Rio de Janeiro

Just a quick update. I know I'm a terrible blogger....you, dear readers, can't rely on me to write with any regularity. Can I use the excuse that I'm easily distracted?

Life in Rio is nice. To give some background, which I didn't really include in the earlier post, Jenn and I got down here a couple of weeks ago for a conference. We tried to get in as many tourist attractions as possible in the first week. So here's a quick highlight tour of Rio via the written word courtesy of yours truly. When in Rio you really should visit certain sites that, while touristy, would be a shame to miss. One of these is, of course, Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Azúcar), which I believe I mentioned in my earlier post. The mountain sits next to Urca mountain at the far end of Copacabana Beach (well, not really at the end...Urca is at the end and then comes Pão de Azúcar), guarding Guanabara Bay. The photo of Sugarloaf on the left was taken from the top of Urca Mountain. Tourists can reach the top either on foot up a steep foot path or in a cable car first to Urca and then to the top of Sugarloaf. The views are amazing....we set out just before sunset to see the sun go down behind the Christ statue in the west. And of course a trip to Rio wouldn't be complete without a visit to Cristo Redentor, the massive sandstone statue of Christ the overlooks the city, gazing out towards the ocean. There's a train that takes you up Corcovado Mountain to the statue (or you can take a taxi or walk up the road), and the view is well worth the trip. Just be sure to check if the clouds are obscuring the view. When it's truly cloudy or foggy not only can you not see the city, you can't even see the statue even when standing at its feet! Jenn and I also visited the Jardim Botánico, the botanical gardens started by one of Brazil's emperors back in the 19th Century. It's full of beautiful royal palm trees and other exotic plants and flowers, as well as greenhouses for orchids, bromeliads, and carnivorous plants. I included a photo from the bromeliad greenhouse below. There's also a garden for the blind, which uses of texture, sound and scent instead of color as the basis for the aesthetics of the garden. Oddly enough the cactus garden is right beside it, a detail that I thought was a little ironic. During the first week before the conference our sightseeing also included a trip to the neighborhoods of Santa Teresa, a bohemian neighborhood that sits on top of a hill near the city center, and Lapa, where much of Rio's nightlife takes place (at least if you're interested in Samba, Forro and other Brazilian music).

So I leave for now with this little glimpse of Rio. I'll do my best to update things tomorrow as well. Or at least in the next few days. Finding a quiet spot to concentrate on writing has become more and more challenging as the hostel fills up. The hostel I'm staying in has only been open for about six weeks or so and is only now getting a reputation for being a good place to stay. When I first got here it was relatively empty but right now it is almost at capacity. While staying in Guatemala in hotels or with friends I forgot what it was like to stay in a hostel with scores of backpackers who are only in a place for a few days at a time and who want to wring every bit of experience out of their trip before moving on. I have to admit sometimes it can get a bit overwhelming to be in the middle of all that when you are not approaching the city in quite the same way. That said, I have met some very interesting and friendly people here, and if any of you are thinking of visiting Rio I would highly recommend checking this place out. Ok, then, I'm off...até logo.

A Cidade Maravilhosa

Finally, dear readers, I'm updating the blog! So hello from the Marvelous City, Rio de Janeiro! I've been here for about a week and a half, much of which was filled with attending panels at the Latin American Studies Conference that was held over the weekend. I've had a whirlwind week getting in the site before Jenn and my other friends in town for the conference headed back to the States. But it's been lots of fun. Rio is this incredible mix of urban neighborhoods and forested hills, some of which are home to favelas and others that are protected forests. The photo on the left I took from Corcovado hill, where the famous Christ the Redeemer statue overlooks the city. You can see Sugarloaf mountain in the distance, the tall hill in the upper left of the photo (it's hard to say if these are hills or mountains...the portuguese word is morro, pronounced moho, which means hill, but they are much more than hills as you can see). In addition to being one of the nicest places in the city to watch the sunset, Sugarloaf (Pão de azúcar in portuguese) is geographically fascinating. It actually has more in common with the geology of Africa that it does with the neighboring hill, called Urca. The hill is a key piece of evidence for the theory that Africa, South America, Australia, and Antarctica were all once part of one big continent back at the dawn of time.

I'm not really going to go in chronological order with my adventures here so far. My brain is too full...yeah, that's my excuse. Yesterday I wandered around the city center with a friend of my sister's she met when she studied Portuguese here two years ago. He gave me a fantastic tour of that part of the city. I probably should have read a bit more of Brazilian history before coming here, but I really had no idea about the depth of history here in Rio...pretty soon the city will be 500 years old. It was founded by Portuguese but the French also tried to get a foothold early on but were driven off. During the Napoleonic wars in Europe, the Portuguese monarchy moved their entire empire to Brazil and finally ended up settling down in Rio, making the city the imperial capital of the Portuguese Empire for about 40 years. Much of the historic buildings in the city center and other towns nearby, such as Petropolis (a town up in the mountains where the imperial family spent the summers instead of baking on the coast), are full of imperial Portuguese architecture. Think baroque, rococo, early 19th century Europe. I'll check some of my facts online, but I'm pretty sure I remember from our walk around the city that after the war with Paraguay, called the War of the Triple Alliance by most historians, slavery was abolished in the Brazilian territories and soon after that the Republicans (no, not those Republicans) kicked the monarchy out of Brazil. Also, interestingly enough, when Brazil moved the country's capital from Rio to Brasilia, the city of Rio became it's own state, Guanabara State, for a few years until the military dictatorship moved the capital of the state of Rio de Janeiro from Niteroi, the city across the bay from Rio, to Rio and abolished the state of Guanabara.

Ok, so that's the extent of your history lesson for today. I'm getting distracted, so I'll write more later. Until then, then.....