Time for a short update.

It’s a couple of hours past sunset in Rio (the sun goes down at around 5:30 here as the city nears its winter season). Though we were hoping to do more touring around the city and perhaps spend some time on the beach today, it’s been raining heavily since the early afternoon. Despite this, Lauren and Andrea managed to catch a tour of a local neighborhood and received a firsthand look into a different side of Brazilian culture.

Andrea, Lauren and Nick are on their way to the bus station to catch an overnight trip to Curitiba. Unfortunately for the two of us spending tonight in the city, it looks like the rain could even keep going long enough to cause the locals to cancel Lapa, a renowned late-night street party that’s held in a nearby beach neighborhood, so our last night will be a little slow. Tomorrow Derrick and I are taking a midday bus to the nearby city of São Paulo, where we’ll meet a fellow Rice student who has been doing a fellowship here in Brazil for the past few months.

More details when we reach our respective destinations.

Ciao,
--Tim

Before arriving to Rio expectations were instilled in me from a variety of sources: travel guides, tv shows (according to a Travel Channel program Ipanema Beach is the #1 in the world) and South America fanatic friends. However, these sources tend to exaggerate the good and bad, leaving behind commentary on the subtle things that truly make one culture different from another.
Ive discovered that the way some things operate in Rio are much less efficient than the American cultural, which is where America derives so much of its success. Other differences seem more a product of the natural surroundings. For instance at most restaurants the Suco (or Juice) is a common beverage made from fresh blended fruit. They are cheap too (relatively); in America you pay a fortune at the grocery store for a product with 30% juice nevermind 100%. But there is more at play. American drink options are so reliably controlled by our large corporations such Coca-Cola and Pepsi. In Rio such dominant brands constitute a much smaller portions. Coke is impressive though; it is available nearly everywhere. Chains stores also appear much less common. Stores are all smaller in square footage and a large amount of sales are done by street vendors. Obviously these systems are different but the american one allows for better efficiency. The street vendors spend most of the day standing around doing very little.

Another difference is the driving styles. Here nearly everyone is highly aggressive. Due to the frantic driving styles the horn gets much use, but it is not entirely offensive. One light tap means that im on your side and passing, it is a safety caution. During one taxi ride pedestrians would run out from the road it had he appearance of a movie car chase from the camera in car angle.
Frankly, one of the most interesting aspect are seeing the consequences of less government regulation/different policies. You begin to appreciate services that are taken for granted in the US. On the beach vendors mercilessly harass you into buying things. Everyone is an opportunist an must find a niche to make an income. Trying to jipp tourists can be a good way. The severe separation of the upper and lower class has also been readily observable. For instance, the restaurants have either been very expensive or very cheap the middle ground is hard to find. The stores also are either trendy and pricey or raggedy. Rio is very pretty but not well maintained, most buildings in the city are in serious need of a paint job or powerwashing.

We´re now at the beginning of our last day in Brazil. Having woken up before everyone else, I thought this would be a good time for another update. We´ve met a lot of cool people at our hostel, many of whom have been having traveling the world for months. Our new roommate, a woman from London who´s in her twenties, has been traveling in the US and central America since January. She´s planning to continue traveling in South America, Australia, and Asia until March! Most of the people we´ve met are British, but there have also been other Americans and Canadians.

The clubbing experience we alluded to last time turned out to be a little disappointing. We couldn´t find the first club we looked for, Club 69, so we took a taxi ride to another one we´d heard of called The House. The club was almost empty except for a table of people watching a football game, so we watched the end of the match. After that however, the club never filled up, so we spent most of the night talking amongst ourselves.

We slept a little later the next morning and then walked to Ipanema beach, a block from our hostel. We got plenty of practice with our favorite Portuguese, ´no abrigada´(no thank you, and it is´no abrigado´ if a guy is saying it) because the beach was covered with vendors selling everything from snacks and drinks to bikinis, musical instruments, and hammocks. The beach was covered with young people, and we witnessed several games of soccer and foot volleyball. The water was chilly but not unbearably cold, so we swam in the surprisingly strong waves and walked up and down the beach. Derrick sported a Brazilian style bathing suit that he tried to avoid being photographed in, and Andrea and I felt very covered up compared to the Brazilian women.

We spent the afternoon the the Centro (downtown) area of the city. We were a little nervous when we got there because our taxi driver warned us about pickpockets and camera thieves, but we didn´t have any problems. We ate at Bar Luiz, which has been open for 120 years, and Nick finally found a dark beer to drink. Beer doesn´t seem to be quite as popular or varied here as in the US and most of what we´ve seen is light beer. Walking around, we saw a wide cross section of Brazilian society, from business people in suits to young people taking a dance class in a cultural center to poor people sleeping on the ground. We saw many beautiful older buildings, including the one below:

Back at the hostel, we got suco (juice) at our favorite restaurant, I tried my first street food (called tapoica, kind of like a crepe with bananas and caramel inside), and we decided to give Rio nightlife another try.

