Thanks to the wonders of iMovie and Richard Blakeley, we're proud to present the ultimate Gridskipper in Brazil post this time in nifty slideshow version. I just got back last night after a raucous New York Eve's party in Copacabana (if by rawkus you mean watching the fireworks from the 11th floor of the Luxor Regente and trying not to hear the Black Eyed Peas). My flight back, thanks to Aventis, makers of Ambien was uneventful and surprisingly short. Now, back in NY, all I have is a wicked sunburn and these humble slides to remember my trip. Tear, apply aloe, tear.
So as Alex noted, I'm in the shit. Just kidding, actually I'm cloistered in my friend's apartment in Niteroi, separated from the violence by a 14 km bridge. I am slightly concerned about NYE but as the mayor assures cariocas, there will be extra police provided. This however is of little consolation since the attacks are reprisals against off-duty policemen who have been extorting favela residents with promises of protection. The militias are comprised of ex-policemen, drug-dealers turned "good" and off-duty officers who occupy a neighborhood, kick out all the drug dealers and then charge a fee for every single service rendered. They impose curfews, charge garbage trucks entrance fees and even kill residents who resist their rule. Though most of the violence against civilians is taking place in the Zona Norte even in Botafogo and Lagoa, two well-off neighborhoods in the south, police stations and policemen have been attacked. With hotel and airline cancellations up 5% due to the aerial chaos, Rio's mayor is under pressure to staunch the bloody tide. Whether more police will help, however, is questionable. For Gridskipper, this is Joshua "Pulitzer" Stein reporting from Rio.
Forro is little known outside of Brazil, falling under the deafening roar of samba. But the dance here is extremely popular so it makes sense that last night's forro party at Clube dos Democraticos was packed. Usually a samba house, on Wednesdays the old ballroom is filled with sweaty young Brazilians doing the deceptively simple two-step that accompanies forro. Forro itself is recognizable by the triangle and accordion, instruments not found in samba, pagode or other popular genres. Forro, pronounced fo-ho, itself has always been a democratic and populist form. The name derives from when English-speaking foreigners would have dances for the white folk and dances for all which, to the Brazilian ear, transliterated into forro. The room on Wednesday around midnight, when things got rolling, was at least 100 degrees. The couples, pressed hip-to-hip, gave off no small amount of entropic heat. For R$15, the place is as dirty and gritty as Estrela Da Lapa is refined and, as an added bonus, there's an X-tudo vendor hovering conveniently outside.
Despite our most recent carnivorous imbroglio, for lunch today we visited Porcao, the "world's largest steakhouse chain." There a couple of these huge warehouse-like churrascaria's in Rio and even one in New York. The branch we went to, in Niteroi, is typical: a big splashy box, a bunch of tables, a desultory salad bar and legions of uniformed young men circulating amongst the tables with meat on a sword. Not as tony as the NY version (and half the price), the all-you-can-eat, as-long-as-you-can-last meatathon costs only US$25. In terms of taste, the picanha or rumpsteak is the best option but in terms of encapsulating the spirit of Porcao, well that honor has to go to the cheese-covered filet mignon shown above. Upon sitting down, one is deluged with waves after waves of meat-stick waiters pimping their wares. Happily, one is also given a two-sided placard, red and green. Simply turn it to face red, and magically the meat parade passes you by. Having been to the NY version, the meat here is exponentially better and the perks--plates of farofa, rice, beans, fried bananas--outweigh the cons--anemic salad bar. And as opposed as we are to chains (they only enslave), Porcao is actually a good bargain and just plain good.
Lapa is Rio's East Village except there's much more to do at night and much less to do during the day. A warren of old houses from the colonial days now rundown and unkempt, the neighborhood is filled with artist studios and botecos. By night, the area is flooded with young carioca hipsters and STD after STD-worth of trannie hookers. One of the nicer places in the area is called Estrela Da Lapa. The multi-level club is less crowded and more relaxed than most. The clientele tends to be more upscale and older though one of the nice things about going out in Brazil is that there is always a sort of demographic heterogeneity one doesn't see in New York. On the first floor, elegant pairs of older couples swept across the black-and-white marble tiles while a sambista sang low-key samba on stage. Others couples sat around tables munching pasteis and other bar snacks. The second floor was all tables and the topmost floor, from which one could look down on the stage and blur of dancing couples, has a couple of couches. When we went, the place was comfortable quiet as the band was unknown (note to self: hate flautists) but when the acts are bigger, the floor is invisible beneath the shuffling steps of hundreds of dancers.
