Date: 07.02 - 14.02

Temp: 24-30*C

As quoted by our host in Rio, Piero: ´Rio is famous for its bandidos and its samba´. But regarding the two I have to say that the banidos where the ones that worried me the most when we arrived at the airport in Rio from Ecuador. Sure, I did not look forward to be ridiculed in the samba parade either, but I anticipated that I would have fewer problems surviving my encounter with the carnival than with the bandidos. With a fresh recollection of famous Brazilian films such as Ciudad de Deus/ City of God and Tropa de Elite and a brief look at the ´Danger and Annoyances´ chapter in our Lonely Planet book, I was vigilantly observing my surroundings when we stepped of the airport on Thursday, the day before the Carnival commenced. The taxi driver from the airport was also clear in his judgment of Rio and despite of his poor English, he confirmed my worries stating; Favala No! Favela No!

Our hosts Piero and Nani were of another opinion. When I asked Piero what to look out for in their neighborhood he said: Tranquilo, Tranquilo. Everything is easy, Everything is båmm (good). I did not quite buy in to his easy view of Brazilian bandidos and the threats of Rio, but I relaxed myself by adopting his carefree attitude thinking that there was no need to go around worrying myself in vain when everybody else was having a good time. In the five days that followed we got a first hand encounter with all the different parts of Rio, both for better and for worse, but first I have to tell more about our hosts Piero and Nani.

Piero is Argentinian, and has two kids and an ex-wife in Italy. He is an educated Psychologist and a male pole dancer. Nani is a genuine Carioca (a person born and living in Rio) and works with poledance too. Together Piero and Nani won the double Brazilian pole championship in 2012, and through their work with poledance, Elise had got their connection. They live roughly 1,5 hour outside of Rio in a place called ´Batan´. This area was according to Piero an area where the Army had their basing and for one year ago had been the frontline of the gang-war. In those days Tanks and Marines used Nani´s doorstep as their step-up area before operations (it sounds totally safe right…). The locals of Batan today however where working-class people and was safe. Even if I could not understand why someone would bother paying roughly 150 000 NOK/ 25 000 $ for an apartment in the front line at that time, I later came to understand that the front-line to the bandidos is located everywhere around in the city. Copacabana for examples which is usually considered quite safe is surrounded by five favelas.

Our first encounter with Rio`s two traits was the samba. The first day after our arrival the carnival started and we went to the ´Sambodromo´/ the samba ´drome´, where every Samba School goes through a stadium in which they dance and are cheered onwards by the many thousand spectators.

For those unfamiliar with the carnival one school, consist of roughly 6-8 vehicles covered with papier-mâché figure and wooden arrangements s in accordance with the theme of the school. The vehicles are also followed by up to 3000 dancers (for one school!). It takes roughly 20-30 minutes for a school to walk through the samba ´drome´, and throughout the competition period in the Carnival(stretching from Friday to Tuesday) normally 6 to 8 schools squeeze themselves through the ´drome´ everyday, starting from 2200 in the evening to 0400-0600 in the morning. The more glamour a school has in its costume and the better the choreography the school has the more points it gets. The best schools walk through the ´drome´ on Sunday and Monday, and the finals are held the last Saturday in the Carnival.

We got the chance to join the school Paradisio de Tuitio, and walked through the ´drome´ on the first Saturday. Our block in the school had dedicated their theme to the recently deceased Brazilian comedian, Chico Vive, and all the dancers in our block wore the costumes like he had used for his most famous characters. From looking at the other costumes I could understand that he had played the role as football-player, professor and Dracula. Our block of the school however was assigned the costumes for his character as a drag queen. At this point it seemed that my fear for the carnival was materializing and I guess I could have been luckier in our assigned costumes. But since we had a chance to join the carnival parade I did not bother that much. And during the walk through the drome my concerns were eased and it seemed from looking at the closest spectators that were pointing-, waving-, laughing- and taking pictures of me that the Gringo in the drag costume, who was trying to move his feets to the samba rhythm in something that looked more like a stiff version of step dance seemed to be a big hit.

As a side-track, dressing out like a woman in Rio seems to be quite normal. During the carnival period every other guy was wearing a skirt and a wig while they were pushing their child around in a carriage or holding their girlfriends hand. Obviously not all of these men were straight. For example one night we saw one guy walking around in the street all naked with green feathers on his back, high heels and his bare-ass smeared with gold paint. His private area was also just covered with some sort of plastic-leaf. But I guess a more moderate form of dressing out like a women was a thing men did during carnival. Elise was not surprised by this at all. She had an idea that all men wanted to be like a woman from time to time, and that carnival was a good excuse. I do not completely agree with her on this one, but from purely looking at the guys in Rio she seemed to have a good point.

