I arrived to Rio de Janeiro at 6am on a Wednesday morning – and I was immediately surprised by the beauty of the city. The greens hill encircled by lakes and favelas, my tired eyes were happy to see Rio! My super artistic hostel was a couple blocks from the Arches of Lapa, right next to the hills of Santa Teresa. I was exhausted from 20 hours of travelling but wanted to get out so headed to Ipanema beach… and fell asleep on the sound of the big waves thundering to shore. Ipanema was a truly beautiful , massive long beach dotted with people and flanked by another beautiful set of hills. The sun was already setting when I came back to rest before my “big zouk weekend”.
For Brazilian Zouk in Rio see my previous post!
No rest for the wicked - on the next morning me and a couple people from the hostel jumped on a bus to Christ the Redeemer and after some waiting got our ticket for the train up! To pass the 3 hours wait we made a detour to Copacabana and I got my first introduction to the local “per kilo” restaurants: a big buffet of all the great Brazilian and international foods, and you pay for the weight of the food (around 4 R$ per 100g). Loved it (and yes I ate there again and in a sushi kilo restaurant later, yumm!!)! Our trip to the Christ wasn’t as lucky since the clouds had gathered, like the tourists, to the massive statue of the tallest hill – on a nearly clear day. We waited… and waited… and finally were rewarded with a moment of clarity! In a way it made the trip up there even more exciting. Sadly we didn’t see a view down – but I did see fantastic views from the Sugar Loaf later.
So my first weekend there was packed with zouk. All days at workshops, quick dinner, shower and change, and off to a zouk party.. and arriving delirious and tired around 5am to shower and sleep in preparation for another zouk day. I was basically just a ghost in the hostel. But it was so worth it – getting to zouk and meeting all the lovely people!
Unfortunately the weather wasn’t all that lovely; steamy, rainy… Wasn’t the best of Rio but it was a good time to be indoors. After the zouk congress ended and the weather slowly cleared back, I got to spend the rest of my stay sightseeing and shopping in the hot and sunny city. I kept extending my stay and finally after a few normal days I stared to recover from my “zouk overdose”. The beaches were the best places to spend time as you got to soak your feet in the “ice bucket”-cold sea and feel a slight breeze that somehow made all the sweating bearable. There was a lot to see – I went to on top of the Sugar Loaf, sat on the Escaladaria de Selaron and visited the Botanical Gardens. Mostly just rested my tired zouk legs on the sands. I decided I could basically only do one thing a day as it was so hot and it always too so long to wake up and get anywhere!
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| Escadaria Selaron - amazing piece of work! |
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| A view from Botafogo to the Sugar Loaf |
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| View down from the Sugar Loaf |
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| The Christ is watching over you! |
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| Sugar Loaf locals (they were tiny!) |
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| Lake behind Ipanema beach - Christ on the left |
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| Botanical gardens |
11 days was a bit long time to spend in Rio but it was worth it. The
best things (after zouk ;)) about Rio were the beaches – Copacabana and
Ipanema in particular. The fresh juices (sucos) were my favourite
snacks, I must have had a couple different ones every day, trying out
the sweet exotic fruits and berries! Shopping was great, although I
really hoped somebody would have kept me out of the shops!
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| Beach life! Copacabana and Ipanema were the best spots :) |
Surely there were a lot of things I didn’t like about Rio, such as getting around in the big city and going out in the evening. Although I always felt rather safe and saw nothing really alarming I didn’t feel comfortable taking anything of any value with me (or anything at all), which was sad since then I couldn’t take my camera with me. And it was always a bit of annoying to plan how to get somewhere (and it took a long time to get everywhere) – and how to get back during the night. I was missing the “small town life” where you could just walk everywhere! It was also and expensive city to live and sightsee.
The artistic and musical Cariocas
If salsa was the
soundtrack of Mexico and reggae of Belize, samba was definitely the
soundtrack of Rio. Ok, from my last post it is clear I dove head first
into Brazilian zouk but samba was definitely following me everywhere on
the streets, in shops, bars, taxis, my hostel… There was even samba de
gafieira workshops and shows at the “zouk and lambada congress”, along
with forró. My neighbourhood of Lapa – Santa Teresa was known for its
samba clubs, I would hear live samba music pretty much every evening I
walked around. The streets were even closed to give room for the
party-goers to roam during the weekend nights.
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| Street parties everywhere |
You can be certain
that Rio is the city of samba. However much I enjoyed the samba music
and party athmosphere in Rio, I didn’t get out to see the samba
practices – the classes during the day (meant for tourists obviously)
were super expensive: 90 R$ - almost 40 €! And during the night it
wasn’t too safe to go find the samba schools by yourself. I definitely
need to come back with some samba friends or to venture finding classes
in some smaller cities perhaps. I was just happy to see the samba
dancers at the zouk congress and amaze at their talent. And hey, I did
get some personal tutoring from an older gentleman at the final zouk
congress party – samba de gafieira wasn’t that hard with a knowledgeable
partner.
Besides samba the local arts were visible everywhere. I
can’t believe all the artistic talent that lives in Rio! The walls all
over town were covered in not just fancy tags and graffiti but what I
would describe street art and even paintings. Some say graffitis are not
frowned upon but actually encourages and I can really believe it’s
true.
The locals also seemed to like to cover themselves in art – tattoos. And
they were easy to spot in the teeny tiny Brazilian swim shorts and
bikinis. I had to get my own skimpy bikini as well so I wouldn’t feel
like an old lady on the beach :D We all agreed that after putting on one
you realize where the term “Brazilian wax” comes from; you will
definitely need one to wear the bikini!
Who would I recommend Rio
for? Anyone who likes big cities, beaches, fresh fruits, caipirinhas,
shopping gorgeus colourful clothes – and has money to spend. You most
certainly won’t be disappointed!!
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| Flying out of Rio - a wonderful view of the massive city! |
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