The Boy from Ipanema

Gávea, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
27-29 December 2008

Outside the main gate of Rio’s Jardim Botanico is a large one-way multi-lane road (the Rua Jardim Botanico.) I’m standing here, waiting for my bus after spending a relaxing couple of hours in the botanical garden located near the city center, just a few kilometers from the famous beach of Ipanema.

…LINHA 511 - URCA…

It’s been a cloudy and rainy few days since I arrived. Sometimes hot, sometimes not, occasionally sunny, but mostly cloudy and foggy. The Jardim Botanico lies below and near the famous Cristo Redentor, the giant 1100 ton concrete statue/sculpture of an open-armed Christ at the top of Corcovado. Corcovado is the dramatic peak rising inside the city of Rio de Janeiro, though there are dramatic peaks and rocks everywhere. Redentor can be seen from almost anywhere in Rio, watching over the city, serving as a famously unmistakable symbol and landmark. But I haven’t seen him yet. Clouds, rain, fog, buildings, siestas... all have conspired to prevent any personal benediction I might receive from the Redeemer.

…LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO…
……LINHA 438 - VILA ISABEL - LEBLON……

The gardens have all kinds of Brazilian plants, but other kinds of plants too. There is a kind of palm here that has enormous spines in the branches. I didn’t know palm trees had thorns. I see some lily pads a meter across. And bamboo of a diameter as big as my thigh. It’s a European-style garden, with criss-crossing footpaths not intended to look naturalistic at all. I lunch at the café here, which requires me to get in fighting spirit to get my order in, with tourists crunching towards the overwhelmed lunch staff. No matter, once ordered, all is mellow – Brazilian style again.

I came to the botanical garden because I had abandoned the attempt to take the little “cog” train up to the top of Corcovado. I had thought coming today, Monday, would avoid the crowds. Getting off the first bus I rode today, I saw tourists everywhere and two long snaking lines, and overheard angry complaints in English even before I join the queue. The 30 minute ride up the mountain in the antique rail cars is supposed to be charming, but after people tell me they had been waiting in line for more than two hours with no progress, I go with my gut and abandon ship. Good thing I’d figured ahead with a Plan B and I already knew what bus to take to get to my second choice destination.

…LINHA 524 - BOTAFOGO…

Why a good thing? Because the bus system here is bewildering. As far as I can figure, there are several private companies that run city-managed routes. There are literally hundreds of bus lines in Rio - so many that the route numbers run into the high 3-digits.

…LINHA 179 - MARE…

I had not been taking buses until today. Taxi cabs are my preferred way to get around Rio. They’re comfortable, clean and air-conditioned. The buses are uncomfortable, fairly clean and definitely not air-conditioned. Yesterday I took a cab to a district not far from my hotel in Copacabana called Centro/Cinelandia. I tried to get the taxi driver to explain why the financial district is called Cinelandia. I think he was telling me that there used to be a movie house there by that name. He dropped me at the end of a long and well-known park, Parque do Flamengo, that fronts the Baía de Guanabara. There is a museum there - the Museu de Arte Moderna (MAM) - that I wanted to visit.

…LINHA 573 - SAO SALVADOR…
………LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO………
……LINHA 511 – URCA……

I liked the collection there. It’s a bit eclectic. There doesn’t seem to be as strong a Catholic influence on the modern art compared to what I’ve seen in the Catholic countries of Central America, southern Europe or Argentina. There was a section there devoted to something MAM alternately called the Brasilia movement or Tropicália. It comes from the revolutionary days of the 60’s and 70’s, and also the musical forms of bossa nova and related Brazilian music and other arts. The paintings held a mix of sex and blood and revolution. I liked an artist who had a sense of whimsy and absurdity, and seemed connected to earlier days of surrealism and Dadaism. One piece in particular grabbed me. It has now been appropriated many times over, in other places. “Zero Cruzeiros,” by Cildo Meireles is a semi-realistic Brazilian currency of denomination zero. Here’s a reproduction of it.

…LINHA 521 - VIDIGAL…

After MAM, I decided to try the subway, which is supposed to be a good transport option here. I hiked over to Cinelandia proper and found a subway entrance. Walking down the stairs to the underground entrance, I was puzzled to see the steel doors rolled down and the station apparently closed. Halfway down the stairs, a motion sensor activated a very loud siren-type alarm. No wonder the stairs were empty. I walked back up the stairs, all eyes of the people on the street on me. I’m now marked as a tourist. It’s Sunday, and there aren’t that many people in this part of town, since it’s a financial center. It feels a little unsafe, and I decide it would be best to take a taxi cab back to Copa.

