Goodbye Brazil

Apart from the UK, Germany, and the US, I've spent more of my life in Brazil than any other country. I'm glad about that. I'm leaving tonight, but I hope, one day, to come back and spend a lot more time here. It's a magic place. I'm gonna miss it.

A little bit more Oscar

Had to get some photos of Oscar's work in Parque do Ibirapuera before I leave Brasil this evening. Here's a Google Earth screenshot showing the whole area.



The fluid grey shape is the roof of this covered area, connecting three buildings. This is what it looks like underneath.











This is the Oca (hut). Not sure if that's its real name, but that's what I was told it was called.







And finally, here's the Auditório Ibirapuera (Ibirapuera Auditorium).

Don't keep your hamster in the safe

Back in São Paulo. I've got a nice hotel room; it's on a corner (thus two views) on the 24th floor. The view last night and this morning.





The safe in the room has a warning on it. Look at the size of the safe...



...and now look at the warning.

Some pictures

My last day in Rio de Janeiro, here's some pictures. The first bunch taken wandering around the Santa Teresa area.











The tram viaduct.





The cathedral.





A pigeon.



And Ipanema beach.











Six days ago I arrived in Rio de Janeiro, a bit nervous about the tales of danger on the streets and beaches here. And while I'm still a bit wary, I've gone from someone who forced himself to come here out of duty to see the city, into someone who loves it here. It's such a beautiful city. Walking around, taking the bus, or in a cab. All fantastic. And it's impossible for me to put my finger on what it is about the place. It's a stunning landscape, of course, and there are beautiful people everywhere, and the weather makes things agreeable; but that's not it. I'm not sure I want to be able to put my finger on it, but whatever it is, Rio is great. Really, really great. I've still got some grains of sand on my flip flops, and I don't wanna brush them off.

The girls from Ipanema

After several days of meticulous observation, I have completed my research.

Postcard

The Big Jesus Thingy has been Photoshopped so that we can see his face and Sugar Loaf in the background; rather than the reality which would show us the back of Jesus' head from this angle.

Museu Naïf

I wanted to go and visit the Museu Internacional de Arte Naïf do Brasil at the weekend, but, well, it's a bit of a palaver to actually get there. Not its location - it's right next to the little choo-choo train that takes you up to Big Jesus Thingy - but actually getting in. The website has no opening times on it; the booklet that the hotel has about galleries has no opening times; and when I called the number, there was no answer. Hmmm. So I sent them an email, which prompted a strange exchange, asking if I could come between 2pm and 5pm on Tuesday. Yes, I can. What time exactly? 3pm would be great. Okay, see you then.

I didn't have my watch with me, and I arrived half an hour early. The gate was padlocked shut, and after several rings of the buzzer, it seemed like nobody was going to come and open. So I had a coffeee nearby, waited 'til 3pm, and went back. This time, someone came out and let me in. Not really sure that this place is gonna get many passers-by dropping in for a look. Which is a real shame, because it's a magnificent place. Three floors with small-ish rooms crammed with great Brazilian and (mostly) Latin American naive art.

Here's some details of a few of the paintings rather than whole paintings, cos, well, the detail photos turned out better. Like an idiot, I forgot to jot down all of the names of the artists and titles. Sorry. I do know, though, that the one above and the next five pictures are details of a massive painting (4 x 7 metres) of the city of Rio de Janeiro by Lia Mittarakis called "Rio De Janeiro, Gosto De Você, Gosto Desta Gente Feliz" ("Rio De Janiero, I Love You, I Love Such Happy People")











This was by someone from Ecuador...



... and this was by someone from Mexico.



The rest are all Brazilian if I remember correctly.

I ♥ Oscar

Across Guanabara Bay, in the city of Niterói, there's this Oscar Niemeyer-designed slice of magnificence, the Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói. There was some art inside, but virtually anything that they put in there is gonna be fighting a losing battle with the building itself.

Sightseeing

I did some sightseeing. First stop, getting the little train up Corcovado hill to see the Big Jesus Thingy. That's not it's proper name, you'll be astounded to learn. Whatever's Portuguese for "Christ the Redeemer"; that's its name. If Jesus Christ is planning to come back one day, I really hope it isn't his ego that is holding him off from doing it before now; because if it is, then we're buggered when he does come back. A thirty-metre-high statue not enough, Jesus? Not being a religious type, I did find myself thinking of chuckles the whole time when I was up there. Like, for example, the other hills having different Christs on top: Christ the Not-that-arsed-about-redeeming, Christ the Short-order Cook, Christ the Huckster. Etcetera and etcetera until it got really quite saucy and inappropriate, and his outstretched arms were showing us how big his wang is. Still, nice statue. Here's some photos that look exactly the same as every photo taken by every tourist. First some snaps of the view.







