Month: January 2010

We woke up and got ready for the 9AM pickup for hang gliding.  If you don’t know this already, I am scared of heights.  So the idea of hang gliding has been spoken about the entire trip and I sort of dismissed.  I wasn’t trying to think about it too much.  So when the guy picked us up at 9AM, it started to seep in that this was actually going to happen!

The hang gliding Gods were not with us that day as we were heading out the door and the guy picking us up received a phone call indicating that the winds weren’t good at all so we would have to postpone until the afternoon.  Free day to ourselves!  Without any plans!  What to do?

Chris, Vero and I headed to Copacabana beach which we had only seen in the night with three million other people.  We strolled down the sidewalk (which as a very famous cobblestone design), checked out some merchants wares, bought some excellent percussion shakers.  I am quite jealous of the giant fish shaker that Chris bought (named Bob the Fish).  He was going to be the star of the new shaker band “Bob the Fish and the Minnows”.  Classic title!

It was getting hot so I decided to take a dip in the water while Vero and Chris hung out on the beach.  The water was cold.  Refreshingly cold!  It was quite the change from the warm water over the past week.  I loved it!  When I returned to the beach, we got some cheese on stick with some herbs on it.  It’s really good.  Essentially, think of a giant block of cheese curd on a Popsicle stick sprinkled with herbs and then grilled for a few minutes.  Yummers!

Copacabana definitely had a lot more merchants around trying to sell you stuff.  It got annoying when you are trying to relax on the beach and there’s people walking up to you trying to sell their bottles of water or tanning oils.  All in all, I prefer the Leblon beach a lot better.

We headed into the street along Copacabana and bought some souvenirs.  We also called the hang gliding place but no dice, we weren’t going to fly today.  It was time to return home to tell Audrey and Florent as they were waiting to hear back from us.

When I got home, I took a nice afternoon nap and after that, headed down to the beach where I enjoyed the nice refreshing water.  I even swam for awhile as it was gave me lots of energy!  It was a great afternoon of just relaxing and enjoying life.

That night we had to wait a long time to eat but it was worth the wait.  When Philipp and Erica showed up, we headed out to this amazing buffet where you have your standard buffet tables but at the same time, the waiters are carrying around giant swords of meat that they place onto your plate.  You have a sticker on your table that you turn over to the green side (“Green is Go!”) and they’ll just keep hammering you with selections of meat…pork, beef, chicken, roast, awesome filet mignon.  For all the days that we had not eaten much, we gorged on all this meat.  I want one of these places in Ottawa!

After the gorge-fest, Philipp and Erica went home as it was getting late and we headed out to some bar which played some good old rock and roll music.  This was quite the hopping place and reminded me of all the bars back home…grimy pub chairs, small dance floor, random artifacts around the bar.  Excellent!  I feel at home again.  Especially since they were playing a killer mix of tunes from the early 2000s..a lot of Strokes, Franz Ferdinand, JET!  The only problem is that they would also intermix the ladies favourite…anything from the 80s.  This proved to be the only downfall of the DJ that night.

We started off the night with a few drinks and Vero took one sip of her Caipifruita and then realized it was not for her!  Chris and I ended up finishing it during the rest of the night up on the dance floor.  The dance floor had its motley crew of people…I swear I was dancing with some Egyptians at one point (as they reminded me of Mina.  That’s my only basis to that assumption) and there were some hilarious dancers out there as well.  I especially enjoyed the homosexual trying to bring me up some stairs to ‘show’ me something.  He kept saying “Just go up to the third step, you’ll see.”.  Chris figured he wanted me to go up to the third step, turn around so he can check out my ass!  In the end, no stair climbing occurred but it made for a hilarious moment in the night.

The air-guitar had to end at some point so we headed home around 2AM as we knew we would have to get up early the next morning to go hang gliding.  It also didn’t help that the DJ threw in some Madonna around that time which made Vero go wild, but made Chris and I realize that we would rather be home than here!

Woke up quite tired. Couldn’t sleep. No more night swim for me! Vero let me sleep in for our second attempt at the Cristo Redentor statue.

