penny, and watched my dad's people climb to the top shelf to retrieve and cut it, I'd be panicking already. As it were, I said to myself, "well, they're just people like anybody else."

How bad could it be? I asked myself. The bus stops, the driver gets up, changes the destination sign, and the collector says, "Everyone off, end of the line."

I looked at the sign on the stop, and it said "Jacare." (Outskirts of downtown Central) Four or five old men and women sat in boxes staring at me. Up the street, a bunch of young men walked towards us, banging on signs loudly. Surely the drivers were used to this. I looked at their faces. There was apprehension as they looked at the gang of kids.

So after much arm-flapping, looks of bewilderment, and a persistent shaking of the head from the ticket collector ("Lord, what possessed your fool head to come down to South America alone without knowing a word of Portuguese?!!!") I could speak several phrases, but I didn't know what they were saying at all.

After five minutes of laughing, more head-shaking, and nods of agreement, it was decided that they'd have to look after this stray duckling and get him back to town. They sat me in the very front seat and gestured to me that they'll get me back home. One stop after another, the bus driver were letting farejumpers hop on the bus without paying. The bus was getting loaded like a pack of sardines. People were giving the thumbs up as they got on and the driver and ticket collector looked the other way. Well, at least I don't have to stand. With the way it was packed, anything could happen. At least all my pockets were packed tight against the seat and my camera was out of sight.

Then an old lady got on at the next stop.

Well, I got up and gave it up for her, of course.

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A funny thing happened on the way to Sugarloaf (Rio de Janeiro Part X) 2/25/04 03:55 pm

A funny thing happened on the way to Sugarloaf.

Corcovado was too cloudy, so I decided to head for Sugarloaf.

On the way there, I had a bus exchange to Urca. I decided to hoof it across the street. I mean, it was broad daylight, the sky was now blue, it was noon, and there were joggers all around.

As I passed underneath a small tree, I felt a tug on the strap of the unassuming case that carried my camera. I thought to myself, "My friends used to do that to my shoulder bag. But wait, I have no friends in Rio De Janeiro."

I turned around and two young men were standing there. One was holding a serrated kitchen knife two inches from my belly. I was trying to think whether I remembered to erase the naked self-portraits of myself in those string bikini thongs when he started feign-thrusting the knife ominously close to my stomach. He pulled on the strap and the camera case came off. They both shouted "Camera! Camera!" As they ran off, the guy holding the knife changed his mind, came back, and jammed his hand into the breastpocket of my shirt. "Hey!!!! My 25 cents!!!"

As they ran off, I congratulated myself on the fact that my stomach was still intact. Nothing is worth getting stabbed over.

I looked across the street and a weaponless security guard outside a condo looked equally stupefied. We both raised our arms, gesturing, "No, this is NOT happening."

Then in the stillness, my memory suddenly returned:

Wait a minute. I'm not in the economic bracket where I can afford to lose and replace a camera!"

F**k it. I'm going for it.

The next moment, I am running out onto 6 lanes of traffic in Avenida Pasteur, and remembering Dave Atell's advice to add "o" to every English word to generate bastardized Latin, I screamed "Thievo!!! Thievo!!!" (I saw bystanders scratching their heads out of the corner of my eyes.)

I didn't know what I would do when I got to two guys with a knife, I just knew to keep them in sight. As I heard car and bus tires screeching, I turned in time to see a police car coming around the clubhouse turn. I raised my arms and screamed "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Luckily, Sargent Da Silva was inside, and without even nodding, he gave orders for the driver to floor it and head towards the direction I was pointing at. Up ahead, I saw my two muggers slowing down to a walk, congratulating themselves.

The police car pulled up, and now the machine gun came out.

The two guys are on their bellies. I got up to the car, and the Sargent told me to stand still. He shoved the two guys in the backseat of the little subcompact police car.

Then he told me to get in with the guys who were about to stab me less than 60 seconds ago.

As the police car roared off with sirens blaring. The sargent turned around, pulled out his .45 semi automatic and started waving at the guy next to me, shouting. The barrel was coming pretty close to my own face. The guy started sobbing.

The car flies into a tourist police station and we were all brought in.