……LINHA 438 - VILA ISABEL - LEBLON……
…LINHA 179 - CENTRAL - ALVORADA…

Standing in the present moment, here on busy Rua Jardim Botanico, the buses roll by continuously. And I mean continuously. Bus after bus, often seconds apart. It’s mesmerizing to stand and watch them. I keep looking at the route number written on a scrap of paper from the tourist office, then peering at the destination banners on the buses careening towards me.

…LINHA 569 - LARGO DO MACHADO…

It’s been a little hard to explore this city with the rain since life here is all about being outside. I started out my first full day by walking around Copacabana, then Ipanema. Ipanema. Copacabana. It’s very fun to listen to Cariocas pronouce those names. They roll them out in an exaggerated way: “a-Iapa-nahae-mah” and “Copa..CAH…bahnnah” Something like that.

The beaches are long, but not that clean. Many people are overweight and smoking. I think Brazil has the same disease as the rest of the world: too much food. Where are the legendarily beautiful women? Not on the beaches of Ipa and copa. For that matter, where are the beautiful men? There were many men wearing tiny sungas. It’s nice that people seem perfectly happy with their bodies, though. As for how I looked, I sported my anti-UV gringo look: big brimmed hat, plastered sunscreen (even in the rain), baggy shorts (the anti-sunga), loose shirt. I looked like an albino wannabe.

Nighttime in Copa is really interesting. A certain kind of boteca – really just a “hole in the wall” kind of bar - spills people out onto the street, with beers and caipirinhas and meat on skewers. Usually there are a few tables and chairs on the sidewalk. But when these dives get crowded, people sit on curbs or stand in the street, place their drinks on the cars of strangers, and sometimes beat out samba rhythms on the curb. I go one night to a more orderly place, Bar Pedrinho, which is like a local karaoke bar for samba and Brazilian old standards. It’s really wonderful to see how uninhibited people are. A group at a table will be in conversation or eating, and whoever is on stage sings a group favorite or the samba combo will beat out a familiar tune, and the group will naturally slide from conversation into song and back again.

……LINHA 511 – URCA……
…LINHA 573 - SAO SALVADOR…
…LINHA 176 - CENTRAL - SAO CONRADO …

Rio was supposed to be a bookend of sorts. Friend DC had planned to have his 50th bday here, mirroring the 50th birthday party of Bader (see United Nations of Bader). Unfortunately, family events caused DC to have to cancel. That’s kind of what it means for most people to be fifty, I guess. Family, career, life entanglements are both fully enveloping you, but also engaging you. I’m a little outside of the normal track in that sense. I’m free to roam the world, unencumbered, unworried about the future, no serious obligations. Freedom. Probably most men pushing fifty dream of freedom. So why do I dream of not being free? Why not be happy with freedom now, and if something comes worth trading freedom for someday, I’ll do that.

Intrepid co-travelers C&H (and friends of DC) don’t cancel, but do postpone. They were due 27 December, but are now arriving 30 December. I’m looking forward to seeing them. They’re also bookends, since I started the icelollysforall blog on my way out on the previous big trip, traveling through their (now left behind) Boston South End flat.

But I’m fine on my own. I’ve been thinking and sorting through much on this trip. A few days on by myself in Rio are welcome.

…LINHA 583 - COSME VELHO - LEBLON…

583! I step into the street, waving. If you don’t flag the buses down, they don’t pull over, even if you’re at an official stop. You have to be alert to catch the numbers early enough. The result is funny, because neither the passengers waiting on the street nor the bus drivers know if a particular bus is going to suddenly zip over to the side and stop. The whole street of Rua Jardim Botanico is filled with buses weaving back and forth, zooming forward and stopping suddenly.

I’m successful. I pay and settle into a window seat on the Linha 583, sucking fresh air through the small opening in the window. We bounce through Leblon (the roads are fine, but the buses all seem to have suspensions that are shot.) Turning slowly east and north, we pass through the center of Ipanema and finally down the long stretch of Av. Nuestra Senora de Copacabana.

Blocks from the Acapulco Copacabana, I look out the window. The fog on Corcovado has lifted. Redentor, finally visible with concrete arms outstretched, silently gives me a pre-siesta benediction.