February 2010 Archives
It is approximately 20 years since I was last in Rio, so it is good to come back to enjoy the sights and scenery, the wonderful mountains, the golden beaches, and try to spot just how the city has changed over the period I've been away. On Thursday I'm meeting the other members of a journey shortly to take place around South America on a Dragoman Overland truck (check our route here), but until then I have a couple of days to recover from my jet lag and wander around the safer parts of the most vibrant city in South America.
Before I continue talking about Rio, though, I might just mention my flight to get here. I flew from London's Heathrow airport to Paris 'Charles de Gaulle' with British Airways, then caught a flight from Paris to Rio with an airline called 'Tam', a company I haven't encountered before. The flight with TAM in an Airbus A330 was standard enough, and with the help of the free earplugs provided in the 'Welcome' pack, I was able to get some hours of naps ('sleep' is too strong a word in this circumstance) for a nicely timed arrival about 05:00 am, one of my favourite times to land in a new country. Before sleeping, I watched a couple of films - the entertainment on board was adequate enough, even for someone spoiled by his recent experiences with Emirates, who's system has literally 100's of movies to choose from, and 1000's of audio tracks.
My only problem with the TAM flight was related to the food provided by the French kitchens in Paris. I had ordered a Vegetarian meal, suitable for someone on a 'Vegetarian/Milk/Eggs' diet. The meal arrived, labelled as stated, so imagine my surprise, then, to receive for a main meal a portion of boiled carrots, green beans, and coarsely chopped marrow, accompanied by a small salad and a bread roll with margarine. Breakfast was even stranger: a small portion of orange segments, followed by a large and piping hot dish of melon pieces in syrup. I know the French traditionally try to deny the existence of the vegetarian diet, and refrain from including in their restaurants any menu items suitable for vegetarians beyond the tired old standby 'omelet aux fine herbs', but in this day and age, catering for an international travelling public, I feel they could do a bit better than the above. I must remind myself NOT to transit via Paris in future!
The arrival at Rio was a rather protracted affair, with a long wait for my bags to make their way to the conveyor belt. This was ameliorated somewhat by the voice of the lady used to make the flight announcements on the public address system. To say that her voice was sexy would be a complete understatement. Her low, slow, lilting delivery coupled with her smooth Brazilian accent made an announcement of the departure for a flight to Sao Paulo and Cuiaba sound like an invitation to a night of impossibly exotic passion. Has anyone made a recording of her? Or got her email address, perhaps?
My delayed baggage meant that I exited the airport just as the night rates for taxis ended, and I found no queues at all for a radio cab that took me across town to the Bandeirantes Hotel on Rua Barata Ribeiro, a short walk from Copacabana beach. I had to wait a while for a room to be found, but was compensated when the room arrived by a wonderful 'monsoon' shower that soon blasted the accumulated dust of the flying experience back down the plug hole, where it belongs. I'd rate the shower as one of the best ever, and deserving of the top place on my personal list of the worlds most refreshing shower experiences; a position previously held, somewhat surprisingly, by a campsite in Botswana.
One disadvantage with today's electronic items is their insistence on taking note of every little detail in life. My iPod, my cameras, my GPS receiver and my watch all need to know the time zone I am in, rather than just wanting to know the time. At the back of my mind, I remembered that Brazil was 3 hours behind GMT, yet the clocks here all showed only 2 hours difference from the time in London. How could this be? My camera solved the problem, by wondering if DST (daylight saving time) should be on or off. 'OFF' of course - February is winter, isn't it? But no, I'd forgotten that I'm now in the southern hemisphere, in the middle of their summer, so of course DST should be on! The various electrical items are all correctly set now, and needn't change until I get to Chile at the beginning of April. The current time difference from wintry England is only 2 hours, so jet lag is easier to deal with than usual.
After a long sleep and a buffet breakfast of fruit, yoghurt, and some delightful local tiny hot cheese rolls, I went for a walk to see the ocean, a paddle in the waves, and a wander along the world famous beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. What a difference from Kovalam, south India, where I've just spent the last 4 months: the water here is icy cold, despite an air temperature in the mid 30's. Its quite a shock after Kovalam's bath-tub temperature bathing, I can tell you. No mention of this in the guidebook - well they wouldn't, would they? Even at 08:00am the beach was crowded, as locals and tourists alike set up chairs and umbrellas on the golden yellow sands and prepare for a day of serious sun tanning.
One big change from 20 years ago noted this morning is that nowadays the bikinis on Copacabana beach seem to contain more material and are more modest than they used to be. Gone are the 'dental floss' variety, so popular in the past, and named because the width of fabric was very little more than the tooth-cleaning cord of the same name. I remember once being on a bus somewhere in central Brazil, and sitting opposite a woman who's top consisted of 2 vertical strips of fabric just 1 inch wide. They modestly covered her nipples, but very little else. I didn't know where to look!
The bikinis may be larger these days, but the residents still wear them to their best advantage. Its easy to spot the difference between local women and foreign tourists on the beach. When the tourists come out of the water, they carefully check the rear of their bikini bottoms to make sure the material is still covering their buttocks, whilst the local Rio women perform the same check to make sure that it is not, delicately tucking as much material as possible 'out of sight' between the cheeks.
And with that mental picture to keep in your mind as you go about the rest of your day, I'll say 'Cheerio' for now from Rio de Janeiro, and hope you'll all join me again when my Blog next has an entry, here in cyberspace.
