Am I Corn or Kale?

Luckily we had time to go to the top of the Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf Moutain) the afternoon we arrived in Rio because the next two days were quite cloudy/rainy. We took the nearly centenary cable car system to the top and the view was naturally quite sweet.

The non-sunny days kept our activity level on the mellow side; they were also a nice break from the incredibly hot weather we’ve experienced in Brazil since our arrival; on the downside, this cloudiness led to our underestimating the UV rays and managing to get slightly sunburned. We walked quite a bit through the glamorous districts on Rio’s South Side — Ipanema, Leblon, and Copacabana — without daring to actually get in the water; as one may expect, coastal cities with more than 10 million inhabitants don’t have the cleanest beaches, and Rio is no different. Therefore, we opted for sticking to the city’s famous sidewalks by the beach, drinking water from green coconuts and then scooping out the fruit’s insides. Coconut rules.

On Friday we stopped at one of Copacabana’s many quiosques to indulge in a bowl of manjubinhas, tiny fried fish that are eaten whole with bones and all, before setting out on what certainly would be a leisurely stroll through the world’s most famous beach. The tide was abnormally high, and even the locals were marveling at the might displayed by the Atlantic Ocean and the insanity of the surfers that had the huge waves all to themselves. All of a sudden, in the midst of this touristy moment, I was approached from the side by a screaming man, who is holding a rag in his hand and crouching down to reach my right shoe, pointing and yelling O’ a merda! O’ a merda! (“Look at the sh*t! Look at the sh*t!”). I looked down to find that, indeed, my right shoe was covered in a strange substance that resembled something like creamy peanut butter or industrial carpet glue, but certainly wasn’t dog excrement as the man claimed while he tried to wipe it off with his tiny cloth as I kept walking. Over the next few seconds, I would take notice of a wooden box full of other pieces of cloth that the man was wearing on a strap around his shoulder, which led me to conclude that he was quite ready to assist any distracted tourists who may been distracted to the point of letting dog use their shoes as a bathroom. You see where this is going: there is NO way that a dog, however quick or small, would have been sneaky enough to relieve itself on top of my shoe. This, my friends, was not only a scam, but a particularly unreasonable one: this man expected to be rewarded for his services, even though what hit my shoe was definitely a substance he himself had managed to fling onto me (I’ll give him credit for that feat of stealth). He eventually gave up on us as it became clear I would not be able to help him: I was pissed that my shoe had been unnecessarily harassed, and I still haven’t figured out how to remove the stain from this mythical dog dung.

Overall, this situation was not as awkward as it was sad. Rio, not unlike Chicago and so many other big cities, is home to great disparities. Because of its touristic appeal, the glitzy South Side is well policed, while the favelas on the hills and anything West of the city’s downtown/center is unsafe druglord territory. It is easy to fall in love with Rio (the place truly is beautiful, and I can’t think of any other big cities in the world that have been graced with such terrific geographical features), but there is also a feeling that this picture is incomplete. All in all, we still find it hard to believe that we won’t return someday.

On our full day in Rio the sky was still a bit cloudy, but that didn’t stop us from doing the Christ Redeemer tour (Cristo Redentor), the notorious and impressive statue that overlooks the whole city. The statue was meant to be built in 1922 to celebrate 100 years of Brazil’s independence, but wasn’t concluded until 1931. At over 100 feet tall the statue, regardless of one’s religious affiliation, is a rather impressive work. The original plan was for the statue to be holding the world in one hand and a cross on the other, but that design was modified: on the version that was built and stands to this day, the statue’s position represents the cross and the city of Rio de Janeiro, the world. Modest.

***

Last Saturday morning we left to Angra dos Reis by bus. From Angra, we took a one and a half hour boat ride here with about twenty other people on a boat that had 6-8 “fun-noodles” as the only visible flotation device! I spent the ride calculating which piece of land was closest in case of a shipwreck…not necessary. Apparently we were supposed to take a different boat (larger/faster/safer), because when we arrived at the Guesthouse they said someone had been waiting for us at the (other) dock… oops. Anyway, we have a nice view of the bay from our balcony and even though it is “cold” and rainy it is pleasant. The afternoon we got here we had a delightful fish stew (moqueca de peixe) that came boiling inside of a cast-iron pot. It was amazing but it knocked us out for a few hours.

On Sunday we decided to take a long hike to the other side of the island since Marcelo’s parents were arriving today (Monday) and we didn’t think they would be up for an 8-mile jaunt over the mountain and back.  The woman who runs the guesthouse warned us that it was very difficult and she didn’t think I (Norika) would be able to make it (I must look weak) — obviously this made us even more eager to go (never miss an opportunity to prove someone wrong). Our destination was the 3rd prettiest beach in Brazil, Praia Lopes Mendes. It took us about 2.5 hours to get there including one stop at a small beach with one “restaurant” where we gobbled up the last cob of starchy corn they had. We saw at least one huge spider and a group of tiny little monkeys! It started raining lightly as we arrived to the beach so we piled our stuff under a tree and headed for the water (either way we were going to get wet). In contrast to the other side of the island the waves here were big and the water was clear blue. We didn’t stay long because we knew the trek home would be even harder given the rain on the clay/mud trail. With a little encouragement from swarms of mosquitoes we made it back in less than two hours — good thing too because shortly after we got back it started really raining… and it hasn’t stopped since (24 hours and counting as we write this). Below is a picture of Norika mid-hike and the view of a tiny beach from the top of the trail.

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