Now some more of the big fella.













Here's some dead moths that have gathered in one of the floodlights.



And some pretend Jesuses.







After praising the Lord, I got a cab to Pão de Açúcar, Sugar Loaf Mountain. A couple of cable cars and you're up there with a different view over the city. The view from Jesus was looking out to sea, the view from Pão de Açúcar was better; you get a right good view over a massive amount of Rio. And from up there, it looks fantastic. All the buildings squished in-between the hills and the beaches. Magic stuff.











My sightseeing day was topped off nicely by a cab driver who showed me a laminated flyer for a strip club and telling me they did good massages "and a bit more... if you want!" And then spent the rest of the journey honking his horn at girls walking by, and turning around to look at me every time to make an "ooh she was nice!" face.

Football and backpackers

On Sunday, I went to see a football match. I wanted to go to the Maracaná to see Flamengo v Santos but, due to something or other, they were being penalised by having to play the game behind closed doors. So, it had to be Botafogo against the rather vaguely-named Sport (from Recife) at the Engenhão stadium. Like the favela tour I took on Saturday, the trip to the stadium was organised by Be A Local.

The mini bus was full of other backpackers. When I got in, they were already in full backpacker flow, telling each other where they'd been, where they were going, how they'd had an amaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing experience in Blah de Blah; all one-upping each other with tales of better, more "real" experiences, longer bus journeys, etc. You get the feeling none of them are interested in what the others are saying, they just wanna tell others how their trip has been more awesome. I kept my mouth shut and just listened. But, I think I've got one of those faces that says "don't talk to me," anyway, so it was never a problem.

There was one American woman in purple trousers who was particularly annoying. And she, back home, is a teacher. Poor kids. Anyway, I'd seen her on the favela tour, and on the way to the stadium, I heard he saying that it was too expensive, and that it wasn't "vibrant enough." If this was a Itchy and Scratchy cartoon, I'd be boring a hole in the back of her head, pushing a horse's leg through the hole, and climbing on the horse and going for a nice long ride across some fields with her body flapping along behind.

But, a short while later, when we arrived at the stadium and we were handed our tickets, I did begin to wonder if she was right about the price of the favela tour; well not so much the price, just about how much money was trickling down because, for the football trip, we each paid R$70, and the face value of the ticket was R$20. Hmmmm, that's quite a chunk of money they're taking for ferrying us to the stadium. Still, it didn't stop me loathing Purple Trousers Woman (more of which later).

The stadium itself seemed fairly average. Pretty new, and, err, virtually empty. I thought it was the other game that was behind closed doors, not this one...? Where the heck are Botafogo's fans? The stadium was probably 10% full tops.





So, the Rio de Janeiro football experience was kind of a let down. The game itself was fairly run-of-the-mill, but it was good to see how comfortable Brazilian players are with the ball. The home side won 2-0, but only after we'd had a 20 minute floodlight failure.





The lack of atmosphere, the pedestrian game, the mind-numbing idiots sat around me, and I was kinda just ready to get out of there and get something to eat. I wasn't really tempted by the hot dogs in plastic bags on sale in the stadium, but it was fun to hear the Brazilian way that "hot dog" is pronounced, like "hotchy doggy."

The mini bus drooped off a bunch of people at one hostel, and then Purple Trousers Woman commandeered the vehicle as her own personal taxi, asking, rather impolitely and in Spanish, that the driver take her and her drippy boyfriend to a specific part of town. It wasn't too far away, but the driver didn't know where they wanted to go, and neither did they. They just wanted to find "some restaurants." After 10 minutes of to-ing and fro-ing, she deigned to offer an apology to the six of us sat in the back of the bus: "Sorry, you guys!" None of us replied. but the girls who were left in the bus did spend the rest of the journey being nice and bitchy about her once she'd got out.

There are a few strange things I've noticed about backpackers. Firstly, they are almost exclusively white. I've not seen a single black backpacker on my travels. A handful of British Indians, but that's about it. And as for the other Brits one encounters, they are almost exclusively southern, with a high proportion of plummy accents. So, okay, you're in your late teens, it's probably a lot easier to do this kind of thing if you've got rich parents; but it's odd to me that one hears very few northern, Welsh, Scottish, or Northern Irish accents.

I did manage to talk to one dude, though, on the journey back. A friendly Australian from Sydney who turned to me and said, "Not really that good a game was it?" I agreed. And that was that.