I press my face against the small, dirty airplane window, and check out the city in the valley, green jungle surrounding, mountains in the background with clouds dotting the tops. I take a deep breath, feeling weirdly hopeful. Filled with that feeling you get from a solo adventure. Also inhaling a slight smell of sulfur from 9 plus hours of non stop farting from my seat neighbors. Planes are basically a locked fart box.
A cab driver Pao takes me to Ipanema. As he zips between 2 lanes at a time, I grip the seats and tell myself plenty of people are worse than NYC cab drivers. We stop at two ATMs with no luck. Both places reject my ATM card. My fear is slowly mounting, when I realize I’ve only ever gotten money from HSBCs or Citibanks whilst traveling. Relief. And cash.
My Portuguese is non-existent. I speak three words total, and no one speaks English. One of the few places I’ve been in the world where I have felt unable to communicate. My advanced intermediate Spanish is borderline useless but I speak it anyway as Cariocas can understand. I can understand about half of what they say, but the Cariocan accent draws out certain tones in words. Instead of “dois” (two) it’s “doihhssssj.”
I drop my stuff and walk only a block to the famed Ipanema Beach. Approaching the water, my jaw drops. It’s so blue!
It’s a beachy town and people move slowly, with not a lot of clothes. They must have a shirt shortage, because men mostly don’t wear shirts. Why would they, it would cover their ripped abs and manboob muscles that they work so hard for.
And the thong thing is true. Thongs as far as the eye can see, encased by a variety of sizes of buttcheek meat. Thong tha thong thong thong.
My day is spent walking and wandering down Ipanema beach, to the neighborhood Leblon, getting fancy (pricey) food (is there any good, healthy food in Rio that isn’t fancy? not really) at the crowded and slightly douche chill establishment Zuza. The burata cheese comes out deep fried. If my partner in cheese Hanna was here we would shake our heads and say, What a pity.
Good food is not cheap here, and the street food options are limited. Hot Dog, or Hamburger? At least there are fresh juices and smoothies, and my favorite: fresh coconut stands where a machete wielding man hacks an opening in your natural juice box.
I buy two sarongs with zippers that roll up into bags, and successfully bargain in English with the beach seller. Greased up, I park myself on the sand next to a group of kids from Austin, some gays from Miamis, and a few other Americans. Mostly tourists are on the beach during the weekday, and Brazilians are working.
With the hot sun blasting, I snooze with my bag under my head, like a pillow, and wake up to overhear a frenzied voice screeching, “They stole my bag! I was sleeping and someone just took it!” Yuck. That’s a horrible feeling. Relief that I put my bag under my head, paranoid NYer style. There’s a lot of petty crime here. To quote the weird movie Super, which I saw right before I left, Shut up crime.
It’s not odd to walk around at my normal city dweller pace. It’s odd to stop.