4 hours later, I was asked to sign a document in Portuguese, which was the official police report. I did. Even though I didn't know what it meant. I was told the guys would be transferred to a prison and await a courtcase. The sargent and his officer took me back to my hotel.

Remembering that I read somewhere that Rio policemen got paid a pittance, and was under no obligation to do the right thing, as we got to the hotel, I leaned over and handed the two guys R$30.00. I said, "Let me buy dinner for you two for all the trouble I caused."

The sargent thanked me.

I went to my room, changed, drank some brews and headed out.

When I got back in the middle of the night, there was a message for me. It was the sargent offering personal security protection.

He was good. But then, he doesn't know that cd332 is easily replaceable.

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Sambadromo Carnaval (Rio de Janeiro Part XI)

Sitting in a subway towards Praca Onze, one gets to see participants in various samba schools get on at each stop. They are in various stages of being costumed, so the entire ride is quite colorful. Drunken passengers also chant favorite songs in unison, and that's one thing I have to point out: Unless you know the current favorites by heart, and are able to sing them along with everyone else, you will be missing a very big part of the Carnaval experience. From the street parades to Sambadrome and everything in between, you need to know the songs! By heart! In Brasiliero!

I originally came down to see the Carnaval parade at Sambadromo. After talking to many of the locals, it seemed to me that only tourists are able to afford entry tickets. ($50-$3000 US dollars per night per person (The parade is 4 nights)) The most common route for a local to get in would be to become a member of a Samba school and be in the parade. Once in, your family members get complimentary seat tickets.

The haves, not having to work for it, get the seats nearer to the entrance of Sambadrome, where the paraders come in full force. The box seats command the highest snob value, although the belief is that the view from there is overrated. (That is news?) By the time they make it to the very end of this rectilinear open-air stadium, they are all out of steam. Some even take off their costumes and gear. Seats here are $4.00 USD. It is usually sold out. When the winners of the parade have been selected, there is a festival of champions, with the winner and the five runner ups going one round again, a week later. The tickets are half priced. The tourists will be all gone by then.

And most of the locals around here can't even afford that. (Here, I am aware that my information may be based, unfairly on the people who were willing to talk to me).

So the next option is to go to a fenced off square the length of a football field. (Behind Sector 1, pass Viaduto Sao Sebastio elevated roadway) Look at map. Guest stars of the parade sometimes drop in to perform a little for the people. There's a full stage and many other bands pay. You could go in and drink, dance, and have merriment. Entrance ticket: ($1.00 USD).

On my own, I found three other options. One is to go to the top of Viaduto Sao Sebastio, an elevated roadway that is right behind Sambadrome. The locals stand there and watch the parade between the cracks of huge sector stands. Carnaval planners use big screens to block off larger cracks so these folks won't be able to get a good view. Samba and Carnaval originated in the favelas where most of these roadyway viewers live. Now why do you suppose they'd go do something like that?! I saw an old man carrying a container selling Skol beer. He wanted to have a look between the cracks, but was too short. I gestured to him to get in front of me to get a better view. He looked at me as if I'm about to rob him from behind. No, he's not used to charity. He declined.

The second option was to go to the other side of side of the roadway (top of map) that overlooks the Avenida Presidente Vargas. Here, samba schools gather and face each other in diametrically-opposed configuration, taking turns to enter the Sambadrome. They are fully dressed. The music was audible, and most of the school members will already been dancing when they enter behind the walls. Avenida Presidente Vargas was well lit (so the parade members can get their stuff in order). So people vied for a good spot here.

In order to get to the third option, I had to get off the elevated roadway. In order to do that, I had to take a jughandle ramp that was enclosed on both sides by tall iron-barred fences. As I walked and came upon an abandoned police car, parked sideways to block entry to the roadway, then a pile of burning rubble, overturned shopping carts, and the smell of urine, I started wondering what anyone could do if I was attacked. Everyone could see it happening, but no one would have been able to climb the twelve-foot fence. I held my breath and kept a steady pace.

On the street level, there was a channel (left of map) that separates the warm up Avenida P. Vargas from the non-parade viewers. Many people pack shoulder-to-shoulder and even bring folding chairs to sit and the very tip of the concrete duct which forms the channel. I sat and watched for a little while. You could smell some slight traces of raw sewage and stagnant water, but a couple of sausages on skewers and a bottle of home-made batida (ba-shee-sa: cachaca with cocoa milk) could easily chase away the stench.

