The wild wonders of Rio
It’s languid, sexy and steamy, and everything seems to move with a casual Samba swing until it comes to football (soccer). Then all eyes are on the ball. I’m talking of Rio, where, according to Barry Manilow, “music and passion were always the fashion.” Rio remains the very essence of Brazil, with the warmth of its people and the simple joys of endless sunshine, music, samba and lots of ice-cold beer and caipirinhas at its core.
Rio is the first and obligatory stop in Brazil. The capital until 1960, it’s otherwise known as ‘The Marvellous City’ (Cicada Maravilhosa) for many good reasons, but mostly because of its location between lush green mountains and blue ocean.
I want to check out Rio’s famous beaches; in particular that long white stretch of sand made famous by another song: ‘I go to Rio’. Copacabana, Rio’s most popular beach, is a gently curving four-kilometre-long arc, lined with white high-rise buildings and a shopping and partying strip that goes off day and night: like Bondi Beach only bigger, brasher and more frenetic.
The beach is lined with tourists sun-tanning on beach chairs, exercise stations and rows of volleyball nets. Here the locals – known as Cariocans – play foot volley and volleyball on the sand. Oiled muscle men in tight briefs mix with girls in tiny, tiny bikini thongs. Brazilians like to let it all hang out.
We cool down with a drink. Yes, you can even drink on the beach in Brazil, at any time of day. Beach bars and kiosks sell a range of local beers such as icy cold Skol on tap and, of course, caipirinhas, the national cocktail of Brazil made from sugar and lime mixed with the local sugar cane rum. There’s also coconuts to drink from, acai and guarana.
One of the best places to drink caipirinhas is at the famous Hotel Copacabana Hotel from the song ‘At the Copa, Copacabana’. Or at the pool bar atop the Porto Bay Rio Hotel, overlooking the large white stretch of Copacabana beach.
But Copa is not Rio’s only beach. Ipanema, made famous by yet another song: ‘The Girl from Ipanema’, is a slightly more stylish affair, lined with trendy boutiques. Barre, further out still, is quieter and more like Miami. It was also the location of most of the arenas and the athlete’s village at the Rio 2016 Olympics.
Soccer fans will want to check out the giant Maracana Football Stadium, and another must see is the Sambadromo, where Rio’s annual Carnevale parade takes place each February. Carnevale is a battle between 12 different samba schools, each with six different floats competing in an Olympics of Samba for the best dancers costumes and floats in the parade. Each competing team parades with floats and dancers for an hour. Cariocans are as passionate about samba as they are about football.
A 15-minute stroll north along Avenida Rio Branco, the newly redeveloped port area is the modern face of Rio, and you’ll find a cultural revolution is in full swing. Seedy bars and clubs have been replaced by the city’s museum and arts centre. The gleaming Museu de Arte do Rio (MAR) now stands over Praça Mauá, the flagship of the Porto Maravilha urban project, along with the new City Museum and the Museum of Tomorrow, film and television studios and artists’ workshops. The port area also hosts the annual super-events Fashion Rio and Arte Rio. It’s Rio’s version of Melbourne or London’s South Bank.
For lunch we head to Fogo de Chao, a traditional Brazilian churrascaria (steakhouse), in Rio’s fastest growing suburb Barra de Tijuca, and our next stop is Corcovado (meaning hunchback) Mountain, upon which stands the giant white statue of Christ The Redeemer, the world famous towering symbol of Rio. We reach it via the quaint tram from Rua Cosme Velho, a red cable car that takes 20 minutes to pass through a jungle-covered hill to reach the top of Corcovado. We are rewarded with spectacular views over Rio. We’re lucky, as the heavy fog that covers the mountaintop and the statue – usually visible from downtown – lifts long enough for us to take some selfies beneath the statue.
Lunch is back in the city centre at Confeitaria Colombo, a century-old café with huge built-in mirrors and a patisserie downstairs. With its Art Nouveau charm, it’s a perfectly preserved example of the Belle Epoque era in Rio. The café is on Rue Goncalves, so we spend the afternoon wandering through its art and craft galleries and interesting quirky designer shops.
On our first night in Rio we head to one of the city’s most photogenic nightspots, the Lapa nightlife district. Lapa is full of cafes and bars that spill out onto the street, and is a great place to indulge in drinks and tapas while rubbing shoulders with the locals. We eat dinner at The Rio Scenarium, a music restaurant with three floors of drinking, dining, antiques and live music, then dance the night away to samba, choro and pagode.
The next day we explore one of Rio’s 450 favelas (slums). These makeshift shantytowns of half-finished houses built by poor people from regional areas who moved to the city to find work, cover most of Rio’s hillsides like patchwork quilts. The residents live piled on top of each other in the slum-like dwellings, but Brazilian law states that if you build something and remain in it for five years, you then own it, so they are staying put.
Once brimming with crime and dangerous gangs, the Brazilian government made a concerted effort to clean the favelas up before the Olympics, resulting in Rio’s crime rate plummeting in recent years. Thanks to ongoing efforts by the local police to ‘pacify’ favelas, they are a now a relatively safe tourist destination in their own right.
To escape the summer heat we head to Tijuca, the world largest urban forest on the city’s outskirts, before diving back in to the heady pace of Rio. Then it’s a gondola ride up to Sugar Loaf Mountain, another must for panoramic views over Rio.
Our hotel, the beautiful Hotel Santa Teresa, is in the upmarket district of the same name, which sits beneath one of the city’s biggest favelas. It’s a Spanish colonial residence set in a charming village of steep, winding cobbled streets, where colonial mansions with wrought iron gates, bohemian cafes and art galleries line the streets. It has sweeping views of Rio’s frenetic downtown and Lapa districts, so we while away our last night in its pool and bar area, marvelling at the many wild wonders of Rio.
Written by Karen Halabi. Republished with permission of MyDiscoveries.