Blame it On...my feeble attempt at catchy Rio phrases.

Sept. 22, 2007 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Ipanema

It´s 9:30pm here and I´m sitting on the second floor of the Che Lagarto Hostel...there´s a sweet jazz quartet here. Although they are playing SexyBack by Justin Timberlake, didn´t know you could make that into a jazz tune. Who knew.

The past two days have gone by pretty quick. SO, I´ll be quick in describing what happened.
In short, I didn´t sleep much (thanks to the noisy jazz quartet playing until 3am right below me, an open window where a brigade of mosquitos and gnats flew in and took a beachhead that was my face and neck, and the humid heat - I feel like I´m in New Orleans or Miami here - Oy!).
But I did wake up refreshed today for some reason and went to the beach - common occurence I guess when you sleep about 50 yards from the sand and are on an extended vacation.

I was up around 5:45am and walked out to the main street and this is what I saw - amazing - Brazilians must sleep in. No cars at all on the road. No getting hounded to buy arts or crafts or ¨purple haze¨This is one of Rio´s busiest roads and look at it. One thing about Rio is that you are constantly playing Frogger with cars. They don´t really obey any rules of the road, and if they see you cross the street ahead of them, they literally SPEED up to try to hit and/or scare the bejesus out of you.




So after a walk through Leblon, I went back to my hostel to read, until about 10, when I walked out to Ipanema beach and found this (below) - where did everyone come from? The beaches were PACKED.

Some stuff from yesterday (below) - I tooled around Ipanema yesterday as well as the surf beach (Arpoador), both really cool beaches.

I also went to El Centro to check out some history.
This below was an area where they had kids costumes out and kids came and could put on whatever they wanted and dance like banshees to some Brazilian kiddie-pop. I don´t know what that dude in the yellow was doing.


Below is an older part of Rio. Pretty cool streets, not the cleanest, but with character. They were selling everything on the streets: candy, hats, records...


Here´s a shot of something...I see Black Uhuru, good stuff, and Rocky III - who could forget Ëye of the Tiger¨by Survivor....But they actually made a Rambo III soundtrack? What songs are on that? I was this close to buying it.



I have seen alot while I´ve been here though - Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, some old guy in a speedo walking a beach chair across the street in the middle of town...



I did see a ridiculously stretched out farmer´s market yesterday - tons of fresh fruit and veggies. I had to sample a couple of tangerines, and jabuticabas. Very delicious.

Bananas - not so much.

These pics bounce around but this is a pic of my exciting subway trip to El Centro (see above). The metro is actually very nice but my favorite part (which I didn´t get on film) was about halfway through my ride to El Centro - these two Brazilian women were sitting across from me in the car and this middle-aged fella comes walking on at one of the stops. He was carrying a paperback book with some sort of image on it. He sits down BETWEEN the two women and crosses his leg and starts in where he left off, which looked like about three-quarters in. I wonder how the book´s storyline went, because the book was tattered and definitely from the 70s and had a naked woman´s torso on it with the title emblazoned as big as possible: ¨Let´s Get Laid.¨


Anyway, back to today, I actually had the highlight of my trip so far - I did a touristy thing and went to the top of Corcovado (below) and to see Cristo Redentor, which was voted as one of the new Top 10 Wonders of the World. It really is incredible. It´s 390meters up, it really does look over Rio. It was built in 1922 and actually stands 38 meters high, with 8 of those dedicated to a small chapel. It´s really one of the most breathtaking views I´ve ever seen. And I´ve been to see Eddie Money at Konocti Harbor.

One of the top 10 Wonders of the World, with and People Magazine´s Top 10 Worst Dressed on Corcovado.

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We toured one of the samba schools as well, this was a junior version. The kids really are great dancers and their parents absolutely go crazy for them. Carnaval isn´t for another 4 months too, this is serious business...

The 2nd best highlight of today was seeing a mugger get fully apprehended.
We were all in this 10-person van driving around this well-to-do district - the guide (who was facing backwards in the van said ¨this area is where the rich people live¨- right then we hear horns screaming behind us, and the guide moves to the side of the car - we all turn to our right to see this kid - no more than 15 - speeding down this cobblestone street alongside of us on a bike. He´s pedaling as fast as he can - which causes him to hit a bump and bail pretty bad over his handlebars. He doesn´t even get a chance to get up, because our guide has jumped OUT OF OUR MOVING VAN, and has both his hands behind him. Then another guy comes (apparently from the car behind us) and throws him down yelling, and places his foot on his throat. The kid gives up and hands over a gold chain, just as a very tan and leathery old man shows up, shirtless and in blue running shorts. He got his gold chain back.
I felt like I was on COPS. Only sadly, no taser action.

Well it´s time to turn in - going to move on and leave Rio tomorrow for either Ihla Grande for some hiking, or a small town just West of Rio which is a surf school for beginners. Gotta try it.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

Ciao!