13 - Empire of the Sun-Tanned (Rio de Janeiro)

Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL - 15 september 2002

It was way into the flight when it finally sunk in that I was heading towards my third continent and I would be almost halfway across the world from where I had started. The cultures would be really different. And back to places where one COULD NOT flush paper down the toilets. Excellent.

I studied every piece of luggage that popped out onto the carousel until there was no more. I feared history was repeating itself when I finally spotted my backpack lying on the floor at a corner. Someone had hauled it out earlier and left it there. Phew…

I got a bus and navigated by the tiny LP map of Rio to get to my hostel which was located at Urca, right below the Sugar Loaf Mountain. If you stand at the yard and look towards the back, you would see the wall of the rock that is the Sugar Loaf Mountain. Amazing location.

Well, apparently, there were loads of buffet-by-weight restaurants here in Brazil and these were excellent deals in that you could see what you might like to eat. No need to point and pray. I soon found myself stuffing my face with my first Brazilian meal in one such place.

Now, when in Rio, where was the first place to head to (after satisfying your stomach, that is)? Naturally, Copacabana Beach. It is the most famous of all beaches in Brazil, a curvy stretch lined with the most beautiful bodies of Brazil.

Yummy men and teenage boys in tiny trunks were strutting around, playing soccer or surfing in the waves. Incredibly fat-free women were lounging around glamourously in their world-famous micro-bikinis the size of postage stamps. Their evenly-tanned, flawless bodies were so taut, one could bounce a centavo off them. I had to know the brand of anti-cellulite gel these girls use.

I was sitting in the sand, soaking in the sun when a group of boys aged perhaps between 10 to 15 surrounded me. The apparent leader of the gang looked at me with dead eyes and touched my bag. They were all probably half-stoned from drugs. I got up nervously and walked away.

I stood near a mother with two kids. The boys surrounded me, taunting me. The leader grabbed my bag while another boy reached for my wallet. As my wallet was connected to my pants with a coil, he could not make off with it. I turned around to see the surprise look on his face as he stared at my wallet and the coil. I tugged my wallet and bag back.

The boys continued to advance towards me in a menacing way. “Stop it!” I shouted at them. “Stopit…” The leader mimicked me. Some people were starting to stare. The mother with the two kids held on to her kids tighter.

I was scared but I decided to walk away firmly. I was afraid they might grab my things again or follow me. But by then, a guy in the distance had started shouting at them and running towards us. Thank goodness! I looked back and he waved me on, telling me to flee.

Sheesh… What a crappy thing to happen on my first day in Rio. I was lucky. Those boys could have carried weapons and turned violent. It made me very aware that in South American cities, I had to be extremely careful.

I stayed on at the beach as I refused to let the event spoil my day.

There was a group of capoeira performers. This was a sort of fight-dance. There was a group of musicians playing local instruments, like berimbau (a stringed instrument that looks like a bow, with a round-container-looking thing at the bottom) surrounding two ‘fighters’. These ‘fighters’ used gentle high-kicks and low-sweeps, slo-mo squirming around the ground and swaying from side to side to avoid each others’ blows… all to the rhythm of the music. It appeared the ‘fight’ was mainly NOT to hit each other and yet, was coordinated in a dance style that they almost hit each other. Capoeira had its origins from Angola, Africa and used to be banned by slave-masters as it was seen as a form of rebellious act. It was actually banned from the streets for a long time thereafter and only resurrected recently. I was not a good judge yet but this group here seemed very good.


Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL - 16 september 2002

I made my way to the Bolivian Consular this morning. A lady came out to inquire what my business was.

“Fala inglés? [Do you speak English? -- in Portuguese]” I queried. “Não [No]” “Er… ¿Habla español? [Do you speak Spanish? -- in Spanish]” I tried again. “Sí [Yes]” Of course she could, she was probably Bolivian.

OK, now I had to explain my whole Bolivian visa saga in Beijing and London in pidgin Spanish to her. I took a deep breath and went haltingly… “En julio, fui a la embajada de Bolivia en Beijing a aplicar mi visa autorizacion. Soy Singapurense…”

Soon, she was nodding away and stifling her laughter. She appeared to be trying her best to politely stop me as I prattled on into oblivion. She disappeared into the Consular’s office. I waited a while and the Consular came out personally (most likely because he could speak English) to explain to me that I should return in three weeks’ time because my application status was still pending. OK, muchas gracias. Like the Consular in London, he was also a very simpático (nice) guy.

Moran, an Israeli girl, from my dorm was fasting because of a Jewish religious day yesterday. She needed to fast until 3pm today. Still, when I informed her I was heading to the Sugar Loaf Mountain, despite being weak and having no energy, she wanted to join me.

