On the Road to Find Out

It’s closing in on three weeks since I arrived back in Trindade. I still can’t see myself leaving anytime soon. Especially now that the sun has come. It may not last for too much longer but we have had a whole week of sun which for a couple of weeks seemed like an alien prospect.

The hardest part of any day is to decide what to do. There are six beaches to choose from with seemingly one for every occasion. Cachadaco is my favourite of the beaches nearby, a long beach with a few stray currents which sometimes produce perfect waves for surfing. As you have to trek over a hill for 10 minutes it also seems to be one of the most deserted beaches around here.

Praia do Meio is the beach where all the Brazilians come and hang out. It is always packed with bronzing tourists, generally stuffing their faces at all the restaurants on the beach. Praia dos Ranchos is definitely the spot in the nighttime, the perfect place to pick up a Gabriela at Rogerio’s, something which I’m sure I’ve already mentioned a few times. Following on from that beach is Praia da Fora (kind of a chilled-out family beach) and then Praia Cepilho at the end. This is the number one spot for surfing. It’s only a small beach but it has a real nice point break which brings huge waves up to the coast, making it a great place both to surf and to watch. No surprise then that the next World Cup of surfing will be held right there.

My favourite beach of them all though has to be Praia Brava. It’s not a beach to go to every day seeing as it takes an hour and a half of walking but it is definitely worth trying to go as often as possible. At the moment the sun is too hot for me to even contemplate 3 hours of walking under it so I am waiting for a few clouds before I next go.

It’s the most deserted of all the beaches here in Trindade, and the only one that is closed. It also happens to be a nudist beach but so far I’ve only ever seen one naked man on there. A very disappointing innings really. It is quite common to see many different birds on the trail to the beach, as well as a few giant lizards if you’re lucky. Instead of taking the trail back now I walk up the river starting at the beach. This route will eventually take you to my favourite waterfall. A beautiful set of four falls which you can climb up, before taking the route back to the bottom again before doing it all again.

As well as all this, there is the waterfall and swallowing rock just near the hostel, the trail to the Indian’s head and the fact that there are always plenty of people to meet and of course my mistress, Gabriela, always waiting down at the beach. Leaving just doesn’t seem like a possibility!

After having been in Brazil for over three months I feel I have begun to understand its people a fair bit. Being able to speak fluent Portuguese would have been extremely helpful in getting to know them better though.

It has to be said that they are some of the friendliest people you’ll ever meet, especially in the cities where they constantly seem to be making up for the violence and crime that is so prevalent (here’s looking at you Rio and Sao Paulo).

Their attitude to the weather is a case in point. When it rains people just stay at home, even if they’re supposed to be at work (unless they are part of that horrible breed of office workers, in which case this might be out of their bounds). In Trindade it rained for around four days each week but never did I hear a Brazilian complain about it. The visitors complained a hell of a lot, but the Brazilians not. They just stayed in, did whatever needed doing round the house, or just sat around watching tv and getting quietly sloshed (this second one is the most common).

One thing I do miss though (and I think this is quite a personal thing) is the lack of a broad sense of humour. All jokes seem to revolve around taking the piss out of each other or making over-the-top innuendos. All good fun, but I do like something a bit more succinct; a play on words or some slight sarcasm. It is quite possible that the language barrier means I do miss out on much of this because either when it’s in Portuguese I am unaware of the craic or because translation from Portuguese to English does not do it justice.

Saying that there has been two moments of inspired genius from my time here. First being Juan’s comments when Sarah showed her a shirt she had bought; “is that one of those shirts you get free when you buy a bag of sweets.” A cheap shot, but the laughter that poured out of him, at his own words, made for any shortcomings in the actual joke. Plus, it was quite an unexpected hit. The second has to be Eli’s words of comfort to Felix after pulling something of a fatty bumbatty; “Well, you have to slay a few dragons to get to the princess.”

It makes me glad to be English when I think of all the ways I can mangle words, make strange similes and generally utter absolute nonsense, and yet have people still understand me. I would love to find out that this can happen in Portuguese, but I just can’t see how it could do it. Whenever it takes on foreign words it always makes them completely Portuguese. There really isn’t the flexibility to build in new sounds, or new clusters of sounds, which makes English such a fun language to speak. Imagine if Stanley Unwin had been Brazilian, it would have been a nightmare; he would have been extricated to the streets as some kind of clown.