Anticipating the worst, but hoping for the best considering it was a Tuesday, we took a thirty minute bus ride to discover great success! No lineup whatsoever! Turns out that it was so cloudy that you couldn’t even see the statue if you were next to it. We thought about it and decided to get a ticket for 1PM when it might clear up. That was three hours away so we had a morning to kill!

We walked around on this hot muggy morning. It was quite a disgusting walk being amongst the morning traffic and the smells of the city of Rio in the morning. Vero commented a lot on the smells that were found in Rio. I think she prefers the stagnant smell of Ottawa.

We soon realized there were no activities on the street to Cristo so we sought an Internet café. They couldn’t break a $50R for the $4R/hr charge, so w went to the bar next door where locals where already into the sauce at 10AM. They couldn’t break the bill either so we finally found a store that could.

We checked the weather report which reported different outlooks on different Web sites. After killing an hour emailing and updating the blog, we headed back, enjoyed a ham and cheese sandwich (without that crazy liquid cheese that was a favourite in the apartment) and had some ice water. I loved taking the water from the freezer each morning. Yum!

Before we knew it, we were heading up the mountain to the train. Thirty minutes of scenery later, we arrived at one of the new wonders of the world. Walking up the massive steps, we finally arrived at the summit of the statue. We walked away from the statue into the hundreds of people and continued without turning. Finally, when we were far enough, we turned and I was taken aback by how majestic this statue (built in the 1930s) was. How they got the statue up there is a wonder in itself. It was quite an impressive sight, standing over Rio, protecting both the rich and the poor.

Heading to the snack shop, we picked up an iced tea and a bag of chips as there was not much else to choose from. We missed the next train back and waited for the next one while asking questions like “Favourite Tom Hanks film’ or playing “What would you choose to do?” on the iPod. Did I mention it was killer hot that day?

We returned to the apartment to find Chris in better spirits today.

This is where my original journal entries end and everything else from this point will be from memory. I personally hate when this happens to me as I forget some minor details and they are lost forever.

Chris and I had some fun taking pictures of our underwear flying from the ceiling fan. Phil’s camera takes some excellent photos! Phil had a good laugh until he noticed we took a picture of our underwear on his nice camera bag. Sorry Philipp!

I am assuming we headed to the beach for a swim before supper that night. I do recall that night of supper being a pasta and rice dish. Philipp and Erica arrived fairly late from work that day and we were starving! It’s hard to eat around 9-10PM! They also left pretty soon after dinner and I remember a few of us heading to the beach for a night beer (no swim for me anymore!) as we were going to call it an early night due to us going hang gliding the next day!

We are waiting until 1PM to go see the Christ statue in Rio. We tried the other day, but Vero got sick and when we brought her to bed, I ended up sick from some bad coconut juice. People have been getting sick over the past few days, but hopefully we have seen the worst of it.

I am keeping a journal which will be the account of our travels. i will transcribe it when we are back.

Iteniary to date (for Uncle Gary)…Rio…beaches, ssugar loaf mountain, reveillon on copacabana beach, riding some crazy ass rickety old street car up a mountain to some ruins which we found out were closed on Monday, going to some local markets, having fever dreams at night due to the hot nights…

Coming up…hoefully see the Christ statue today bvut it is cloudy…hang gliding tomorrow, then two days of relaxing…priobbably go to Copacabana and check it out (only saw it at night so far). I have been trying to buy a ukelele (or the Brazilian equivalent) but the cheapest I can find is $200.

Flying back at 1055PM on Friday and arriving in Ottawa on Saturday around 5PM. Yee…haw…

A great sleep was had by all but Chris. He thinks someone switched the fan to the wrong setting which didn’t bring the cool air down, so he decided to stay home for the day. Vero and I headed for Santa Teresa to see some ruins.

We arrived at a market and bought an amazing egg-burger for $1.30R! THIS was authentic working-man hot dog stand food from Brazil! Two buns are inserted in a bag, the patty and egg added, some crunchy things and some rose sauce are the final ingredients. A free cup of juice as well! Score!

