Hi all,
It has been a while since our last blog. Just a quick few sentences about what had happened since we wrote last time and then I will write about Rio de Janeiro.
Last time I mentioned that our motorcycle was making funny noises and Todd was looking for a tool to get it fixed. We ended up stopping at the local repair shop and the three guys running it let us use all their tools. They were so nice and if we were missing a tool one of them would jump on his scooter, ride to the other repair shop and get it for us. It took us about 4 hours to adjust the valves, only to find out as we were driving away that the popping noise did not stop. Couple days later we were lucky and were able to buy the tool and so we adjusted them again, but the popping did not stop. We ended up going to the BMW dealer in Rio and they told us that the popping is caused by Brazilian gas that contains 30 % of pure sugar alcohol. My conclusion is that we all would make funny noises if our food intake contained 30 % of pure alcohol.
As far as Brazil goes it is really a beautiful country. Everyone I have met before I came to Brazil had always described it a paradise. People had their eyes closed, held their hand on their heart while they were speaking about the beaches, rain forest, food and people. So far that has been our experience.
The Road to Rio was probably the most spectacular I have ever seen, with the ocean on the right and the rain forest on the left. With each turn we took the view got even more gorgeous which one may have thought was not even possible. One day there were even 2000 turns.
Todd was very particular about taking the “right” road to enter Rio. This south road was supposed to give us the most spectacular view of the city. I was pretty
happy to take just about any road that gets us to the hotel as quickly as possible so I can eat all the mangoes, bananas and papayas I picked from the trees. The news about the gangs shooting down the helicopter, the guide book telling that one wrong turn means getting robbed, kidnapped, and who knows what did not help either. However, our experience was very different than what the guide books had planned for us and we experienced nothing but the beauty, joyful energy and the enormous richness of the city.I am not even sure how and where to start to begin describing the city. When I went for a walk tons of people were jogging and walking along the beach, kind of like around Lake Harriet, except they all look like th
ey knew each other. They also take breaks to buy huge coconuts and drink the milk with straws, talk loud and laugh a lot. Most of them constanlty dance to samba music which you can hear just about everywhere you go. It all felt very rich and diverse, there were groups of elderly exercising together in circles, cute guys playing soccer, a TV station making an interview with some soccer player, Christ the Redeemer above it all, hugging the city and so much more.In Rio, you can spot some kind of soccer game 24 hours a day pretty much any direction you look. The TV-s with the game on are everywhere and seem to have a crowd of about 20 people (minimum and as the day progresses as many as 100) around them. People surround the TV and cheer constantly for “their“ team. It seems like soccer connects Brazilians very much ,everyone is welcome to stop by at the bar or restaurant without ordering anything just to watch the game. Another neat thing I noticed is that the love for their president Lula, also seemed to connect Brazilian people together . Almost everyone we met liked him and according to the statistics he has about 79-90% approval rate here.
What I found very interesting about Rio is that it is full of contradictions mainly due to the enormous economic class differences. However, in spite these enormous differences they not only manage to live literarily next to each other, but also appear to have lots of joy and happiness. (I will talk little more about the differences between rich and poor in our next post as I will describe the experience of visiting Favelas in Rio). Another cool thing about Brazil is that literally everything one buys in Brazil is made in Brazil. It is really amazing. That is the way they support their economy and possibly one of the main reasons why Brazil was not affected as much by the economic meltdown.
We had spent about 7 days in Rio visited most of the tourist places, visited favelas and concluded that Rio has something for everyone. It is so fertile with flavors, colors, sounds that I was not even able to imagine one city having it all. It is so hard to describe , you guys just have to come and taste acai, listen to the samba music and see the beautiful Copacabana beach.
love,
Kristina
Kristina
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