Copacobana Beach. Its not all beer & skittles here, you know. For a start, I don´t play skittles at all. The actual beach is a beaut, even by Aussie standards. The suburbs of Rio are separated by large, weird shaped mountains which acted as natural barriers. Until they started to put tunnels everywhere.
The main streets of Copacobana are softened by trees, which gives a kind of Euro chic feel to the place.
But it can be bloody hard to find a park!! The parking racket appears to be controlled by local parking chiefs (I dont know what else to call them) who appear to direct operations on their little patch of kerb. I have made a detailed study of this operation while perched on one of the beer keg tables at the Belmonte. A fat guy with thongs is the local boss on this corner.
This is my local. I think I am now a part owner of this establishment. Several very late nights were enjoyed by our group right here. But I dont like the way they run a tab, instead of pay as you go. You almost think its free grog, until you get a humungous bill approximating the national debt, just as you want to go home. But you dont care......... until the next morning.
Even getting home is tricky. Most of the streets have this mosaic tiled surface on the footpath. It probably looked great when it was new, but now it is uneven & slippery.
Just about every building has serious security fencing at the front, with locked gates, & often a security guard as well.
It must be like living in a zoo, I expect.Ok, thats the end of the photos for the time being. Friends, I have just had an un-nerving experience. As all my group has now left, I decided that today Sunday, my last day in Rio, would be devoted to cultural pursuits, rather than drinking & babe watching at the waters edge. So last night I got out the maps & the Lonely Planet, & plotted a course to the St Theresa area of the city. There I hoped to catch an old tram which winds its way through an older section of town, allegedly similar to the older parts of San Fransisco. And what better time to check it out than on a quiet Sunday morning, right? Wrong, as it turned out. The map showed the line would go close to several favelas, the local name for slums, which are definite no go areas, but that just makes it a bit more exciting, & maybe Ill take a few hard to get photos from the relative safety of the tram. I awoke early to the sound of steady rain. Damn it, but at least it will wash the streets clean of the all pervading dog wee odour.
By the time I had finished breakfast it had eased up a bit, so I walked to the nearest Metro station. I stated my destination to the ticket clerk & was given a plastic credit card in exchange for 3 reals. What is it with credit cards in this country? Another WTF moment as I tried to use the thing to get past a turnstile. After trying about every way I could think of, someone else finally turned up, & showed me how. You put it in a slot & the turnstile keeps it. Who would have thought. Great, that means I can stay on the system for as long as I want, because they dont collect tickets at the exit, & nobody knows where I got on! This is essentially how I was able to consistently defraud the London Underground for a whole year in 1977. Bewdy, the Green Man is back!
The euphoria lasted about 4 stops, until a black bloke got in & addressed the entire carriage in a loud voice. Eye contact was being averted by everybody, especially me. The rant lasted about a full minute, & of course I had no idea what he said, but it had the desired effect as many of the passengers squirmed uneasily then dropped money in a box the guy was carrying. I began to feel uncomfortable, as I stood out like you know whats. Had I just witnessed an act of robbery, extortion or charity? No idea, but fortunately my stop was next, & off I got. I was now deep underground, & in following the exit signs, noticed that several of the possible exit routes were cordoned off, including the one I wanted. I also noted that I was pretty much alone. Does anybody work here or what? When I finally left the station, I was totally disoriented, & in walking around the block to find the street I needed, I noticed I was alone again, this time in a vacant laneway strewn with rubbish, apart from a bloke looking at me & swinging a bike lock on the end of a chain, and talking to the voices in his head, quite loudly. Oops. Quick reverse into another lane, where another guy was breaking a lump of concrete into smaller pieces with a metal pipe. Not sure why, but he was a busy man & didnt see me. Another reverse had me in a main street. Across the road two cops had stopped their car & were talking to a group of five young black blokes. The last thing I wanted to do was pull out a map & gawk at it. There didnt seem to be anyone else around, not even many cars, and I suddenly got a very bad vibe as I remembered I had my valuables in my backpack, ie money, tickets, passport, camera, the lot. And at the odds of 5 to 1, I was on the losing side. Bugger, why didnt I leave that stuff at the hotel? Thats right, because the safe doesnt work. Why didnt I do this on a weekday when the city was populated? Because I was too busy sitting in the Belmonte sinking beers & reliving the trip with my travelling mates. By now I was on full alert. Could I make it any more obvious that I was an idiot, a vulnerable gringo carrying a basket of goodies, who didnt know where he was ? Well, perhaps if I was wearing a flourescent orange body suit, with a bag over my head, & throwing bundles of 100 real notes into the air, yes I could. Bugger the tramride, I scurried back to my adopted home of Copacobana with all speed.
Brazil has a bad reputation for high crime rates. This had been self evident from the moment I crossed the border from Argentina 2 weeks ago at Iguacu. Most the houses there had high fences, some topped with an electrified barrier, and large security gates. Windows & doors are invariably screened off with bars, grilles, etc. I believe gun ownership rates are high too. Well, there must be a reason for it. And in Copacobana, & Ipanema, safe areas, the front of just about all the buildings have very heavy duty steel rail fences & gates, while there are security guards outside nearly every large building. Up until last night, my experience had been that these things are pretty much just in the background as the well heeled party people go about their business of having fun in the sun. After checking out the night street market on Avenida Atlantica one last time, I entered Rua Bolivar just as two guys were having a traffic stopping stoush on the corner. They looked either drunk or drugged up, & while it was sort of in slow motion, it showed no sign of stopping as they each landed hit after hit. This was even attracting the attention of the staff & diners at several of the open air restaurants on this busy corner. But there was nothing funny about the sound one blokes head made as it smacked into the footpath. I walked quickly back to the hotel, feeling slightly sickened by what I had just seen.
Sorry to end on a bit of a downer, but after these two events, my second South American adventure is now over, & its time I went home. And at 4.00 am tomorrow (Monday), I will head to the airport, & after enduring the modern day equivalent of torture, eventually arrive home at about midnight Tuesday, if it all goes to plan. Thanks for reading, and Hasta Luego, Amigos.