X-Tudo is the classic Rio nocturnal street food. You might think the name refers to extreme 'tude but you'd be wrong. X is Portuguese is pronounced cheese, tudo meanwhile means everything. So a X-tudo is a cheeseburger with everything. And we mean everything. Costing around $1.50 or so, X-tudo are staples for late-night partiers (and they're all late-night, if you know what I mean) and are found outside dancehalls and bars. X-tudo, also known as podrao, or "big rotten," are always sold out of the back of a van and if it were not for the linguistic contortions the title implies and the amount of Brahma beer I had downed I doubt that I would be able to bring you this story.
The Adventure of X-Tudo and Grid-Xipper
1. Our young hero catches a glimpse of intriguing signage: "X-Tudo," it reads, "3.00 Reais"
2. The young chef gathers his tools of battle. His arsenal includes: a razor thin hamburger patty, quail eggs, fried egg (chicken), ham, bacon, cheese, peas, corn, potato chips, mayonnaise, and ketchup.
3. He approaches the griddle, a dirty black metal slab, steaming and smoking and tosses the burger and squealing bacon onto it.
4. A few minutes later he presents his piece de resistance.
5. Our young hero takes the X-tudo in the alley to wage war.
6. A tussle ensues. The X-tudo dives into our young hero's mouthal cavity.
7. Exhausted and inebriated, our hero is no match for the X-tudo and ends his glorious Rio night, puking up the X-tudo, which will soon reform like the Terminator and prey on other unsuspecting drunkards.
After my 23 hour flight, I'd already finished the Rape of Nanking and was thusly bereft of horribly depressing reading material for my Brazilian vacation. What a relief then to find stalls and stalls of used book vendors bordering Ipanema's Plaça Nossa Senhore da Paz. Avid vintage Penguin collectors we are, we were disappointed to realize Pinguim Brasil doesn't exist but the booksellers have more than enough books in English, French and, of course, Portuguese to satisfy your literary craving. Of course, if you're not really into Danielle Steel, you're fucked. Nearby however, the Livraria Travessa has a somewhat larger Anglo section while Livraria Letras & Expressões also in Ipanema has not only English books and newspapers but a cafe as well.
To an untrained eye, the beach at Ipanema seems a tangle of tan oiled bodies with varying degrees of spandex offering usually minimal coverage. But to an observer attuned to the coastal politics, the beach is a discretely divided continuum of Brazilian society. Along the beach at kilometer intervals, large posts rise up. Perhaps the apex, or nadir depending on your preference, is Post 9. Post 9 is where the alternative set hangs out: young tan kids with tribal tattoos and women who look vastly more mature than their 17 years. The smell of weed mixes with the ocean air and the atmosphere is something like a high-school cafeteria, just with more sand. An unspoken set of rules apply to those who find themselves at Coqueirao:
1) Don't bring too much stuff. As the Globo quotes one beachgoer: It's totally lame to bring your own chair. It's much better to pay two bucks and rent a chair there.
2)If you play soccer, always use a colorful ball. Black and white balls are passe.
3) For girls, it's okay to bring a sarong but only to sit on it, you have to leave the beach in shorts.
4) They rent sand-pillows (to prop your head up) but they're now considered tacky. Women look down on other women who have them.
5)Never profess your desire to get tan. You're there to appreciate the beauty and "soak up the energy." Anything less would be shallow.
We're surprised we didn't see any Pink Lady jackets but I guess they're a little hot in the 103 degree heat.
I did my part tonight in contributing to the pool of lecherous foreigners at the Viradouro Samba School in Niteroi. Carnaval is February 15-22nd and the samba schools are already well into practicing. Though not the most famous, Viradouro is well-known and respected within Rio. For 10 Reals for men and 5 for women (payable through tiny holes in a concrete wall), you can watch as the drum corps practices their routine and the dancers their dance. For Carnavale each year, each samba school must come up with a theme and an original song to perform. Viradouro's theme this year is Games and the song sung by the school contains lyrics like, "You're the queen of pleasure, I'll give you check-mate." Not quite Joycean but not bad. The drum corp-a hundred or so dudes led by a guy with a whistle-- are amazing to listen to (like Stomp but not lame). Additionally, there are ladies there who wear ridiculously high heels and dance in a way that fills one humble editor with a mixture of childlike wonder and what can only be correctly called lust. They're called the passistas and come Carnaval are clad in nothing but body paint. Tonight, unfortunately, they were besmirched by denim miniskirts but you can't win them all. Besides the women, a decidedly more democratic aesthetic reigned in the legions of marchers: chubby dudes, housewives and the occasional tranny. Not as famous as Mangueira or Portela, Viradouro is also a lot less crowded which means a much closer look at the erotic blur of the passistas and a stronger, throbbing, more intense sense of childlike wonder and lust.
