#468 - Rio de Janeiro tips, Brazilian politics, and Carioca differences
I entered Rio with high expectations and it exceeded them. As mentioned last week, I’d suggest travelers skip Sao Paulo and head straight to the beach on their Brazil visit.
Why? It delivers on your Brazil assumptions in spades:
Everyone is beautiful and friendly, just like you imagined!
And nobody speaks English. Like, not even a little bit. I can’t remember the last time I heard so little English on a street abroad - or even Spanish, it’s all Portuguese, even in the tourist spots!
The gorgeous urban views are downright arresting, from the densely packed high rises to the irregular giant rock monoliths throughout.
The heat is oppressive and muggy, when its not raining and warm - perfect vacay weather.
Inequality is rampant and visible, from the favelas clinging to the hillsides to the street beggar families.
What should you do? Here were my favorites:
Carnival Backstage Airbnb experience - they take you into the warehouses where they build the floats and costumes and let you see what the process is like. Imagine coordinating thousands of people in a ‘bloco’ with millions in budget to outcompete the others as a matter of pride - it’s like a Burning Man camp on steroids.
Take the funicular up to Cristo Redontor and then hiking down to Parque Lage for brunch. The internet says the hike is dangerous, but that was ten years ago, and locals told us the robbers don’t get there til the evening, so hike in the morning and you’re fine. It ended up being quite populated anyways.
Go to the Vidigal Favela near Ipanema and ride a mototaxi from the square at the bottom for a hair raising Brazilian traffic experience up the favela streets to Bar de Laje for sunset. This was hands down the most dangerous thing I did all trip - but because of the traffic, not the favela! It’s safe there on the main streets and in the bar. Alternatively, you can get a normal favela tour in any favela - don’t go in alone though.
If you’re fit, climb the front face of Sugarloaf Mountain on the via ferrata there. It’s nothing like the European ones where you’re rock scrambling hooked into a cable - this one was full on multi pitch climbing with the cable going straight up. Like climbing a rope in PE class, hundreds of meters up - my arms felt it! I went with Rio Mountain Sports but there’s Airbnb guides too.
Rio Escenarium was a popular spot in Centro, with lots of junk on the walls and authentic food and music. Nearby Lapa is a dingy nightlife spot we skipped. Pedra da Sal in Gamboa (little Africa) is packed on Mondays and Sundays.
Santa Teresa is a cute neighborhood with good views and the Parque das Ruinas.
Ingresse and Sympla ticketing sites were good to find local events. If you can find Blocos throwing parties when you’re here, definitely go to them - that was also a highlight experience.
I’m still engrossed in Dancing with the Devil in the City of God by Juliana Barbassa, which is an excellent deep dive into the city and the forces that shaped it, told by a journalist raised there who returns before the Olympics.
Rio has many crazy history facts, from the mayors enforced house visit vaccinations to combat yellow fever, to the Portuguese Royal Court mass evicting locals when they fled there from Napoleon (and thus starting the first favelas), to the fact that 4x more African slaves went to Brazil than American - and Rio alone had more enslaved than the entire American South(!)
Tech
Goose Chase takes a scavenger hunt and makes it virtual in an app, for team building or conference goers. What an odd world we live in that that’s the use case for having fun with people from far away, but if it results in a better more fun app, all the better.
Lifehacks (or now Politics/History?)
This documentary was really good, exploring the recent turmoil in Brazilian Presidents from Lula to Dilma and Bolsonaro, told from an intimate perspective. It’s striking how similar the Brazilian right wing is to the American one, right down to their petty rally signs and two faced enforcement of laws.
This video explores the reasons why Brazil is always ‘the country of the future’ and never quite lives up to its promise on the global stage. TLDR: it’s still exporting unrefined resources rather than complex ones (because it has many).
Fun
Here’s the output of that Carnival tour I mentioned. Incredible amount of effort and detail goes into these themes!
Something about this affable Paulista reporter interviewing Cariocas in the 80s before the first Rock in Rio and playing up the differences between the two biggest cities is very heartwarming. Also check out that eloquent street boy telling it like it is!