Just to finish off, and seeing as I’m making so many comparisons I should say Brazil quite obviously wins. There is no way England can ever compete with the girls and beaches here, which is why I can quite honestly see myself in twenty years spouting gibberish on Ipanema beach, as I desperately try and get the best of these two very different countries.

Okay, maybe the heading is a bit too dramatic, but I really feel like I have to make a big decision shortly.

I’ve been working at Casa Carioka in Copacabana for 4 weeks now, using spare time to try and get a web design complete. In theory, this design is my meal ticket. An opportunity to not have to think about money for a good few months. However, at the start of this week I got asked to do another job, which took a day to complete (these are the kind of jobs I like) and have spent the rest of the week surfing and writing. During this time I have been sent three e-mails by my main client, asking for some progress updates. They are all still sitting in my inbox awaiting a reply.

My previous drive to earn money so that I would not have to worry about money later in the journey has vanished. A realisation perhaps that designing big websites, full of ridiculous coding is a theft of the imagination. I have no natural aptitude for it, so learning and effecting at the same time can be a hard task, one that makes me wish I could buy wind-screen wipers for my eyes, and maybe one of those buttons so I could give them a spray of water every now and again. Give them a good wash.

If anyone reading this has a disposition for designing secure websites in Joomla, as well as shopping baskets and MySQL databases with one-to-many relationships, please get in touch because the one problem I face with all of this is if this is the direction my thoughts continue to head at some point there will be the disappointment of my client unless I find an adequate solution. I would say I could potentially sully my name, but I think this implies having some sort of good reputation in the first place.

It should also be noted that my resistance to do further work on this project has been catalysed by the return of hypersensitive head, a condition that had been laying dormant since my last trip to Rio. For more information on hypersensitive head listen to this:

Almost every newspaper I open has a one-page advert for Influenza. I think there’s better things to spend your money on.

It seems that swine flu is following me around. Every day I have seen more and more people wearing face masks. A teacher friend in Rio has been given the month off from work. She’s outraged. They want to make her work all Saturdays when she returns so that she won’t have lost any days. Apparently, there has been almost 200 deaths. Almost all of them occurring in the South of Brazil, where winter is definitely at its worst.

Of the deaths, only 16 have occurred in the state of Rio de Janeiro. Of which, most have been children or pregnant women. I think wearing a facemask on the street seems a little over-the-top. There are 15 million people living in Rio state. Surely the odds are against ever contracting it.

For the latest death toll visit here.

Lapa’s crazy on a Saturday night so we headed away from the arches, where the noise of drums, samba and drunk gringos is inescapable. First stop was The Museum of Cachaça. It’s a room about 10 foot x 10 foot. Hanging from the ceiling is a brand of cachaça from possibly every town in Brazil. Normally, there would be seats and tables surrounding its entrance but the Police are out in force. There´s a new mayor and he´s brought with him 2 initiatives. First is the ´dry law´. Random checks are happening all over the city as they look to combat drink driving. Although the drivers are fighting back. They´ve found out a new use for Twitter. There are dozens of people using their iPhones (or whatever the equivalant is in Rio) posting updates on where the ´dry law´ police are stopping cars every night. The second new initiative is to stop bars placing a ridiculous amount of tables and chairs on the pavement and quite often on the road as they look to get as many customers comfortable as is humanely possible.

We didn´t fancy standing in the street so we decided to look elsewhere. After a few blocks we came to a brothel-themed bar. I can´t remember its Portuguese name but I was told it translated as ´House of the Whore´. The waiters wore red and white vertical-striped tops and there was lingerie hanging from the ceiling. I don´t remember seeing any whores. We signalled for three people and the waiter lifted up a table, planting it right in front of us. We grabbed a beer and sat down. After drinking about half of it, 5 police cars suddenly pulled up alongside us. The waiter instantly ran over, took our table and flew off round the back. Some guy wearing glasses and a huge belly came out of the bar, heading straight for the cops. I think he was the owner. He was desperately trying to avoid what I can only assume was a massive fine. The waiter came back over saying ´I told you not to put that table there.´ Cheeky bastard. There was no way we were paying the 10% service charge after that. No way mister!

Rio de Janeiro is an amazing place. I have never been to a city of this size where people are quite so friendly. It’s almost like it’s got a small-town mentality. People speak to you in the streets and shops and generally want to say hello, if not sneak in a handshake or a kiss on either cheek. Meeting people from the favelas makes it even more convincing, they are generally some of the warmest people you can meet.

