“When my baby! When baby smiles at me I go to Rio… de Janeiro”. So that’s the song I had in my head the whole time were in Rio de Janeiro!!!
We initially were only going to go into Brazil for the English District Convention in Sao Paulo, but how could you go to Brazil and not visit Rio!! An advantage of visiting Rio was that we could meet up with Glauci who used to be in Mum n Dads cong in Melbourne and get to hang out with the congregation there! So that, we did!!
Saturday we went witnessing with the English congregation across from none other than Copacabana beach!!! I never thought I’d go to Copacabana beach let alone go witnessing along there! The whole time we were near the beach I had “At the copa… we’ll be having some fun. At the copa… we’ll something something something” in my head also…
That afternoon was the meeting (also in Copacabana!!) and then dinner with nearly the whole congregation down the road! The interesting thing about that meal was that it was buffet style, and you pay per kilo for the food you have! So you stack up your plate (think Sizzler or Valentines style!!), then they weigh your plate and that’s how much you pay!
One of the big changes we loved about Rio was the food!! Rio is sooo multi-cultural, and therefore has some great food from other parts of the world! We thought Australia was multi-cultural but Rio has the added culture of the Africans too. So it was so diverse and interesting!
The people watching in the street, at the beach (bums out everywhere!!) made Chapel St in St Kilda look like the most boring, normal place in the world! One scary thing I did see was a big African women lying on the beach, a tiny man rubbing sun lotion on her… Then to my horror I realised she was naked!!! No bikini bottoms, no top!! ARGH! Glauci and some of her friends assured me this wasn’t normal! hehehe…
Glauci was such a gem and so lovely to hang out with in Rio! She organised a walk up the Sugar Loaf hill on the Sunday and quite a few people came along. We walked about 1 hour through the forrest and saw some cute little monkies that you weren’t supposed to feed, but were seen to be eating cookies bigger than their heads!! The view from Sugarloaf was spectacular as you can see in the photos!
We ventured up to the Christ the Redeemer statue one evening to catch sunset over Rio! The afternoon was quite hazy so our photos from the Sugarloaf (smaller) mountain were a bit better. It was a cool experience though, and the statue is massive sitting on an 8mt high pedestal (that has a little church inside) and 30mts tall!!!
A highlight of Rio was the favela tour we did there. We visited Rocinha Favela which is apparently the largest favela in South America. A couple of years ago it was run by a 20 something year old drug lord, but the police came in and had a massive gun battle with these guys and took back control of the favela (we saw the spot were all the gun shots are in the walls from the battle!) Now the government has put alot of effort into trying to help the poorer people in these areas.
Basically the favela started by people who were driven out of the city taking this land and building their own houses here. Then they would sell their roof to another occupant to build a new story (preferably a family member). There was no town planning here, just a heap of MAX 5 story high self made buildings, self planned plumbing and electricity. The favelas have Real Estate agents now to sell the roof spaces, and the houses higher on the hills with the better views are more expensive. Because of the location, but also the fact that when it rains, the rubbish is all washed down to the bottom houses.
We were able to tour the favela because it basically brings tourists to help the local businesses there. We visited an art gallery, a bakery and jewellery shop. And the tours donate funds to the local child care centre. Most families living here are now middle class families. All the buildings had cable TV, and in some spots you could see in a house and see a mattress on the floor and dirty blankets, but a massive stereo system and TV!! Materialism still exists even in the poorest places!! It was so interesting to see another way that people live that is SO different to what we know!
All in all, Rio was great!!! We were really happy we went there and had a ball!
Timeframe: Friday 30th August – Thursday 5th September
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