Forty-four years ago, Antonio Carlos Jobim wrote Girl from Ipanema at this restaurant that has since changed its name to Girl from Ipanema. Big blown up lyric sheets hang from the walls and t-shirts are for sale. But behind the tourist-y feel, there's a legitimate pride of being the birthplace of perhaps the best known bossa nova song. And behind the pride, it's really just a restaurant, and a pretty good one at that. A soap opera blares from a large tv in the corner and the whole place smells of meat. The place, like many botecos in the area, specializes in a DIY beef dish called picanha which comes on a griddle with rice and farofa and fries on the side. The beef, sliced thin and seasoned in sea salt, is simple, greasy and delicious. Heloisa Pinheiro, after whom the song was written, couldn't have had that much picanha and stayed tall and tan and young and lovely. The cheap paper table cloth was bespeckled with splattered grease but that is all part of the charm.
The most noticeable thing about the Botanical Gardens is how much it resembles the rest of the city. Tropical, check. Dudes running around shirtless, check. Americans standing out, check. When we went this morning, we were quickly passed by a golf cart full of fat tourists, oohing and aahing at the legitimately oohable and aahable vegetation they passed. Of particular note are a couple fine specimen of Brasil Wood trees, after which this country of passion and samba is named. Yeah, I just wrote that. Passion and Samba. The other site to see before you check the garden off the list of "Things I have to see out of a sense of guilt" is the path of Imperial Palms imported from Mauritius by Dom João VI; tall and straight and, unlike most things in Brazil, occurring at regular intervals.
We're loathe to moon and even more loathe to rhapsodize but today, we think, we found paradise. After making quick work of the Botanical Gardens, we decided to find these waterfalls which were written about in Revista Programa a week or so ago. The waterfalls are located in the hills behind the Botanical Gardens in the district named Horto. Be advised, discovering the waterfalls takes no small amount of courage, quadricep strength and grit. As the security guard advised us at the Gardens, make sure to scope the scene before you leave your car as isolated areas of Rio aren't, generally, a good place to be. The waterfalls are found in the hills and only after climbing pretty strenuously for ten or so minutes through dense forest, much denser than at the gardens. There are three separate waterfalls, each require a bit more climbing. We stopped at the second. When we arrived, around one, brilliant sunshine shone through the forest canopy illuminating the twenty or so Brazilian teenagers hanging out. Some popped each others zits (ah, teen love), some sprawled out on rocks and others swam in the clear pool. It was like stumbling upon Eden (plus hot chicks in bikinis and dudes with tribal tattoos in Speedos). We were the only foreigners there (we meaning me, Josh also, me guess, you Gridskipper readers) since it has yet to be written about in the English press. But we just changed that so soon it'll be overrun. Shit. Forget everything we just told you.
Directions: Take Cachoiera, the street right behind the Gardens, up around 1 km. The waterfall will be on your right. Park and climb up the rocky embankment on your right. The first waterfall you'll reach in 5 or so minutes. The second is another 10 minutes away.
Itaipu is a fishing enclave near Itacoatiara. The sheltered beach is the only place protected enough that ships can stop there so the businesses that sprung up there, naturally, cater to the clientele. One such business is Sabino's, a basic fish-n-chips type restaurant where you can order incredibly fresh seafood (invariably fried) and other bar-type snacks like pasteis, crunchy empanada type pastries stuffed with shrimp and white cheese. The restaurant is run by a former employee of IBM who sustained brain damage during an indoor soccer match. Unable to do his job he took over Sabino's but remained on IBM's payroll for years. One day the head of IBM Brazil walked into the restaurant, fresh off his boat parked in the inlet, and the owner finally surrendered his salary. The food here is no great shakes but the caipirinhas are cheap and delicious and nothing beats munching on cod recently caught while fishing boats linger in the distance and seabirds fight each other for the leftover catch. Also, for the one Gridskipper reader who might use this information, Sabino's accepts orders radioed in from boats. He'll even ferry it out to you.
Oscar Neimeyer is the state of Rio's Frank Gehry. The architect's work is polarizing, controversial and ubiquitous. One of the most prominent of his projects is the Museum of Contemporary Art in Niteroi. Perched on a cliff, the museum resembles more than anything else a UFO. Neimeyer's museum is work of art in itself and, indeed, is rarely filled with any real art. When we went, a couple of statues on loan from a museum in Berlin were on display inside the strangely sterile space. Clearly, the real draw is the view, seen through his severely slanted windows. One can gaze out onto the glistening bay, the silhouette of Sugarloaf and even the outline of my man, Jesus. Neimeyer knew one essential truth: Nobody fucks with the Jesus.