I haven’t been to many large cities where the people are so friendly. London, Buenos Aires, Barcelona and Berlin all have their moments, but none of them quite have the goodwill of the Cariocas (the name for people from Rio). I think it is because they have such a bad image, the people are constantly trying to prove that it’s a good city, that it’s not just a place of violence and beaches. This is my theory anyway. People in the other cities don’t need to prove anything. People arrive with high hopes that they will like the city and will generally be disappointed. In Rio, people arrive expecting to be robbed, and then get robbed. It’s worth taking the risk though, to get to know the people. The key is to make sure that if you are robbed you don’t lose much.

Now I just need to prove the theory, which means making Israel or Islamabad my next stop. I would be very surprised if the people there didn’t turn out to be some of the friendliest folk around.

In football news, tomorrow is Flamengo v Corinthians. Which potentially meant Ronaldo returning to his boyhood club, the club where he trained at the start of the season until suddenly Corinthians had the money and he switched sides. However, he fell over on his hand, breaking it in the process (he is still carrying a substantial amount of weight, it’s almost surprising the whole arm didn’t break in two) and will miss it. I think he did it on purpose. The Flamengo fans had been knitting Judas banners since the fixtures had been announced. It would have been a horrible experience for him. Now, they will have to wait a year. In the meantime we get to see Adriano, which is at least one great from the game. My money is on a Flamengo upset.

It’s my second stay in Rio and it seems only know that I am starting to understand it. Before, the favelas had always been a dark area, small clusters of activity existing on the landscape around the centre.  Their height above the city, their lack of roads and non-presence on any maps making them easy to dismiss. Their bad reputation also playing a big factor. But it’d be foolish to dismiss them. Over the past week I have been to 2 favelas. Favela Tavares Basto is one of the safest places in Rio. No gangsters. No guns. No smoking on the street. A deal has been struck with the Police and they maintain the status quo. I imagine this is where the older cops come to see out their years on the force. At the top of the favela is a club, my reason for going. It’s a jazz club (another sign that this isn’t your average favela; no booty beats here!).

View from The Maze, Catete

This venue has become quite famous for being featured in the video for Snoop Dogg – Beautiful. It’s naming as a favela surely something of a misnomer. There are as many middle-class people in this neighbourhood as poor.

Yesterday I went to Tabajaras with some friends. Another favela, this time with some of the normal problems that favelas face. Guns are drugs are quite prevalant. Walking through the streets can be quite intimidating, there are huge concrete walls surrounding many of the paths with houses overlooking you in all directions. But visiting with people who know the area makes all the difference. Everyone they see on the street knows their name and stops to chat. It takes about an hour to get to the house we’re trying to reach. Without distraction it would take 15 minutes to walk to this favela from my hostel in the centre of Copacabana, yet they couldn’t be further apart. On entering the favela I felt a lot safer. Copacabana is rife with homeless, people trying to sell you drugs and generally people eyeing you up for a lot longer than is really necessary. It’s a haven for tourists and so muggings happen all the time. The favela feels different, it is a home for a lot of people and isn’t just a place to fleece a few tourists.

That said, my plan to roam around the favelas on my own is still a long way off. I know no way near enough to ever realise that. However, my interest has been piqued. It seems like they get a bad name. All tourists stick to the main spots; Copacabana, Ipanema, the street parties in Lapa, and quite a few of them end up getting mugged. This is partly due to them being drunk and speaking English, wearing too much jewellery, carrying unnecessary cards and money and also a heavy dose of bad luck. The reputation of Rio as dangerous will always remain as tourists will keep on coming and keep on getting mugged in these very same places. As the people doing the muggings come from the favelas it is these barrios that seem to get the brunt of this reputation.

The only time people go into the favelas is through the organised tours or because they are doing some volunteering. The real nature of the favelas is generally hidden from the majority of the people. The shame that the Government feel towards them is remarkable. They take every opportunity to cover up their existence. When Michael Jackson was planning to film a video in Santa Marta, the Government did what they could to cancel it. They presumed that filming inside a favela would give Rio a bad name. It didn’t matter that the video was planning to show the favela as the vibrant community that it is or that the inhabitants were overcome with excitement at the fact that MJ was coming to their neighbourhood, they were just unhappy that it wasn’t going to be set on Ipanema beach or one of their other chosen tourist spots. Recently, they’ve been talking about building walls around some of the favelas to stop them from encroaching on some of the rainforest in the area, in what is surely just another method of trying to hide them from view.

Sometime this week I am hoping to visit Rocinha, a favela in the West of the city. It’s an extremely safe area, and is generally regarded as a great example of building a community.