But focusing on the parade again I was left with an impression that it was a cool and different experience everybody should try once in their life. With thousands of supporters cheering at you from the stadium while you are trying to move your feets like a crazy person gave an experience I have never had before (obviously…). We had to pay 50 Reis $/ 150 NOK for the costumes, but from what Elise had seen for packages online the prices for tourists are usually 350 R$/ 1050 NOK. For me and Elise, however, the cost was definitely worth the experience.

Then it was the bandidos. As I told in the beginning Piero told us that we did not need to fear the bandidos. He nevertheless told us that we had to look out for the little kids or youths that went around in the street smoking and drinking alcohol. This seemed quite to the contrary from what the taxi-driver had warned us about and from what we had heard about before. Soon we started to get comfortable to the environment. Since Piero and Nani lived quite a bit outside of the city we also ended up quite often taking the bus home with the people who went around on the beach selling ´aqua and cerveja´. On these rides the people looked at us with more surprise than threat and as explained by Piero, people were not used seeing Gringo´s outside the Copacabana areas. In the beginning these encounters with the Rio culture was a bit concerning, as every interesting looks easily could be misunderstood as threatening looks. On all the occasions we encountered on these bus and metro rides however, people were helpful and friendly.

On one occasion, for example, when we took the bus home ourselves, After riding the bus for an hour or so I started to move backwards on the bus to prepare for our stop in ´Batan´. This was understood by the bus driver and the people sitting on the bus as a clear signal that I intended to step off and people started to yell while the bus driver started to slow down. When I understood their misunderstanding I screamed: ´Batan, Batan´, which was our station, to make clear that I was just getting ready to step off like all other Brazilians did in time for their stops. As an echo, my signal: Batan-Batan-Batan was repeated throughout the whole bus and the driver shifted gears and speeded up again. It should come as no surprise that everybody knew that the Gringos were going of at Batan, and when the Bus driver stopped at Batan, without any signal from me or Elise we had 50 or so faces looking back at us to check whether we had understood that it we were going of at this stop.

With Piero´s knowledge of Rio we also got the chance to visit the Rocinha Favela by night, which is strictly warned against in the tourist books. Piero said he knew the Favela from some charity work he had done, and knew the people and the boss. In this Favela we actually had sushi, to my big surprise, which were both cheap and good. On other occasions we also visited the Lapa area where the stairs leading to the nearby Favela was working as a ´little Amsterdam´ where no police entered, illegal substances were sold and used, but no crimes were committed. As explained by Piero: Stealing in here is bad for business.

Regardless of the extended intoxication in this area, these stairs offered a beautiful view decorated with tiles picturing paintings of cities such as St. Louis, Frankfurt and Barcelona, to mention a few. This stairs were quite cool, and even if you could see the small kids and the bad looking guys sitting around in these stairs, no one showed any hostility towards us.

But I guess the ´stealing is bad for business mode´ did not include the rest of the Lapa area. The day we had been visiting the Rocinha Favela, Piero was in the mood for showing Lapa for some Italian guys he had met. We accompanied him, of course, as our ability to easily find our way around the city outside the Copacabana and Ipanema area were a bit limited, and we wanted to make sure that we caught the right bus home. When we were heading for the stairs we had to walk through a really crowded area outside a bar, where a lot of people were dancing and partying. Piero told us that we had to: looook, use your eyes, while he was pointing at his eyes. I was looking like a maniac when I walked trough these areas, but when I came out on the other side I found that the camera was missing!?! Two Australian guys from Melbourne that had tagged along with us from the drink stands in the central Lapa areas, which were quite relieved to meet a couple of English speaking people in the town had also been pick pocked for his iPhone and Wallet… When we stood on the other side of the crowd, at the same time when I found out the camera was lost, one of the Australians looked at me with big shocked eyes and bluttered: ´They f***ing stole my iPhone´. He said he was thinking of going back in to retrieve it, but I told him that if he did not want to loose his shorts and shirt he would be better of staying where he was. At that very moment he felt his pockets again and stuttered: ´WTF… Where is my wallet???´. The Australian guys left us there and I did not see them for the rest of the night. I somewhat regret that I was high on my proficiency with Rio´s bandidos environment that I told them, as Piero had told me that: everything was easy and cool.

At the same time I also was glad that I was reminded that the blurred reality we had been living in was more complex than the easy dynamic Piero was portraying to us. With a city of hundreds of young and old Brazilian Oliver Twist´s its bound to be this way.