30.07 - Day 41 - Rio de Janeiro, BRA

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Friday 30th July 2010

Post brekkie, including banana smoothies I leave Krish and head for a Favela Tour with others from the hostel. 20 minutes from Copacabana on a hillside over looking one of the most affluent neighbourhoods is Rocinha – the largest favela in Rio with an estimated population of 200,000 people which is doubling every 10 years. 

At the bottom we each get on the back of a taxi motorbike – taking little insult of being picked last: all the drivers perhaps understandably preferring a girl on the back of their bike – and race to the top. Initial impressions are that it looks surprisingly developed – shops, bars like many streets anywhere. 

With our guide we spend the next three hours descending amongst the high sided narrow alleyways stopping off at a gallery, a bakery, the community centre and for impromptu chats with the locals (by the guide, not us).

The road we came up on is in fact one of only three roads in the favela (one way of keeping easy track of police movements), and whilst, at the top, it seems relatively developed it is apparent there are districts even within the favela of varying quality, and indeed we witness a far more run down district around the community centre.

Leaving we’re encouraged by the work that is being done but worries persist over how police will regain control – police pulled out of the favela and have said they won’t re-enter until 2012 so the whole place is run by drug lords. We are allowed in because apparently of the work being done by the charities – though when I suggest that educating the children on drugs and pregnancies will potentially reduce dependence on the very drugs that keep the dealers in power in the long run, our guide admits that tour groups also act as human shields against police helicopters and SWAT teams storming the favela – which they are well known for doing with devastating consequences for innocent bystanders.

Them killing a local in crossfire is one thing but the potential death of tourist gringo is a whole other matter especially with the World Cup in 2014 and Olympics four years later. Our guide gives up pointing out walls riddled with bullet holes. It almost sounds like he’d rather the police didn’t come back at all which doesn’t seem quite right – I guess the best way to do it just hasn’t been established yet. 

Reminders of who is running the show are common – before we entered at the bottom our guide said “if I say no photos, it means absolutely no photos.” It repeatedly shouts this out during the tour as we pass a “checkpoint” constituting some youths on a corner brandishing hand guns and even an AK47.

We arrive safely back the hostel around 2pm, I pick up Krish and we head off to catch a bus (which means standing anywhere on the street and flagging it down – stops not necessary) to Sugar Loaf Mountain. Things go far smoother than usual and we arrive far too early for the planned trip up for sunset.

The journey up involves two cable cars; the second a gut wrenchingly long way up. Views back over the city from Copacabana to the city centre off to the North. Christ the Redeemer a speck in the distance, even higher up.

Back at the hostel an unsatisfactory shrimp pie provides at least substance for drinks with the English kids and some drinking games with Lee and Marmaloid and a bunch of Aussies.

Around 11pm about 15 of us head down to bus to Lapa for the weekly street party. Lapa is actually the district where we failed to find the bottom of the tram a few days prior we realise when we spot the two tier viaduct that carries the tram. The crammed street contains stalls selling giant 5 Reais (£1.80) Caipirinhas with open door clubs lining the street. Inevitably we split up – a few of us head to Lapa Steps – some 100+ stairs decorated by one man over a period of years and years – each country has its own small section of painting.

The Steps on this night have a more relaxed vibe to them than the beating main street and as we sup on our drinks oddly some locals equipped with guitars break into an Oasis back catalogue. As we rejoin the main strip one of the English boys has his wallet pick pocketed – he’s helpless as even watches it pass along a chain of accomplices – a stark reminder that there is still an edginess to this area – like La Boca in Buenos Aires, the guidebooks say you must go there despite the touristy dangers. 

We enter a club for a while and people watch from a balcony with Ruth & Jenny who are on their last night. Following some more soaking up of the atmosphere out on the street Krish and I cab it home. 

And there it is, some 41 days into our trip – an actual big night out. Party animals.