Derrick, Andrea and I went with a group from our hostel to a club a few blocks away called Cristal Lounge. The club was playing Brazilian funk, with a dj who one person told us is the Rolling Stones of Brazil (we were skeptical). Andrea and I met several charming Brazilian guys who spoke varying amounts of English, probably since the club cost guys at least US$18 to get in. Some of them were university students, and we also met a group of law students ´studying´ abroad here. Derrick impressed the Brazilians with his dance performance, and we enjoyed the free beer (basically served in Dixie cups). The clubs here have an interesting system- when you go in, they take your name and issue you a card with a number on it that you use to get drinks, and when you leave you pay for everything at once.

Andrea, Nick and I are taking a bus to Curitiba tonight, and Tim and Derrick are going to Saõ Paulo tomorrow, so you can expect separate updates for the next two days until we´re reunited at Foz de Iguazu on the southern border of Brazil. We have a collective competitive streak, so feel free to leave comments telling us whose entries you think are better ;)

Alô de Rio de Janeiro.

After an overnight flight and an early-morning connection in São Paulo, we arrived in Rio on Tuesday morning. With the help of a pompous British gentleman, we managed to avoid being swindled by an overly agressive taxi driver, and instead took an hour-long bus ride on the Real onibus (the locals call it "frescão" because of the air conditioning). After seeing the Rio version of the Houston ship channel during a circuit around the city, we finally arrived at Ipanema beach and made our way to our hostel, the Mango Tree.

We’d heard that, based on our knowledge of Spanish, we’d have a shot at understanding some Portugese. It took just half an hour in the country to prove us wrong. With the help of a phrasebook, however, we’ve been able to get by. Rather than giving everybody a detailed play-by-play of our trip, we are just going to share some of the more memorable moments so far.

As soon as we dropped our stuff off in the shared 6-bed room at the hostel, we headed out for some food and found a pizzeria down the street. We succeeded in ordering a half-onion, half-cheese pizza and discovered for the first time how intense restaurant service is in Rio. Our pizza was sliced in front of us and served to us individually, and Nick’s can of beer was delivered in an ice bucket with a chilled glass.

During dinner the next night, we sat by the open window with a nice view of the street. Halfway through the meal, we looked down and saw a briefcase of jewelry being presented to us through the window by a street vendor who said nothing and just made friendly faces. We’ve since learned that approximately a third of Brazil’s population works as street vendors, and we’re not surprised given our experience so far.

We woke up early on Wednesday morning to head to Cristo Redentor, a huge statue of Jesus on a mountain overlooking the city of Rio. We took our first taxi ride to get there, and found that the only way to fit five passengers into a compact car is to put Andrea on somebody’s lap. Getting out of the taxi, we were accosted by a woman with a brochure offering an alternate ’enterprise’ to take us to the base of the statue. During her summary of the trip she insisted that each stop was ’too much interesting.’ Tempting as the offer was, we decided to take the traditional train ride to the top of the mountain.

On the train ride down, we glanced into the train going in the opposite direction and were shocked to see a fellow Rice alumnus on his way up to the monument. We thought it was a case of mistaken identity until he looked back at us with the same degree of surprise.

We wandered around the surrounding area and found a local juice bar (Lauren’s custard-apple coconut milk smoothie was voted the best). We took a taxi to a hilltop village nearby called Santa Teresa and explored the area. After trying to follow a map from the Lonely Planet guidebook and receiving conflicting directions in Portugese from locals, we finally gave up on finding Espirito Santa, the restaurant we had been searching for. After retracing our steps up a steep hill (and being passed by cable cars and buses), we were so hungry that we would have eaten anything. In the distance appeared a sign reading ’Espirito Santa.’ We eagerly rushed into the restaurant, grabbed menus, and got seated on the upper terrace. We realized something was off when the cover of the menu said ’Asia’ and all the dishes were R$25 and up Eastern cuisine, not the traditional Brazilian food we expected. We eventually figured out that the restaurant we wanted to go to was next door, and we couldn’t figure out how to make a graceful exit from Asia. We finally settled on ordering drinks and tried to tell our waiter that we weren’t hungry. After a confusing exchange, we finally got the check and snuck into Espirito Santa next door. Much to our horror and embarassment, we were seated outside in direct view of the waiters clearing off our table at the previous restaurant. We finally got over our embarassment and had a big Amazonian meal.

Under Derrick’s leadership, we’re planning to head to the local Ipanema nightclubs, which apparently don’t get going until midnight or later. More about our adventures in South America to come....

Here's a map showing our planned travel route. We start in Rio de Janiero, Brazil on May 27, so check back after that for an update.

Fresh out of Rice University, Andrea, Lauren, Nick, Tim, Derrick, and Dario plan to spend the summer traveling through South America. Countries on our route include Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, and Peru. For exciting updates, check back often!