city of god
as the prospect of the office and the banal realities of everday existence cause the gentle tide of time which has washed through this three month sojourn to build into a relentless wave no less furious than those crashing into copacabana beach from the atlantic it is tempting to fall into wistful eulogy. yet to say rio´s delights are particularly delectable because they have fallen in the last, fleeting, week is to do this great city a disservice. this place hinted at how much it had to offer in our brief stay before heading to ilha grande, and in the last week has really come into its own. it´s a place where intense poverty mingles happily on the perfect white sand with wealth comparable to anywhere on the planet, where dark favela kids flick footballs around next to speedo wearing new yuppies doing exactly the same thing, all the while the sun blazing above and the crash of the waves in the background. true the lights twinkling in the favelas high on the hilltops around the city where the rich cannot be bothered to climb suggest a fairytale beauty which does not reflect the harshness of life amongst what are effectively slums but surely with such great views, great weather, great music everything must be that little bit easier? maybe not, but our second trip into the favela for a baile funk night certainly helped maintain our happy, guilt appeasing, view of these shuddering masses of people and poverty as we bundled into a warehouse full of people, a heaving sweating mass baying for their favourite tunes in portugese and shaking every part of their bodies in ways unimaginable to those with considerably more awkward control of our bodies. vicki tried to take them on with the apple crumble and plumbing dances but, especially when coupled with a night in london´s worth of booze, these delectable slices of getting down remained unable to impress the judges of the dance off. throw in amongst the bass heavy brazilian funk which blared for hours a short, completely unexpected and totally incongruous, blast of sweet child o´mine and rhythm is a dancer and spice delicately with fried bits of chicken on a stick to munch down on at 4 in the morning (maybe a bit too enthusiastically in vicki´s case; what goes down must come up i suppose) and our night of favela funk was an awesome one, albeit one that wrote off our last monday away.the rest of the week has been dedicated to lounging on the beach whilst trying to ignore the icy breath of atlantic house on my neck. we went up sugarloaf mountain today for beautiful views of rio and christ the redeemer in the distance, a vista ruined by the decision of some idiotic planning bureaucrat to allow the building of a number of ugly telephone masts directly behind the statue. the experience was also slightly spoiled by the decision of my camera, as did its predecessor in tahiti, to give up the fight with the finish line in sight. still the views were spectacular, a reminder of just what a geographical box of wonders rio flows out of, deep blue sea all around, myriad sandy bays peppered with outcrops of rock just as the sweep of copacabana is dotted with high rises. what a beautiful city, utterly vibrant and pulsating with the kind of big city energy absent anywhere else that we have been on this trip.
the last day tomorrow, a trip up to christ himself to have a sniff at his armpit and bid farewell to not just the twinkling lights of rio but to three months of blissful freedom.
posted by bicrom @ 9:50 pm
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