Beaches in Rio are divided into two types: those bordering the bay and those bordering the ocean. Copacabana, Ipanema, the beaches you think of as Rio Beaches tend to be bay beaches while the ones bordering the ocean tend to be lesser known by non-Brazilians. This has to do with the fact that they're not in the city center but they're definitely worth the trip. Whereas the bay beaches collect the formidable effluvia and detritus of a third-world city, the oceanic beaches are close to pristine. One beach, Itacoatiara, is tucked passed the hills of Niteroi between two giant rocks (itacoatiara means big rock in tupy guarani the native language). A favorite among surfers (coolly called surfistas) for the smooth long break and families for the sheltered part (prainha shown above), Itacoatiara is totally untapped by tourists. Surfers crowded next to frescoball (paddleball) next to Brazilian women with humongo badunkadunkdunks split neatly down the middle by a usually colorful thong. The surfers form frequent coalitions to keep the sand clean and that it is the Pacific Atlantic Ocean and not the Guanabara Bay ensures the waters are clear and cool. Itacoatiara is pronounced Ee-ta-quatch-arah or something like that.
Samba is something of an obsession in Brazil, both to Brazilians and to tourists. The chances of stumbling into a roomful of wasted foreigners shaking their thangs to a pack of sambistas in central Rio are dismayingly high. At Candongueiro, a house of samba in Niteroi, the chances are slim to none. When I went, early on a Friday night, the velha guarda of Portela Samba School were performing. The old guard, a group of gnarled old men in matching blue shirts and panama hats, consist of the retired musicians from the Samba school. But they didn't go on until one in the morning. Before that, the current players of the samba school sat around the large central table in the pavilion playing samba to honor their predecessors. Though the tables were plentiful and empty when we arrived, by 10 or so the tables were filled with a mixture of Brazilians young and old (young tan things in floral prints skirts, macho young men, plus some old Samba musicians and the Old Guards's entourage of wives). By 11, the beer had flown suitably and the music progressed so nearly the whole crowd was singing along and dancing. When we left around 2, the party showed no signs of flagging and the old timers played their instruments until six in the morning. Entry costs around US$10 though usually it's cheaper for lesser known sambistas.
Christmas in Brazil was hot, the 5th day of summer and totally un-Christmas-like. Santa is unbelievable in the Tropics because no one would be wearing a red flannel suit and a hat. Regardless of the whole "believability" issue, some cariocas got into the Christmas spirit with Santa as burglar at the bottom (which seems incongruous until you realize Santa basically is a burglar, just in reverse). The dude at the top (lower right hand corner is a dude) is also getting into the Christmas spirit by passing out on a beach, apparently a common way to celebrate the birth of Christ here. Merry Christmas!
About Gridskipper
Gridskipper is a blog about travel and leisure, written especially for urban dwellers who appreciate the need to get off the grid from time to time. More About...
So as Alex 
Forro is little known outside of Brazil, falling under the deafening roar of samba. But the dance here is extremely popular so it makes sense that last night's forro party at Clube dos Democraticos was packed. Usually a samba house, on Wednesdays the old ballroom is filled with sweaty young Brazilians doing the deceptively simple two-step that accompanies forro. Forro itself is recognizable by the triangle and accordion, instruments not found in samba, pagode or other popular genres. Forro, pronounced fo-ho, itself has always been a democratic and populist form. The name derives from when English-speaking foreigners would have dances for the white folk and dances for all which, to the Brazilian ear, transliterated into forro. The room on Wednesday around midnight, when things got rolling, was at least 100 degrees. The couples, pressed hip-to-hip, gave off no small amount of entropic heat. For R$15, the place is as dirty and gritty as 
Itaipu is a fishing enclave near Itacoatiara. The sheltered beach is the only place protected enough that ships can stop there so the businesses that sprung up there, naturally, cater to the clientele. One such business is Sabino's, a basic fish-n-chips type restaurant where you can order incredibly fresh seafood (invariably fried) and other bar-type snacks like pasteis, crunchy empanada type pastries stuffed with shrimp and white cheese. The restaurant is run by a former employee of IBM who sustained brain damage during an indoor soccer match. Unable to do his job he took over Sabino's but remained on IBM's payroll for years. One day the head of IBM Brazil walked into the restaurant, fresh off his boat parked in the inlet, and the owner finally surrendered his salary. The food here is no great shakes but the caipirinhas are cheap and delicious and nothing beats munching on cod recently caught while fishing boats linger in the distance and seabirds fight each other for the leftover catch. Also, for the one Gridskipper reader who might use this information, Sabino's accepts orders radioed in from boats. He'll even ferry it out to you.