After two nights of doing this, I was recommending these non-Sambadrome Carnaval activities to a European couple at an internet cafe. When I finished, the man turned to a local and asked, "So where can we slip the guards some money so they can get us in?" Then he turned to me and winked, "They're all in on it."

"To an outsider, it looks like so much indulgence, but for those who live in the favelas where the samba was born, Carnival invokes a fierce sense of tradition, a unifying force that gives political, emotional, and even spiritual nourishment to those who feel deeply disenfranchised from the (mostly white) center of power."

Samba Culture

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"Fun things to do in Brazil. Stay Away from Praca Maua" 2/27/04 02:19 pm (Rio de Janeiro Part XII)

My parents had two different styles of traveling.

Mom wanted everything organized, a hotel with a nice lobby, packaged, tea things, decent.

Dad wanted to blow into town, seek out accomodations, drop in on the tourist info booth, find out about the places in town where tourists were advised to stay away from, and make a bee-line for it.

Me, I love pulling the veils aside and watching the puppeteer's hands move. You want to see how his joints move, so you can understand how the figures on stage are moving.

The beach front of Copacobana and Ipanema is very decent. It is expensive, clean, and everyone speaks English. The tourists are European, American, White. The marble lobbies are cool, clean, safe, white. People hang out in the American Airlines air-conditioned counter and shrug off a $200 ticket change surcharge (approximately 80-100 counter lunches for the average working class Rio person).

Next street over, N.S. Copacobana Avenue, the homeless beggars and shelterless families jarringly sprout out. Nobody speaks English anymore. People are all business. Discount business, where people haggle over cents on shadowed countertops. The citizens do wrap their leftovers and hand them over to the beggars. To me, it was something wonderful, strangely rare, refined. Seeing a half-finished crepe change hands on the sidewalk paid for this trip alone. An old lady, hunched over, in transit, stops to hand a R$2 bill to an old transient she passes every day.

Next street is Barata Ribeiro. It has shops for the average everyday folks. A storage space here, a grocery shop there. I am no longer seeing marble floors, just tiles, worn by everyday feet.

Up ahead, a favela looms on the mountainside, ironically overlooking the ocean and the watching the fugue of several layers of classes play itself out.

Behind the Morro (mountains) where the favela sits, the rich jog around the Lagoa (lake). They are fit, healthy, a stone's throw away from the best plastic surgeons in the country. They are protected. Their windows look out on Corcovado. And a shantytown. Depending on which way your neck is turning.

Botafogo has dark streets. There is a baxia (bar filled streets) here and there. The developing country feel is coming back to me.

Flamengo Catete Gloria, mostly business. A downtown with a no-nonsense beachfront. The locals come here for affordable pleasures at night. A walk on the beach, a drink at a corner cafe. There is no sheen here.

Lapa, Centro, ferries out to Niteroi. Work, shop, work, shop, work work. Shipping bays, shipping docks, shipping people.

I turn a corner on a darkened alley and head for the light up ahead. I had wanted to see if there was any good dancing at the Scandinavia or the Florida. Two dance clubs listed on a Rio guide website.

There is. Thuggish guys stand at the door, they let me pass through. Topless women dancing around poles in a platform in the middle runway lengthwise of the bar, working girls cruising for more work all around. The place was hopping. I see an Asian guy sitting at the table give me the thumbs up. Next to him, another Asian guy. Under an opened window, two Asian guys with Brazilian gals. I looked out the window, and see a sign across the street, "Philipino Bar here." I looked around me, all Asian guys drinking beer.

I head for the Florida, another bar, another set of topless girls, another roomful of Asian guys. I sit and order a beer (3 times the price for the bottle in an Ipanema chopperia). A girl slides up next to me, I said, "aw no falloo portugays." She smiled. "Are you in shipping?"

I said I was a tourist passing through. She lost interest immediately and left. I head for the street fares around Sambadrome.

Back here, I typed in "Praca Maua" to remember the club names that I dropped in on. The two that jumped out at me were:

"Fun things to do in Brazil. Stay Away from Praca Maua" (link dead)
"Filipino sailors favored in Brazil Ports"

Everyone needs to relax in their own way and have a good time, I suppose.

