Rio De Janeiro…a city of contrasts. Published Ponsonby News March 2014
Nothing can prepare you for the way the Brazilians have taken to removing their clothes and exposing as much of their skin as their heavily Catholic society will allow them…nothing. Even the city's back streets are packed to the brim with it's populace wandering in and out of shops and sitting in buses wearing only a thong or a pair of budgie smugglers. And that’s just the men. It also appears that a large amount of both men and woman appear to be sporting supplementary bulges that they weren't born with, for here, “plastic enhancement” appears to be "de riguer".
On day one, guide “Alexandre” picked me up from the hotel and we made our way up to the hill-top suburb of Saint Theresa, named after the monastery on its slopes. A beautiful and tranquil neighbourhood filled to over flowing with once grand mansions, abandoned and neglected, but recently rediscovered by the arts community and now undergoing gentrification. Art schools and cultural centres now replace the derelict squats and empty palaces.
The main focus of the Art in the area concerns the city's lack of a tram service.
CADE O BONDE or What about our "Bond" (tram)
Recently the brakes failed on one of the city's much loved trollies and the conductor and 6 passengers were killed. That was 18 months ago.
Today the brakes still haven't been fixed.
The Transit Administration replaced them with old buses. In teeth shattering conditions, on the old cobblestone streets you are jiggled and jolted, but now the populace has awoken.
There is rebellion in the air. The campaign has blossomed and most cars in the city now sport stickers supporting the call to bring back the tram while wonderful street art depicting a corrupt administration and the missing trams has appeared, the city is richer for it.
Auckland take note.
Favella ,780 steps up and counting
After lunching in the cool luxury of the hills, we swopped one hill of decadence for another of poverty. A favella. One of the city's many slums that spill down the granite hills towards the white pristine beaches. Much has been written about the danger and the gangs that run these settlements, but we saw none of that. What I found was a community centred on its elderly and its children. The gangs and guns are slowly being moved out and the sense of pride and ownership by the residents is being allowed to flower.
The one-room shacks here, cling precariously to the cliffs and escarpments, contain a sense of pride and companionship missing in most “first” world communities. Interestingly, the rest of the world has got it wrong. Even here, in the Favella, towering above us, you can't escape the Big Fella on the hill.
Curiously, in the main square of the slum is another worshipped figure. A life-size bronze statue of Michael Jackson. He is revered by this particular Favella for landing here in a helicopter and filming a music video, and thereby putting the place on the map.
The statue and proffered flowers to him seemed out of place and very, very weird.
The Big Fella is everywhere
The rest of the afternoon was taken up with a visit to the big Jesus on the hill. Christ the Redeemer. Covacado. The views from the hill are outstanding and a highlight for the most jaded of visitors. However if you want to have your picture taken with the statue in the background, you will have to jostle for position amongst the rest of humanity to get a decent shot. I wonder what He thinks of what’s going down on the beaches below him.
A walk in Absolution
On a subsequent day I was dropped off by the hotel car at the far end of Ipanema and walked the length of the beach and along back to the Copacabana Palace Hotel and its sanctuary, away from the eye watering visions parading along the Cornishe. Unfortunately I did not see the Girl from Ipanema. She is a local celebrity and a target for tourists to be pictured with her. Had i spied her I was more than prepared to swallow my pride and have one taken too, but my final day arrived before i had the chance.
A vision in the morning
From the Beach across from my digs - The Copacabana Palace Hotel (worth every penny I might add) at 6am I watched the QV arriving in Rio. There is nothing like the sight of a Cunarder coming to pick you up and I doubt I will ever tire of.
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