Rio Love

my first opportunity to blog and yes I have being dying to. today is day 4, and at the moment im listening to the atlantic waves in a remote village near town maragogi by the major city recife. rio days are behind me but have made a permanent impression on me and of course i will return and spend real time there. 3 days were enough to just get a bite of the city, a little glimpse. amusing thing is internet conneciton was a problem in the city but here, with no pavement for a road, just dirt and sand, internet works great.

so first site and smell of Rio: slums, smell and rain. i know, not what you thought. it was drizzly but warm and the airport is far from the main parts of the city. as you´re driving in, you get exposed to the slums of the city, which are by far worse than any ghetto in america that i´laid my eyes upon. imagine 200.000 residents in little square brick and cement homes, practically boxes, stacked upon one another, with no windows and some no doors, all just squashed together, with plastic serving as covering for doors. the smell comes from the wasteland near by. extremely sad and a dangerous place to get caught.

however once you recover from that sight and as you´re heading into the city, the real Rio exposes itself. its a combo of small sounds, hills and sprawling buildings for miles in every direciton possible. rio de janeiro literally means river of january, for the month when the city was established 500 some years ago. its surrounded by hills and water and is indeed the most gorgeous city ive seen by far. when we got into town, one can see how wealthy it actually is. we stayed in the relatively expensive but not over-the-top part of town, the capacabana beach. LOVE IT. our hotel was decent, and our view was the ocean and sand. can one ask for more? i think not. the little rain cleared as we got to the hotel and sun came out to greet us. we had an amazing lunch on the 30th floor of the hotel at the skylab, eating traditional meal buffet style consisting of beans, all types of meat, ox´s year, pig´s tongue, collar greens..you get the picture. such an assortment of foods and the caipirihnas kept coming. thats the most famous alcoholic drink, resembling a margarita, but better, sweeter, and smaller. all it has is cachaca, lime and sugar. all portions here are small actually. their grande coffee is our short size.

next was hang-gliding of the peak of a cliff. words wont do justice for this experience so i will just post a video of it. landed on the beach, smoothly. simply amazing.

that night we partied at the samba practice carnival. and thats just first day.