Rio!

December 22-23

View of Copacabana from Sugar Loaf

If you ever make it to Rio do not miss the views from Sugar Loaf!  You can see the entire city from the top and if you have a telephoto lens, you can even make out Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado in the distance.   Sugar Loaf is actually two mountains.  You can either climb or take the cable car to the top of the first one, followed by a cable car to the top of the second.  I'd highly recommend going first thing in the morning (yes Nando, you were right.  The light for photos was better.) as Rio seems to be covered in smog and a general haze by about 11 am every day - even when it's clear.

After a couple of hours at Sugar Loaf we went to the zoo.  It was fairly small but did have some beautiful birds (Macaws in particular - surprise, surprise) and a huge outdoor snake pen complete with two guys inside the pen feeding the half dozen pythons, dead rats.  Nando was having a great time trying to get pictures of the pythons swallowing the rats whole.  We found out that Nando is taller than a gorilla but not as tall as a Kangaroo and we found out that I am barely taller than a gorilla.  That said, I think even the smaller primates could probably take me in a fight.

The evening topped off with a fantastic samba/Brazilian cultural show at Plataforma.  We thoroughly enjoyed the show and the beautiful carnival costumes they performed in.  Although, considering the extreme lack of clothing on the women, I did find myself wondering how many of the men there had told their wives they were going to a "cultural show."  Our favorite part was definitely the capoeira section.

We have been looking forward to this morning all week!  We were picked up at 11 am to go on our helicopter ride.  It was my first time in a helicopter, so Nando let me sit in the front.  :)  The helicopter took us along Ipanema and Copacabana beaches then out past Sugar Loaf Mountain.  We flew over the stadium that is being built for the 2016 Olympics and finished our flight by flying around Christ the Redeemer.  It was incredible to have the same view of the statue that is seen in so many movies.  That said, ever since we've been here, I've been surprised at how small it looked.  Even up close to it, it was smaller than I was expecting, but still an amazing sight that I wouldn't give up for anything!

Still on a natural high from the helicopter ride we set out on a tour of two of the local favelas, or slums.   Over the years, the Brazilian government has worked hard to downplay the existence of favelas, but it's hard in Rio de Janeiro because of the way the city is built.  Built on the beach front at the base of mountains, there is no place for the slums to go but up - making them extremely visible to everyone below.  It's amazing.  On one side of the street will be the outskirts of a slum and directly opposite will be one of the wealthiest areas of Rio.  A strange dichotomy caused by premium real estate being used by the poor and rich alike.

We were at little surprised when we reached the first favela.  It looked to both of us like any big South American or Southeast Asian city.  It was dirty, busy and there were cars and motorbikes everywhere.  Meat hung from hooks with flys buzzing around and the stench of it rotting in the sun leaked over into the stands of grain and vegetables.  Electricity was being stolen through a tangled web of live wires hanging from poles and open power boxes on every corner.  Cell phones, satellite TV, internet and all the modern niceties you can get anywhere were all present.  It was definitely poor, but certainly not what I had pictured as one of the 950 slums in Rio de Janeiro.  The only particularly telling thing was that there was only one actual road accessible by car.  To reach the upper parts of the favela you had to climb narrow networks of stairs into streets with no names to reach addresses that don't officially exist.

A "street" in the second favela

The second favela was a different story.  Our guide led us through "streets" of dark, narrow passage ways where front doors were less than a meter apart and were hidden in what had become tunnels under the houses built above them.  More than once we had to duck through a space in the cement to continue up or down the stairs.  An open window allowed for us to witness the tiny living spaces buried under the vibrant colors of the top levels.  Some streets were named, others were not.  Twenty percent of Rio's population lives in slums and only a fraction of those have an official address.   We watched kids play in a miniature playground with nothing more than a wooden slide (don't they get splinters?!) and a vastly scaled down futbol goal post.

At one point we saw the jump off point that we took off from when hang gliding on Wednesday.  It was an extremely sobering moment to think that I had flown over this slum twice in the last three days - on a hang glider and then in a helicopter.  Both of them only 12 minute rides that each cost more than some of these people make in a month.   There is a moral question that I think people face when confronted with such a vast inequality between themselves and others.  Is it fair that I have more and they have less?  Did I work harder?  Was I luckier?  It's a hard question to ask yourself but I think 'white guilt' as I've heard it called is both unnecessary and pointless.  I think you need to just be thankful for what you have and not forget the people who have less when you have the opportunity to help.

So... with that, I will get off my soapbox and wish you all a Merry Christmas and ask you all to put your thoughts toward those with less as you celebrate with your families and friends this weekend.  We miss you all and will be celebrating with you from South Africa!