Brazilians Part I

I remember my first couple of days in Rio de Janeiro fondly.

After leaving the beautifully air conditioned plane that had brought me from New York, via Miami, I walked out to what can only be described as a furnace. I was still dressed in some of the clothes that I had been wearing to snowboard in about a week before. Basically I was in jeans, trainers, T-shirt, hoodie and snowboarding jacket... I also had on underwear. Luckily the airport terminal is air conditioned, otherwise I would've died from dehydration straight away.

Map of

Rio de Janeiro

I knew I had about two hours at the airport while I was waiting for Suzi (my now girlfriend) to come and meet me. I brushed my teeth after finally translating signs for toilets (Luckily, they also expect lazy english speakers to not understand any portuguese). and tried to squeeze all the excess clothing I had on into my already overstuffed bag and put on my flip-flops.

I was still smoking at this point and after a 10 hour or so total journey without nicotine (must remember to tell you about nicoteen) I decided to venture back out into the inferno (winter in portuguese is called "inverno") that was waiting!

It was hot!

One thing I will tell you about Rio, is even the kids begging outside the airport are really friendly, which after having been in the States and Canada for the previous couple of months was a refreshing change. In fact everyone was really friendly! Maybe they thought I was a rich american who was gonna give them all my excess dollars? Maybe they were wrong. But they did keep me entertained for a little bit, being fascinated by my i-pod, and doing the belly rubbing hungry look. but at the end of the day I am a cheap uncharitable bastard!

Oh and you will never have a problem finding a taxi here... everyone is offering one. What suprised me though was the helpfulness of the guys you said "no thanks" to. In particular there was one, Silvio, who kept on asking me if I needed a taxi, and eventually when he got the picture I was waiting for someone, he offered me the use of his cel-phone to call. I think that is something that is known as great hospitality!

Eventually Suzi arrived we got on the bus and she started pointing out things to me of interest. I will always remember that first journey to her apartment from the airport, because I did not speak any portuguese and I think Suzi was very nervous speaking english, so we communicated in a combo of english, pictionary and sign language (and I was convinced that she wouldn't like me).

Seeing the favelas that we passed on the way I realised that this was a completely different place to any I had ever known.

Later that day, Suzi was busy with writing her theses, so I decided to leave her in peace and take a walk along the local beach.

Praia (beach) do Flamengo is about a 5-10 minute walk from the apartment. When I arrived there it was still really hot, maybe about 3pm so I decided to take a walk up and down the beach to take in the views.

and what views are there!

View of

Pão de Açucar

from

Praia do

Flamengo
From Praia do Flamengo you can see across most of the Bay of Guanabara, which includes in its skyline Pão de Açucar (Sugarloaf Mountain), Niterói and the nearby national airport. If you look back at the beach you will see another beautiful sight too.

The Tanga...

...to be continued