Com X Todo

Though it has only been a few weeks since the last update of my trip, the days have been inordinately busy, such that I am surprised to find myself already looking in to February - the month of the Carnival - which is only two weeks away now, commencing on the 13th. The heat has been relentlessly strong during the day, though there was a period of a week where the nights would be punctuated with tropical thunderstorms, the likes of which I have never seen or heard anywhere else before. Lightning would strike dozens of times a minute across the cloud strewn skies accompanied by titanic thunder, making one cower even in the relative safety of home. Nightly power cuts would have the staff and the guests of the house sat around candlelight contemplating how out of sorts we felt without our electronics and internet amongst lulls in conversation. Thankfully these episodes have stopped for now and we're back to the sweltering heat of the night time in Rio, and safely plugged back in to the internet .

I have finally had my first real taste of Brazilian football at a state league match between Vasco and Tigres which I attended with a Chilean guest, Mauro. The first half of the match was missed due to the palaver of trying to acquire tickets from touts / guys who thought they knew someone who had a mate who had a cousin who might have a few tickets going spare, with comical, if not frustrating charades to communicate our dilemma. It goes without saying that there are some marvellous talents in Brazilian football, and all players seem to have such a tenacious edge to their game. I couldn't help noticing, however, that the players seemed to have excessive tendency to play, where possible, on one side of the pitch that was shaded in the afternoon sun. In 38 degree heat, you can hardly blame them, though it was rather amusing to see all the players take a 5 minute break in the 70th minute to revive themselves for the final minutes of the game. Cheering for Vasco, we weren't left disappointed with a 1-0 lead going into the final minute, and though there was a near clutching of a draw from the jaws of victory by conceding a penalty in extra time, it was to no avail. A great day out at the game with all the flair and flourish you could want.


The squad on their 3/4 time water break at Vasco’s picturesque home ground

After a day out in the city, it is great to be able return the tranquil bohemian town that is Santa Teresa, there are some wonderfully quaint historic bars in the centre, Largo do Guimarães, where a few glasses of ice cold choppe (draught beer) go down a perfectly. After a drink or two, naturally you gravitate towards a street vendor (who would never be more than a few metres away) and cast a discerning eye across the spurious looking ingredients he has ready for your late night snack. Boldly, you chose the hot dog, and are reassured that this comes 'com x todo' pointing to the sign on his cart. 'Com' means 'with', 'todo' - 'everything' and keen to appeal to the Western market, there is an 'X' - a letter pronounced on its own in Portuguese as 'shees' and therefore obviously pertains to 'cheese' for the English speaking patron. i.e. With Cheese and Everything. Far from obscure when you think about it, right? You are then treated to Everything: Cheese, ketchup, mustard, mayo, hot sauce, lettuce, corn, peas, onion, and (my personal favourite) long thin potato chips, all over your hot dog. You are then left to make your happy way home, leaving a trail of Todo splattering and crunching behind you, suppressing the thought of the dire consequences that surely await your stomach later in the night. Wonderful.


Snapped by a guest at Bar do Gomes, Santa Teresa

I naturally have been busy acquiring new friends in my time here, but am proud to say this now includes new family. Before my family have a collective acute panic attack, I should clarify - I mean to say that I have been affectionately adopted by our cleaning lady, Vera, who has kindly nominated herself as my stand-in mother while I am here in Rio. A wonderful lady, who, alas, I fail to understand most of the time due to her resistance to speaking Portuguese more slowly for me so that I can follow her, I now have an arrangement whereby I bring her ingredients from the supermarket and help wash up in return for her delicious Brazilian meals of chicken rice and beans. I am truly set up well here now...


Me and the staff at Casa 579 (Vera in yellow)

With Carnival just around the corner, we are really getting in to the spirit of things in town at the moment and getting the guests out to see the best of what is around. Friday was a night at Centro Cultural Carioca - a free outdoor samba concert with a superb performance by a dance group showing their moves to wow the local crowd. The following day, we got a rare opportunity to parade with the samba school Estácio during their technical rehearsal at the Sambadrome - the same event that I described in my last post, the difference being that I was no longer just a spectator. In amongst the thousands of dancers and the mighty 'bateria' (percussion group), wearing the Estácio shirts and colours, the guests and I were lined up, given handkerchiefs to wave and sent down the Sambadrome with thousands of spectators cheering us on down the strip. Though this was a rehearsal and few were in full costume, the magnitude of the event was just enormous. The whole parade was singing the school’s song at the top of their lungs, dancing and waving as we slowly made our way down. The parade took just over an hour to reach the end of the strip where we waited for the rest of the parade to stream through, meeting everyone from the top dancer girls to the Samba Queen herself, in all her sparkling cat-suit glory. The atmosphere from start to finish was utterly electric and the excitement of the Carnival to come is hard to contain – it is going to be truly epic.