We stumbled in three separate instrument stores. Unfortunately my quest for the Brazilian version of the ukelele (the cavanquinho) was thwarted by the price of $200R minimum! A little too much than I was willing to pay considering I can probably pick up a uke in Canada for $50. Dang…now I realize with the exchange rate that it was closer to $100CDN which WAS what I willing to pay! Argh. Maybe I’ll get Philipp to ship me up one.

I did find a Spider-Man (the French pronounce it Speeder-Man!) digest which reprinted Issues 99-101. An interesting format that I have never seen (or only have seen with Archie comics). The newsstand that I picked it up from had comics that were sun bleached and not taken care of. I wonder if they have some proper comic stores in Rio somewhere? They must.

After some navigational woes, we finally found Le Bonde – the streetcar station to go to Santa Teresa. There was a lot of shade and benches so the 1.5 hour wait didn’t feel long at all. We chatted with a few girls from Chicago who were on a winter break. There was also a guy with them with a shirt that said SOU and then had a guitar and I couldn’t figure out what it said. I finally realized that the guitar formed the letter ‘L’ and the word was SOUL. I gotta get me one of those t-shirts!

We boarded a rickety old street car, the only one still in service and what a ride it was. It lurched forward and felt like it would break anytime. One time I swear it went off the rails and I could feel the heat from the engine beneath my feet as it tried to get back on track. Locals jumped aboard and hung on for dear life. We weren’t going fast so cars were passing us on tight corners. We kept climbing on past the sign for the ruins and I got concerned because I really had no ideas where we would end up. Perhaps even in the favela (slums)! We finally got off when it was turning around to go back down because Vero realized I was a baby. We then realized all we boarded onto was a streetcar ride up the hill to a neighbourhood in Santa Teresa! We were thinking there was something to do at the top of the hill, but there was only the choice of riding back down, or walking. Or getting a ride to Corcovado, home of the Cristo Redentor statue. I wondered if this was secretly a faster way to get up to the statue instead of the two hour line-up!

Vero and I hoofed back down the barren street and snapped photos. We found a little bit of civilization when we bought some excellent grapes and found a souvenir shop. Vero bought a notebook which I am quite jealous of.

We made it to the cutoff to the ruins and finally got to the gate of the ruins to find it locked! This was not the biggest surprised in the world considering we had read in her tour book that it was closed on Mondays! Nevertheless, we enjoyed the trip.

We then went searching for an old artistic community where they had spruced up the area years ago. After some help from some dude in his windows, we found the stairs we were looking for. The Escadaria Selaron. An artist (Selaron) had laid ceramic tile along the vertical edge of each of the hundreds of steps. Looking down, nothing. But looking up, what a sight! I was quite impressed. They even had ceramic tiles on the walls of the neighbourhood. It was quite colourful.

There were many tiles depicting a caricature of a pregnant person. I believe this may be a caricature of the artists himself.

A local invited us into a gallery of artwork and showed us (along with two girls from Munich) some celebrities on this famous stairway. U2 in the Walk On video, Ed Norton in the Incredible Hulk. Very interesting.

At the end of the stairway, we found ourselves quite close to where we started off. Got a Metro back to find Chris still in rough shape. Philipp and Erica had returned from Philipp’s first day of work which was decent. We ate a nice meal of pasta/rice, went to the beach for a swim which was horrible due to the eaves being quite lame.

A night of death by heat was what we experienced but we were resurrected and we emerged victorious! I felt great the next morning and Vero was 80% operating capacity.

We ate some fruit and fell back asleep in the heat for a few hours more. Interesting as there are no window screens in Rio…too hot for bugs.

We headed to the apartment to find that Chris was in fine shape.

Everyone except for Vero headed to a Sunday market to purchase some wares. I picked up some fridge magnets as souvenirs which I don’t think made the ‘Vero’ cut as she’s still looking for souvenirs! (I have since found out that she thought they were fine.) I also picked up a beach blanket with the Brazil motto on it: Order and Progress.

I was going to buy Vero a handbag but it turned out to be $88R. A little too pricey (but now with my new found knowledge of the exchange rate, a steal of a deal!). The art around the market was nice as well but I didn’t see anything that moved me. Florent and Audrey picked up some art and Chris had his eye on a few pieces but was going to wait till later in the week to make a decision.