Especially if you've spent the whole day unloading crates of fine marmalade headed for the Copacabana Palace Hotel.

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A Certain Tenderness ( Final Night, Rio de Janeiro XIV ) 2/29/04 11:12 am

One of my loves of cities lies in the sheer density of stories that await you at each street corner. A small town has one main street where all the action takes place. The possibilities of paths crossing increase dramatically in a city of endless intersections.

After I was released from the police station, I made my way over to Vinicius Piano Bar in Ipanema to try and catch Maria Creuza's bossa-nova act. It wasn't opened, so I walked down Rua Vinicius de Moraes and came upon a charming little cd/bookstore, Toca do Vinicius, wholly devoted, it seems, to bossa nova, samba, and Jobim. They have porcelain Jobim, rare Jobim outtakes, Jobim tats, Jobim books (in both languages). The proprietor was a nice lady who looks like a fitter Jobim. I wondered if they had a Jobim inflatable heart.

The clientele flipped through Jobim selections in dazed reverie, singing in unison to one Jobim classic after another.

I thoroughly pampered myself and bought two books on samba rhythmic improvisation.

I then turned the corner and came upon a hip dance club, Casa da Lua, across the street from Praca da Paz. A line of beautiful, glamourous, hip boys (all with regulation goatees, all with fashionable spikey wet-look, all with big collar chest unbuttoned shirts, and flared jeans) and hip girls (all with perfectly straight high-maintenanced long hair, high-maintenanced fabulously cut bodies, and high-maintenanced skimpy expensive clothes).

Like a disheveled desert weed blowing in from the wild, I got on line.

The girls gave me this look that said: I know you can't afford me.

So I returned that look with a different look that said: I know you can't afford me.

To their credit (and my amazement), a very hip Miami couple - okay, just the hip guy - made small chat with me.

I asked him if there was an actual dance floor inside the place.

"That booming sound you hear, well, that's the beat of the dance music."

I lowered and exposed my forehead so he'd know I was considering his information: "I see."

Inside, everyone looked like everyone else. I thought about the carbon paper the Sargent back at the police station was preciously saving for further use, after filling out my report. Looking at the people in this joint was like flipping through a fantastic fashion magazine while colored lights pulsed overhead.

I was trying to get over the fact that they even admitted me through, in my present condition, when I was informed: "5 to get in, 70 for drinks minimum per person." The girl at the ticketing podium, scandalized at my entry, handed out a bingo-like card after writing my name on it. The hip guy said, "have a great time!" (That's impressive.)

I thought about how many excruciating minutes it would take for me to finish R$70 worth of cocktails,and how the city outside would be unfolding in my final hours, and right there on the spot, I invented my first original dance step in Rio. I call it The 180 Samba.

A skinny unassuming, undernourished cute guy at the corner chopperia off Rua Farme de Amoedo serves me another large bottle of cerveja (for the sake of comparison on how different people make money: R$3) off the counter. I have been taking off with a bottle each night I pass by his tiny stand. After I redirect its contents into its proper place, I'd hold the long neck like a handle for my walk through the darkened streets back to Copacobana from Ipanema.

He knows I'm going to leave without returning his bottle (deposit). All the same, he gives me the thumbs up. When you are alone in a strange land, every little bit of this sort of kindness counts.

This is my last night in Rio. At the edge of the Amoedo block party, I order one last stick of churrasco from a street vendor. It's basically a stick of beef pieces grilled over an open fire, a staple meal of the gauchos, introverted Latin American cowboys of the 19th century whom Jorge-Luis Borges romanticized so often about in his writings. I was touched, watching the vendor give my R$2 order an extra helping of the chopped garlic and onion crumbs dip. I think about my beloved line of Borges's, from the poem Boast of Quietness: "My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of the same poverty."

A smattering laughter suddenly brushes the flame of the open fire. Maybe it's the delusional trails of my cachaça drinking, but I see the 15 yr old-looking working girl who was outside of HELP from a few nights back - the one who was being led away by a trick. She's dressed normally now, talking and laughing with a girl her age. Together, shoulders touching, they cross the street, and into the gentle early evening air of Ipanema.

The lightness of their steps and their moment of peace, surrounds the certain sadness which I am just now only beginning to understand.

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