Rio de Janeiro

Rio stole my heart.
I felt on the edge, between excitement and fear, hot sun and endless rain, tropical vegetation and white beach, growing economy and diffused poverty. I felt that it’s fine if I am not perfect, we all aren’t. I felt that you can always ask somebody for help. Somebody will help you. I felt free and constrained. I felt alive.

Lapa and Santa Teresa

I stayed in a nice hostel with a great view – http://www.riohostel.com/?gclid=CL_h-sit9bUCFREwzQodOxQAPA- at the border with Lapa. By taking a bus up to the “centre” (largo do Guimaraes) you get to the artists neighborhood, where everybody is very open and friendly and you can start great conversations. Bar Thiago is perfect for meeting the local community and for fejioada Bar do Mineiro is famous in all Rio. On saturdays mornings there is free street theater. The view from up there is simply extraordinary.

Lapa has all the nightlife area, on fridays the streets close to traffic and get alive with samba and bossanova everywhere. The famous Stairs of Lapa are full of people and music.On wednesdays at Clube dos Democraticos they perform live music and Forro.

The basic rules I have learned about dancing: first of all, it is very unpolite to refuse an invite to dance, if you are in a dance hall. Young, old, good looking, fat, thin, tall, short, single, married. Despite the appearance or status of the aspirant partner, you are there to dance, and you go for it. The only way to decline is by going to the bar or to the washroom. This is because Brazilians are much more used to have bodies sharing an experience, and it is not about sex only, most of the times not at all. The second rule is that you are not supposed to stop dancing before the song has come to the end. Dancing is fun but it is also a serious discipline. Third rule is let them teach you: I was once at a samba concert where Brazilian girls took me to their circle and started to show me the basic movements and how to adapt them to the rhythm of the music. And I went to dance forro as well, which is really complicated until you dismiss your rationality and let your body learn from the other bodies.

Corcovado and Cristo Redentor
After several bus rides a small van starts to go up the Corcovado and stops at some panorama spots. Any of those is breathtaking. This land made of mountains and beaches, where humans were able to squeeze a metropolis with all the contradictions of favelas and luxurious districts. Green, blue and concrete gray look like they have been juxtaposed in a post-modern frame.
At the foot of Corcovado the small cosy Museu Internacional de Arte Naïf with its colors and pure shapes stands like a memory of purity and ingenuity.

Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói — MAC
Overlooking Guanabara Bay and the Sugar Loaf Mountain the Museum is in worth a visit for the impressive architecture by Oscar Niemeyer. The collection though is not very appealing. Crossing the ocean by ferry from Praca XV offers a beautiful vew on Rio.

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes
In the Cinelandia district contains pieces of sculpture and painting from the last centuries. Fascination, dreamfullness and proud are the emotions enclosed in these works of art.

Agnaldo Dos Santos – A Pedinte – 1961

Alberto da Veiga Guignard – Marília de Dirceu – 1957

Jenner Augusto Da Silveira – Pintura – 1961

About safety
– In general, Rio is quite of an unsafe city, so better to keep the eyes always open but without over panicking
– I always took with me just with a plastic bag with some stuffs in, that’s the way they do it, and the phone in my bra. In the night I wouldn’t go around with cameras or backpack or bag
– Some guys in the hostel got robbed with a knife, so keep some money in the pocket to give it to a robber (faster and better than arguing or trying to react)
– If unsure about a street, best is to ask somebody, people are amazing in Rio and ready to help
– There are some vans, white, small Volkswagen or bigger ones,they are less expensive that the bus and they can drop you off in the exact place you need
– At the beach nice people or families are used to look after stuffs from other peoples that are swimming.