A view from the Estácio 30th January rehearsal parade

As you may have sensed by now, the city manages to ground you after such nights with startling regularity. The taxi ride home from the parade was going rather well - not only was I able to converse well with the driver in Portuguese, I was directing him up through Santa Teresa's darkened roads and showing him short cuts to get us home quickly. Taking a moment to reflect on the evening, I took my eyes of the road for a while, only to turn back to see a man suddenly step out into the road, holding a large rifle, the barrel of which was aimed straight at my head. The taxi hit the brakes and we came to a sudden stop. It became clear that the man was a policeman, though far from a reassuring factor as police robbing tourists is not exactly unheard of. After checking out the cab, we were left to drive on and returned home without further incident... I was later informed that the police can be rather direct in attempts to prevent the drug trade going in to the favelas, and that all was safe, which is understandable - it is more the feeling during that split second moment when a gun is suddenly pointed at your head that stays with you than the motives behind it.

With all these adventures, both positive and negative, all in all I am really having such an incredible time here and enjoying some amazing experiences. I am also in high spirits as Vera has brought me some spaghetti bolognaise - Brazilian style, much the same as traditional spaghetti, with the wondrous exception that has been sprinkled, not with cheese, but with batata fritas (potato chips). Well, they say you can't knock it until you've tried it, but forgive me for being less than optimistic. Bom apetite...


A samba girl from the Estácio parade

[For those keen on seeing some of my photos, for those who have not already, do have a look on my facebook page (email link: danrobertson2@hotmail.com) or a couple of the photos (more to come) on http://www.flickr.com/photos/dandoestheworld . By the next posting I also hope to have a youtube account to share a few short videos too for the real die-hard fans – collector’s limited edition DVDs to come in late 2010]

Samba & Shoot-outs

Two weeks in to 2010 already - time seems to just be flying by. And what has this new year brought so far? Well, starting from the beginning with the striking of midnight on the 1st of January, a myriad of kaleidoscopic pyrotechnics fire into the night sky over the length of Copacabana and Ipenema beaches. A spectacle for the two million strong crowd that lasts for quarter of an hour, followed by samba dancing, hugging all in sight and wading into the ocean, clutching lilies and roses, throwing flowers into the water to make new year wishes. I was joined by three girls from Ecuador, Sweden and America who were staying at the hostel - all feverent about keeping a steady flow of beer, caprinhas and sparkling wine throughout the night in spite of their 9am departure for the airport in the morning. The atmosphere on the beach was awesome - an incredible experience and I can't have imagined a better way to begin the decade (particularly assisted by stealthily cutting past the 3 hour long queue for the metro for a quick getaway home!)

Needless to say, the first full day of the year was a write of, spent re-hydrating and avoiding excessive sunlight. In the days that have followed I have made numerous trips, including to Jardim Botânico (the botanical gardens), Museu de Arte Moderna and Academia do Samba Salgueiro (Salgueiro Samba School). The gardens I would recommend to any visitor in Rio. The 140 hectare UNESCO protected site is a dazzling collection of eclectic varieties of plant life from around the world, containing well over 6,000 different species of plants, compartmentalised into separate cacti, orchid, palm-tree, Japanese and rose gardens, amongst others, and more than half of the site being an uncultivated Atlantic Forest running up the breath-taking Corcovado mountain.


