Hello again!
Well, my my, haven’t we been busy. Lots more exciting stuff happened in week 7! By the way, I’ve only just posted week 6 as well, so if you want a full catch-up then see below, and be sure to read Laura’s post/comments if you haven’t already. Because this week is mainly sightseeing, I particularly think the parts about the situation in the slums from last week may be helpful to read - giving a more rounded impression of my trip and the reason for it. Moving swiftly on to the week’s top stories…
-Our weekend ‘in the mountains’. A couple of weekends ago now, Beth was kind enough to take Laura and I out for a weekend ‘in the mountains’, just outside of the city (between a 1 and a half - two hour drive). I know that a lot of past volunteers (including Rosemarie most recently - she also ‘blogged’ about it) have been there with Beth, and I can see why it’s a success - because a couple of days out there in green surroundings was a welcome break from the city centre. The biggest town of Teresópolis, as well as the surrounding roads and villages, hold all sorts of unique, local, mand-made and organic attractions, and we made the most of our time there, despite patchy weather.
We waited awhile on the Saturday morning before setting off, trying to decide wether the weather would hold or not, but after a couple of hours we didn’t know much more, and so we just decided to risk it, particularly as I didn’t/don’t have a lot of weekends left in Rio. When we arrived, we had a much needed lunch (consisting of a four-cheeses rice dish and an intense chocolate/biscuit cake) in a log-cabin style restaurant that harks back to traditional Swiss/Germanic structures in the alps. We then moved on to take in some extremely vibrant and creative boutique stores along the main street of a small village named São Pedro (St. Peter), which included locally made…jewellery, artwork, music, clothes, chocolate, etc etc. It had an ‘authentic’ sort of character; the residents spoke a heavy but friendly slang that was difficult to recognise as Portuguese, and a man ‘riding into town’ on a horse (and almost in a cowboy outfit) caused as little fuss as if he had been in a car.
We then drove into the town of Nova Friburgo, stopping at a magnificent bakery called ‘Superpão’, just to ‘have a look in’. However, with Beth showing us the eat-in parlour, we really couldn’t resist, so had our evening meal as a Superpão all-you-can-eat breakfast; a selection of savoury pastries and breads followed by sweet breads and cakes that I can’t begin to list. All with the thickest hot chocolate I’ve ever had, and a splash of ’Agua de Coco’ (Coconut Water) and fruit salad to clear the pallet afterwards. They couldn’t have designed it better. We spent the evening ‘apparently’ doing our bit for the ‘Hora da planeta’ (WWF’s ‘Earth Hour’, the hour where various cities agreed to switch off lights as an environmental gesture) by watching some questionable contemporary art/dance. This consisted of the ‘artist’ (wearing nothing more than fireproof boxers), in darkness, surrounded by candles on small stage and manipulating further candles that were strapped to his body so that they touched each other and lit. And then he would blow one out. And then re-light, in a slightly different position. And repeat. At a slow pace, with no real explanation (implicit or explicit) of what he was attempting to symbolise or convey. Hence, though it might sound alarming, the main feelings from most of the audience, including ourselves, were boredom and confusion, following the initial bemusement. So, we left mid-way through (still after around an hour), as did most of the audience. The day was rounded off with a slice or two of Pizza, and a Brazilian beer from a German bar that still didn’t help me appreciate ‘Mr. Candles’ any more.
We spent a pleasant Sunday in the mountains too, and on the road to our destination, Teresopolis, from our Chalet accommodation, we visited three ‘factories’. These improved in interest levels for myself as we went through. The first was a leather bag factory/store, the second made honey, and the final one (in one establishment) specialised in both Chocolate and Cheese. Needless to say, we purchased some ’samplers’, and in the first two (fairly quiet) places, Beth got into some interesting conversations with the owners, letting them know about our work at the project and hearing their own stories about various social issues. And I was quietly saying “yesss” to myself all day having been told by the leather bag lady that she was surprised I was English, as I looked Brazilian. We then made it to Teresópolis, where, dodging the rain, we skipped between canvases in a large open market. They had an excellent range of very cheap clothes (the locally made socks I go there have been ‘holding up’ nicely so far), more food of course, and so we enjoyed browsing there, before bailing - to give Beth a chance of driving home before complete darkness. You may notice that I haven’t mentioned too much about the scenery, and that’s because the rain did obscure a lot of it, but we enjoyed the general flora/fauna, and in the rain it was atmospheric and beautiful in a slightly different way. A couple of other natural highlights, as can be seen on the photos, were stopping off to see a substantial and fast-flowing waterfall, as well as looking around a collection of Orchids and other rare plants.
-The ascent of…Pão de Açucar! Hopefully you’ll remember what this is in English, but in case not…it is, of course, Sugar Loaf Mountain, as is visible from our sitting-room window! Laura and I completed our Rio Landmarks tour by getting the two cable cars up to the summit in this week, and it proved worth the trip. We had some time, and it’s much more spacious at the top than at Christo, so we spent a whole afternoon there…taking in the Panoramas from all around the mountain, having hot chocolates, scanning the charming but over-priced tourist shop, watching a film about the history of the cable car construction (a surprisingly enthralling watch, I found) seeing the fog roll in and then out again, and walking through the areas of Forest that you can access from the top. Again, I’ve uploaded a few photos that you can see below, but the overall impression was quite spectacular; vantage points don’t come much better. It was never something we could have missed out on doing, being that we see it from the kitchen and sitting room first thing every morning. When we came down again, Beth was waiting for us and together we enjoyed another Ice Cream from the now famous Sorvete Brasil (Tiramisu flavour for me this time).
-Project / General Update Our work at the project continues to go well. The situation in the Favelas quietened down considerably after the spell of more intense trouble, though we still heard that it was tense between the police/the drugs trade. In Rio in general there were further problems, with a big arrest operation actually shutting down roads near Copacobana on one day, and making the newspaper - with an unsurprisingly heroic representation of the police. Our teaching went relatively smoothly, with the two of us sometimes now splitting up to take the various kids’/adults’ classes, another full afternoon of Frisbee held on the Wednesday, ourselves putting in our best efforts with Portuguese, and a regular donation of basic foods secured from a Rio company. So, it’s not all bad news. Far from it!
Plenty of lovely images from this week too (click or right click and ’save…as’):
-The local boutique shopping street.
-Outside of the Cheese/Chocolate factory.
-Shot from the top of the waterfall.
-The running waterfall from in front.
-No need to look at this if you don’t like spiders.
-The building/balcony where our rooms were.
-And the surroundings, in one direction.
-Unfortunately, the weather did get a bit…like this.
-Laura in the Orchid house.
-Laura and I there again.
-One of the strangely beautiful Orchids.
-Another one of Laura’s great compositions.
-The first room in the Orchid House.
-Sugar Loaf, second level, up close.
-Up and around on the first level.
-A helicopter tour coming into the Landing pad.
-No line on the horizon, it seems.
-‘Jaws-eye’ view down the cables.
-Temporary fog rolls in across the water.
-And we got the beginnings of a sunset, too.
As for the comments that got in impressively fast…I add my congratulations to John for his fantastic victory, Jake you’re quite right, although I would never say my grammar was infallible, Beth I am definitely saving that recipe, and Mum, I’ll see what spectacular Holy Week photos I can get in for week 9.
All you need to know as a taster for Week 8 (my penultimate in Rio)….. is that on Friday we jumped off the edge of a 500m high cliff and landed on a beach 6 minutes later.
Tchau!
Joe
x
