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.
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.
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....
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