The Jardim Botanico

The MAM (Modern Art Museum) was a somewhat strange experience whereby a strict set of rules were imposed with ruthless rigidity, having an unfortunate dampening affect on the experience. No photos, no phones, no water bottles, no talking, and especially no diving in the shallow end - some of the more textural pieces in the first gallery were worth getting close to in order to see the finer details, but this would cause a petulant fuss by the curator's weaselly minions who would quickly scutter over to usher me away to a more acceptable distance. The same went for displays of photographs in glass cabinets on tables where people would rest their hands on the woodwork in order to lean over to get a better view - more scuttling and ushering of startled visitors would ensue. The collection is relatively small in comparison to its counterparts in other major cities and sadly bereft of numerous great works that had once inhabited its walls, from Picasso and Dalí to Miró and Magritte, an unfortunate fire in the 70s saw to the end of this beautiful era. Impoverished of the works of many great Brazilian artists (with the exception of Carlos Vergara), there was an overabundance of French collections, and though they had their merits, it was disappointing to see such a lack of local talent, especially being that these is such a saturation of wonderful home-grown art in and around Santa Teresa. In its defence, a saving grace of the museum, it has to be said, was the blissful air conditioning saving me from the 43 degree heat that was sweltering everyone outside - Rio in the height of the summer is becoming really quite extreme.


Untitled by Carlos Vergara

Academia do Samba Salgueiro is the samba school who won the 2009 Rio Carnival and are a now synonymous with the partying spirit of the city. On a trip to the school with some of the guests at the house, we squeezed ourselves into the packed hall that easily fit 2,000 people, and watched the Salgueiro supporters dance the night away. The percussion troop, the bateria, were playing their carnival procession music lead by their samba queen and were later accompanied by the gorgeous group of female samba dancers in full dress. The infectious rhythm and fast-paced, alluring dancing is incomparable to anything else I have seen - and every Brazilian can do it. From young girls to old men in their seventies, everyone in the academy was moving with mesmerising skill and speed. Those who know me well will be fully aware that I am far from a distinguished dancer, even when presented with the most simple steps, and needless to say, I joined in and danced all night having a ball, though clearly failing to impress in this new environment... A week after the visit to the academy another group of us went to the Sambadrome, an Oscar Niemeyer building with a stretch of road nearly a kilometer long where the schools parade down during carnival. This was on the night when Salgueiro were performing a dry-run (without costumes or floats) of their upcoming performance. Everyone builds up the hype and the size of the carnival, though I was still astonished at the scale of the event. Thousands upon thousands of dancers trailing as far as the eye could see passed through the Sambadrome with an electrifying presence. If this is what the event looks like without floats or costumes then the main event in February, combined with the attendance of a dozen schools, will truely live up to its title of 'The Greatest Party on Earth'.


One of the Salgueiro dancers at the Acadamy


The Sambadrome of Rio de Janeiro

Rio has a peculiar habit of oscillating from showing its incredible beauty, fun and passionate side, to revealing its more rough, deprived and dangerous elements without notice. Still buzzing the next day from the night at the Sambadrome, I took a walk from Santa Teresa to Lapa and was soaking in the sun and sights during my descent whilst listening to music on my phone. I had barely made it 5 minutes down the hill before I saw agitated policemen armed with rifles peering around walls along the road looking down at the local favelas, when one gestured to me urgently to put away my headphones. It didn't take long to discover that there was a gunfight in progress in the shanty towns. In the arid mid-day heat, plumes of dust were rising behind distant men running behind buildings for cover, followed by multiple kinds of fire, from pistols, machine guns and high powered rifles. There was no police presence in the epicentre - this was clearly a gang or mafia matter that are often let be by the authorities when contained within the favelas - and there was an strange lack of screaming or shouting, the only sound amongst the gunfire being cockerels and chickens making a rucas in their pens. The road down the hill was full of men from Santa Teresa overlooking the events in silence, understandably concerned about the events unfolding below. This was another eye-opener, reminding me that you cannot allow yourself to become too relaxed in this city and that no matter how much fun you are having, to always have an element about you of being alert and cautious.

Loathed to end on a solemn note, we did have fun this week when we went to look into the garden at the bottom of the house. First drawn out by toucans occupying the trees outside with their jet black and bright orange feathers, we were also greeted by small monkeys (whose species I am yet to determine - see picture below). After some time spent coaxing them closer, the guests and I spent the morning feeding them all pieces of banana. Being in a grand capital city, it is peculiar to think that we have such visitors, though Tijuca is such a dominant forest in the near distance and brings extraordinary wildlife to out door. Toucans, monkeys and geckos being more popular, giant ants, mosquitoes and moths bigger than your foot less so.

I am looking forward to what next week will bring and will be in touch again soon, hopefully with more exciting stories and pictures. Until then, take care everyone.