Drift Reality

Just a brief update. 

After having spent most of the day yesterday wandering around the city we decided to head back to the beach today.  Unlike Monday, when we spent most of the day at the beach in Ipanema we decided to stay closer to our hotel and set up camp in the middle of Copacabana.

After sitting under the sun for about 30 minutes I decided to try the water, which had felt icy when I dipped my toes in at Ipanema Monday.  I slowly waded in, diving in fully when a large wave emerged and the shock from the icy water jolted me into a different state of conscience and I suddenly felt fully awake and alert.  

Although we have done quite a bit during the first few days here I feel like my mind has been fragmented and I have been reflecting on work, family, life, etc.  Today was probably the first day since we arrived that my mind has felt completely clear and I feel like I am actually in Rio - mind, body and spirit.

I went jogging along Atlantic Avenue this evening and simply enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of Copacabana.  There was a slight haze in the air and with the sound of waves in the background I could finally begin to understand what made my friend fall in love with the city.

Tonight we are going to meet up with some of his friends and head over to an Irish pub in Ipanema and watch a football match.

After spending a few days hanging out with some of my buddy’s guy friends for the past few days in Rio I gave one of his female Carioca friends a call who seemed extremely friendly and spoke impeccable English.  We made plans to meet at the Astoria and then head to a club in Leblon called House. 

She arrived with a couple of her girl friends at about 9:00 and George and I hopped into the car and we headed off to House.

I was a bit skeptical at first because while the club had an extremely cool vibe to it, we were literally the only ones there however the doorman assured us that the place would fill up later in the night.  We sat outside on the front deck and had a few drinks while chatting about Rio. 

At around 10PM, people slowly started filling into the venue and I became suddenly aware that English was being spoken all around us.  George informed me later that evening that we had unwittingly stumbled onto some sort of event being held for American and European students in Rio. 

Before long, two floors of the club were completely packed with an international crowd - most of whom were speaking English.  It was actually sort of a nice change-of-pace to socialize with people who spoke my native tongue instead of trying to piece together broken Spanish and Portuguese to get things across.  I  met a group of British architecture students who were doing a semester abroad in Rio as well as several American students who were also studying in Rio. 

The night was actually quite enjoyable until about 2 or so, when the place started to resemble a British University club at the end of the night with people stumbling around and making out in corners.  I started to feel my age when I realized I was more disgusted by the debacle than amused by it and really started to feel my age when I started contemplating intervening and putting several girls (who looked underage) in cabs home who were making out with a random assortment of young males.

Fortunately, George shared my sentiments as did our hosts so we headed off to indulge in some late night McDonalds before heading home and to sleep.

Yesterday morning, George and I grabbed breakfast at the hotel and then hopped in a taxi and headed to Corcovado to check out Chris the Redeemer.  We each brought about 50 or so real with us and this left us in a somewhat problematic situation when we arrived to find that tickets on the tram up the mountain would cost about 36 real each. 

After paying for the taxi, paying for the tram would have left us with a collective sum of about 3.75 real but we decided to worry about that later. 

The 30-minute tram ride up was quite enjoyable and offered some truly amazing views of Rio.  We were also entertained by a samba group that came into our train and performed several songs.  I gave them a real at the end of the set to George’s dismay and that left us with a grand total of 2.75 real.

The statue itself is also quite a spectacle and well worth the trip up. 

It is worth noting that George mockingly asked “Who is that?” in reference to the statue as we arrived on top of Corcovado.  “Is that the president of Brazil?”

The questions resulted in a few dirty looks from some Canadian tourists within earshot. 

Regarding the statue itself, I won’t go into that much detail but Wikipedia has a pretty solid article on Christ the Redeemer if you are interested.

After about thirty minutes of snapping photos and mocking other tourists, we decided it was time to go so we headed back down on the tram and discussed our options for getting back to Copacabana. 

We came up with the following list:

1. Hike five miles back to Copacabana
2. Beg for money on the streets near Corcovado to cover bus fare
3. I use our pooled resources to pay for 1 bus ticket and then come back in a taxi to pick George up (we promptly realized that this was no longer a viable option after I gave that real to the samba group)
4. Take a cab back and simply pay him when we got to our hotel

Clearly, the final option was the most intelligent but we decided to try option #1 and began walking back to Copacabana despite having a pretty shoddy tourist map and no spatial understanding of Rio.

From the top of Corcovado I thought I had figured out a route back but we quickly got lost and it took some help from a sympathetic pedestrian to get us back on course.

After about two hours of serious walking we finally emerged onto Copacabana beach, starving and exhausted, but unscathed.