We went to the shopping center to exchange Philipp’s $180R pair of shorts (a gift) and checked some emails on the trusty iPod Touch. Lord, I love that thing. I picked up a smoothie for Vero and found her awake and chipper when we got home.

I was running low on energy having only some fruit and an apple in my stomach for the entire day so the five of us searched for a restaurant. We hit the jackpot and each had a giant Bohemian beer (chilled at -4.3 degrees!) and I had a filet mignon sandwich and fries. Yes! Two bites in, I was full. So was Chris. That’s how small my stomach had become.

A thought about eating in Rio: to this point, I have eaten very little and still managed to fare well (energy-wise). Or did I, considering I got sick yesterday? I blame it on the coconut. Why don’t we listen to our bodies as to when we should eat? Why do we eat so much in North America? I have started (upon my return) to eat less and to see how that works. I theorize that I will still have enough energy to get me through the day. I have long argued with Vero that she gives me way too much food on my supper plate and she says it’s because she grew up that way. I encourage everyone to break their habits and eat only when they need energy! Or at the very least, when you know you’ll need energy in the near future.

We headed home in hopes of a good sleep.

That night I could not sleep well at all. I have since realized that it may have been due to me swimming beforehand which got my energy up.

We had decided that this was the day to go up to the Cristo Redentor statue, otherwise known as of the new wonders of the world!

WE headed out fairly early but Vero want not looking too well. She rested her head for the very long bus trip (which we found out later would have only taken us 30 minutes if we had taken a different bus!) When we arrived she vomited on the street and we knew we were in trouble.

She still wanted to see Cristo Redentor (her stubbornness shines at times) so Chris, Philipp and I waited in line while her and Erica went elsewhere in the shade.

A note of hindsight for this journal…a Saturday after Reveillon is NOT the time to wait in line! It snaked its way for two hours and it was HOT! Two hours is a long time to wait in line in mid-day in Rio. Temperatures were hovering around 32 degrees without the humidex factor.

There was a guy in an orange shirt that somehow managed to sneak his way in behind us and he tried his way past us but the people called him on it.

In the end, it was 12-1PM when we got our tickets and the earliest time they had to ride the train up was 7PM! We had to do some emergency planning as Vero still was not well. We decided to go to Erica’s parents apartment which was closer.

We put Vero to bed right away as she was too weak to move. We all then left her in the care of Erica’s mother and aunt for the afternoon while we headed to the beach.

It was the hottest day I’ve even seen and the sand burned like fire. It was 38 degrees without the humidity! Chris, Phil and I headed to find some Kahlua to make some Whiteys. In the end, we ended up with some Crème du Chocolat which wasn’t a bad substitute.

We then made the mistake of the day (in my opinion). We had some coconut juice which was prepared differently than before. It seemed to be filtered through ice and water to cool it down or to clean it. I had been careful not to drink the local variety of water up to this point.

Halfway through my drink, a brick formed in my stomach. We returned to the beach where Erica, Alexandre, Vanessa and Diego were waiting. I took a snooze immediately but still could nto feel good. We headed back to Erica’s after picking up Chris who was sleeping under a tree and I proceeded to be sick. Not a good scene! Coupled with my lack of sleep, I was out of commission. Chris and I were fighting for use of the washroom. I may have touched cloth waiting for him. I hope whoever is reading this is having a great laugh right now!

The decision was made for us. Vero and I would go another day. The others managed to sell our tickets in a heartbeat to some man and his pregnant wife. Also found out that Chris had a horrible time as he ended up violently ill at the top of the mountain, poor guy. The train also was 45 minutes late so they only managed to get some night shots of the area (which turned out beautifully).

Vero and I died in the hot room while trying to get some rest. For the life of us, nothing could help us sleep. I shut off one of the fans due to noise, shut the window due to noise, and forever battled with the ceiling fan due to noise. I tried many times in vain. In a feverish dream, I imagined that each noise was fighting each other to become the one remaining noise…like the Highlander of ceiling fan noises…but they just kept coming. It was horrible.