The view up there was spectacular. Need I say more? Rio de Janeiro indeed had the most beautiful setting in the world - between ocean and escarpment. I wandered around, totally in awe of every view-point. The distant sky looked a little smoggy but Rio, from every angle, is truly stunning.

By 3pm, we treated ourselves to an all-you-can-eat buffet in a fancy restaurant, where the smiling waiters kept coming to our table with skewers of awesome, barbecued meat and carving them off onto our plates. OK, I did not deserve this treat… I did not fast for a day. Moran did. But it was really gorgeous food.


Rio de Janeiro, BRAZIL - 17 september 2002

Rio de Janeiro is famously beautiful and loads of people want to live here. The narrow strip of flat land between mountains and beaches, buildings, offices, apartments, private condominiums, etc… was built up very densely. Between Copacabana beach and Morro de São João and Morro dos Cabritos (the mountains behind Copacabana), for example, there was only room for four main roads. Traffic was horrendous along the avenues here.

Meanwhile, on the slopes of many mountains arose slums or shanty-towns or what the locals call - favelas.

Deepa, an Indian-English roommate and I joined such a favela tour today. There are 600 favelas here in Rio. Most had never seen tourists so it was best to join a tour and never head out there alone.

We visited Rocinha, the largest favela in Rio. This was managed by drug-lords. Ironically, because they were managed by drug-lords, the number of robberies here was zero. This was because the drug-lords did not want trouble with the police and wanted to be left alone to conduct their business… and the locals had better respect the drug-lords if they wanted to live longer. Hence, there were no robberies. We could walk around with our expensive cameras hanging off our necks, we were told. My guide, however, did not share the murder statistics.

We could smell cocaine and marijuana in the air. There was a sort of energy in this favela. We heard a fire-cracker’s ‘boom’ and was told by our guide that the ‘boom’ was to inform people down by the beach that a new load of drugs had arrived and they could pop by to purchase. There were young runners stationed at the entrance of the favela, getting orders and retrieving the goods. These guys could earn up to ten times the minimum salary eventually but they hardly ever lived beyond 18 years of age.

In a way, a favela, while they looked a little run-down and had the reputation of being poorly-provided for, was actually quite the opposite. There were banks, groceries, McDonald’s, doctors, dentists, postal offices, etc… They were thoroughly self-sufficient. Why not? There were reputedly 170,000 residents living here who would be using these services.

They had water (which they needed to pump), electricity (though many tapped illegally from the power poles), garbage bins (which were collected, mind you) and importantly, road signs.

These essentials were fought for and provided by the ‘management’ of the favelas. If they had a problem, they created the solutions. They did not sit around and wait for the government to help. For example, as the roads are hilly and steep, gangs of taxi-motorcyclists have set up a business of transporting people up and down the roads.

The road signs, I mentioned earlier, meant that the people living here would now have an address. They could apply for jobs, apply for a driver’s licence, apply for electricity, etc… Imagine, if they had no address – “Er… Where do I live? You know, if you go up this road, at the second hairpin turn, you will see a house with blue shutters (that’s my uncle’s house), turn right and walk straight, and on the third left turn, head down the steps and you will see Fernando’s Lanchonete… count the fourteenth house from there… that’s where I live.”

A huge proportion, up to 80%, of the people living in the favela are regular working folks, who have absolutely nothing to do with drugs. They choose to live there in order to be near to their jobs.

Favelas could pop up anywhere. Rocinha, for example, is right next to the most expensive and prestigious private school in Rio de Janeiro. Another one we visited is right by an exclusive golf club, that actually turned down the application of a famous Brazilian soccer player. Such was the density of Rio. This favela had a wall where they painted ‘WELCOME’ in different languages, meaning to tell us tourists that they welcome us (although we should still never head out to favelas alone) and they hope we would be ambassadors to change the reputation of favelas. I noted there was no ‘WELCOME’ in Chinese and wrote one for my guide. He assured me it would soon be up there.



Rio de Janeiro to Salvador, BRAZIL - 18 september 2002

Deepa and I took the 26-hour bus-ride to Salvador, up in the North in the state of Bahia today. I dreaded to think how I could spend 26 hours on a bus.

To my surprise, the buses in Brazil were very well-equipped. And this luxurious bus we were on was ISO-9002 certified. The seats were spacious and there was loads of room in front, much like Business Class seats on airplane (not that I had ever experienced before). There were calf-rests which you could pull down and rest your calves. Goodie-bags with snacks, biscuits and jam were provided. There were also personal head-phones for the movies. The windows were tinted so dark that I could not read even in day-time, all for the supreme comfort of the passengers.

It was really quite easy to pass the time, I must say…