Bom dia,
Well we are now down in Rio and as always it has been an eventful few days. I’m finishing this sitting in a chair on the middle of a packed Ipenema beach. The scenery around these parts is astounding. The Rio landscape is very nice too.
When we left you last time our New York trip had just wrapped up with Krystal helping me hobble off an ice rink. Again the travel between cities has been interesting. If the flight from Sydney to New York with my chunky, leg swinging friends was hard, the overnight flight down to Rio was brutal. We had a lovely Brazilian man that from the time he sat down behind us began those wretching, back of the throat snorting sounds at 20 second intervals. It seriously sounded like he had swallowed his pet goldfish, and was convinced he could bring it back up his esophagus if he could just generate enough suction. Between that, and even smaller seats that appeared bolted completely upright, we landed in Rio on no sleep and the echoing of determined phlem extraction in our ears.
But Rio has been amazing; a city of flesh, drinking, dancing, crazy drivers and no processes. The first thing to get used to is how ‘comfortable’ Brazilians are with their bodies. The ladies seem to think that two band-aids and a piece of string is acceptable swim wear, and minimal additions to this (perhaps a small strip of masking tape) makes for acceptable exercise attire. We found this out on the little cycleway that runs adjacent to the beach. We were wandering along and in the distance comes a girl riding along proudly, wearing a tight top that clung precariously to the outside tips of her shoulders and a small portion of her body. It at once defied the laws of gravity and appropriateness in 98% of countries. As she rode past, I knew I had looked for too long, and turned to Krys to plead guilty and offer a sincere apology. But what I got was Krys standing there staring herself, mouth agape. She had been as astounded at the show as what I was. How Peter Allen spent enough time here to compose a compelling body of music but remain committed to the male love cause will always remain a mystery to me.
But the guys here are not any different. They like to wear tiny white swimmers made out of very clingy material that goes almost translucent in the water. Take it from me that Brazilian men aren’t big fans of circumcision. I was going to join them in the tiny swimmers department but just haven’t been able to find a pair of sport socks yet to tuck down the front and make my costume ‘presentable’.
A trip to Rio isn’t complete without whiplash from the beach scenery, and a visit to Christ the Redeemer. This concrete statue is massive; 13 storeys high and perched on the top of Rio’s highest mountain. It is so high that you have to go on a clear day or Christ is buried under clouds. But it was on the way home from our visit to Redemption that things got uncomfortable. We have been getting into the ‘local travel’ mood so have been trying to catch local buses whenever we can. And we spotted our clapped out, suspension free bus back to Copacabana floating past as we popped out of our visit. Given Rio isn’t renowned for processes such as bus stops we ran along side the bus, waving manically to the driver while side stepping startled tourists. Once the driver got a glimpse of Krys he obliged, stopped his bus in the middle of the street and we piled on.
Little did we realise that this was one bus that did have designated bus stops. And our driver had dropped anchor only 20m short of the next one with 50 people waiting. So on seeing the driver stop for us, what little structure the Brazilian bus stop line had collapsed, and people started charging onto the road towards the bus. The driver made the last 10m to the official stop with people clinging to the doors.
By the time the bus had stopped filling, it was packed. So packed that if a sardine swam from a Brazilian bus to a tin they’d suffer from agoraphobia. And the other complication was not only the volume of people, but the sheer quantity of ass on board; this was one time when too much Brazilian booty was more than enough. It felt like we were in the middle of a giant ass pancake, wedged into place by our lower bodies but our upper bodies still allowed to swing free in tune with the violent and erratic driving of a man who was in such a hurry I can only assume he didn’t have a Tivo and was about to miss the final episode of Friends. The clincher was when this fully jammed bus stopped one more time to let on a youngish girl who had obviously never been shy when taking another plate of meat at a churrasco. Anyway, she was on and decided for some reason that she wanted to go to the back of the bus. I have never seen anything like it; was like watching a snake swallow a football as she shuffled and grunted her way through. I still have physical marks from being pressed so hard against a bus pole, and emotional scars from being violated by so many molten backsides……
Given the ordeal of the bus trip, we decided we needed a night out drinking to recover. So it was off to one of Rio’s edgier areas for a night of drinking and dancing. It’s here that we got a taste for the Brazilian love of mind bendingly strong caipirinhas and samba dancing. So after a liquid dinner we went hunting for a place to play. Our first choice of venue was a poor one; the only person dancing was a rotund, gay Brazilian boy in ill fitting sneakers while a bunch of pensioners sat around tables drinking rum and smoking cigarettes. Was like we’d wandered into either a Rio P&C after party or a highly unusual wake.
The second club we tried came with a huge reputation, but a line to match. It snaked its way haphazardly down the street in that loose Brazilian way. But the wait was long; so long my hangover was starting and we were still some way from entry. To the left of the main entry was a small door guarded zealously by a very large black man (seriously, it must be in the ‘guard the door’ job description). But the unusual state of being partially drunk, but pre-hangover and bored saw us come up with a wonderful plan – we’d bribe the doorman. I lost paper, scissors, rock so was left thumbing through our phrase book after midnight on a Rio street trying to find the right words. Amazingly the word for bribe was in there. It was ‘suburno’.
Given I thought the smoothness required to offer a successful bribe may be diminished if I stood in front of him fumbling through and reading from a Lonely Planet ‘Learn Portuguese’ phrase book, I practiced what I needed to say. I’d start with a ‘fala engles’ (do you speak English) and if I got a ‘no’, would point inside the door, offer a sly smile and say the magic word ‘suburno’. So with Krys’ encouragement in my ears (I could tell be the glint in her eye she was relishing the thought of watching this go down) off I set towards Mr Door.
It all started on plan. I asked if he spoke English, he said no. I pointed inside, offered a smile, dropped the ‘suburno’ bomb and waited…….. and what I got back was a huge laugh from Mr Door and in perfect English he said ‘look man, the is the door to the upstairs pizzeria. I’m happy to take your money but you’d be bribing me to go buy a pizza. Maybe you should just get back in the line’. So with tail between my legs and a perfect plan in tatters it was back to a giggling Krys and a longer wait.
We eventually got into the club and it was worth the wait. A club jammed as tight as a Brazilian bus, all trying to do samba in the 10square cms of space available. The Brazilians are good too; incredibly good. Krys has been practicing hard but is still some way off a Brazilian dance fight. I think I’ll try and build on her New York Running Man win by setting her for a return bout of 80’s shakin against a tipsy geriatric at Gymea’s premier nightspot, ‘The Vinyl Room’ on our return.
We’ve had a very frightening experience in Rio; it’s called a Supermarket. But more on that later.
Adues.
Trent, Krystal and a pizza man immune to bribery.
smallthoughts 