Wandering around Rio

We went to Rio mostly because you can't go to Brazil without visiting Rio. Without Rio, you can't really say you have been to Brazil. But after seeing the beaches and visiting the heights, what else is there? We were not really sure. We had done those things, but it did not really feel like we had seen the real Rio. We decided to go downtown and just spend the day wandering around.

Lonely Planet provided us with a walking tour and we just followed their lead. Well, after a side trip to one of Soccer’s most fabled grounds, anyway. You can’t visit Rio and skip the Maracana, can you? So we rode the metro over. Maracana has its own stop, as befits the most important structure in Brazil. It is very convenient. Hop across a short bridge and you’re at the stadium.

Four days before it’s first match was probably not the best time to visit. The grounds were buttoned up tight with crews busily adding their finishing touches. We could look, but we couldn't go in. Oh well, it was fun just to be there. Our first real taste of the global nature of the World Cup. Fans from everywhere, dreaming that they are standing in front of that place where magic will happen, where their team will win the cup. Before the first kick off, anyone can dream.

From there, we headed back downtown and climbed out at Rio’s Central Square and began wandering. We passed some nice old buildings, some nice new buildings, and a couple of museums. We passed them without visiting - not because we weren’t interested, mind you. Rather because they weren’t open. The palace seemed like it could be visited but though we found it, we could not find anything to look at other than a scale model in the foyer. There were several employees - but none could help us.  No one spoke a language we spoke. We tried the next museum. Brazil's Natural History. They were on strike.

The walk over was not a total loss. One of the picketers spoke French and so I got a firsthand account of why at least one Brazilian was upset about the World Cup. She made a lot of sense. They built a $300 million stadium in Manaus that will be used for 10 days - but there is no money for museums. I get it.  But no museum visit.  She helpfully pointed us towards the Dali exhibit - which closed yesterday. Oh well, we keep wandering.

Eventually the path took us someplace fun. Rio has a massive central market, not unlike Istanbul's bazaar. Merchants’ stalls are jammed one against the next, all selling ‘Brasíliana’ it seemed. There was nothing you could not get adorned with Brazil’s flag or colors. Not that I wanted that stuff - but it was fun to see.

From the market we wandered past Rio's Cathedral. interesting shape - I'm sure there's a story - but I don't know it.  And on into Lapa one of Rio's funky Samba districts. It would've been fun to go back and visit the clubs, but we heard the neighborhood was better in the daylight.

It was early in our trip and we were probably a bit over concerned about crime, so we passed. Shoulda, woulda, coulda…  we did get to see Rio’s version of Rome’s Spanish steps. More colorful and fun and like everywhere else packed with roving bands of fans, chanting and taking their “I was there” shots. We got ours, too and now we could say: Rio, been there, done that. Let’s play some futbol!

Fortaleza and Natal

We didn't pick Fortaleza and Natal because they were UNESCO world heritage sites. In fact, I bet most Brazil visitors come and go without giving them a second thought. I can't say I blame them. There really is not a whole lot of there, there.  That's not to say that they are not nice places to visit, especially if you like the beach and beach type activities. They have those in spades. Only I don't really like the beach. Thank God there was soccer!

Fortaleza is the larger of the two cities and no doubt gets more traffic. We heard it was a pretty short flight from Europe and that in the winter (Brazil's summer) Europeans flock down and fill the hotels. They must come in droves, as there are lots of big hotels. 

It is hard to imagine summer in Fortaleza, however. We were there in the dead of winter (mid-June), the shortest days of the year. 

The daytime temperature was 30° to 32°C (90°F+)  The humidity was 90% + and then the sun went down and the temperature rose! No idea how that happens, though I suspect the wind shifts, blowing a cool (ish?) breeze onshore during the day and inland heat offshore at night. For me it was brutal. Fortunately, the hotel was air-conditioned.

One afternoon we did make an obligatory hike from the hotel zone into the center. It was a quaint, small,  colonial outpost. A couple nice old buildings, a small commercial zone and that’s about it. 
Great. 

Back to the soccer.

Natal honestly had even less going for it. To be fair, I’m sure most people who go to Brazil like the beach and Natal has a very nice beach (Ponta Negra) they also have kite surfing and dune buggy riding and snorkeling and a bunch of other stuff I did not do.

We were there for the big game US Ghana, and the game, the stadium and Natal did not disappoint. 

We were very glad we chose Natal.  Christopher and I are now members of a very small, elite group of Americans – those who have been there to see their team win a World Cup match.  It is sadly a very small group that will not soon get any bigger. Natal would be the US team’s only win.

Eating in Brazil

One of the questions you always get on return from a trip is the inevitable “So how's the food?”  Well, after a couple of weeks in Brazil, I am afraid I would have to say - I don’t know. “You ate didn’t you?” Yes, we ate and lots of things we ate were pretty good - but I have a sense that we missed more than we experienced. So how's the food? What we had was good. But we had a lot of the same stuff, over and over.

It was not because we were averse to adventure dining.  It was kind of because of the way Brazilian restaurants operate. It took us a while to figure it out. Our first problem was linguistic, of course.  80% of the menus were in Portuguese only. I found that my high school Spanish helped a lot, so I had a general clue about my choices, but there was something we could not figure out.

One of the first things we learned was the word “Choppe”. It means “draft” and was usually the first thing we took care of.  Choppe, Choppe, Caparina, Choppe. Now we had time to look at the menu. Typically Choppe was 3 or 4 Real (R$), about $1.50-1.80.  It gave us a reference to how expensive a restaurant we were in. Okay, so this place is pretty reasonable, let’s look at the dishes. This was  a puzzle. If beer is cheap (R$3) why does a chicken dish cost R$60 ($27 US)? And then: okay it’s chicken  (frango) but chicken what? And how?

That was the adventure. Oh well, we just dove in and ordered. Fortunately we thought it made sense to order something, try it, share it and go from there. It was a good policy. Why does a chicken dish cost R$60? Because it is a big plate of chicken and it comes with rice and beans and usually one or two other sides. Brazilians eat family-style when they go to restaurants, it seems.

As we got more experienced we noticed and understood what was going on at the other tables and so that is how we begin ordering. But there's a problem in that. First, you were ordering one, maybe two dishes - not four. That alone limits your ability to experiment. And then whatever you order needs to be okay with everyone. That pushes you towards the most common denominator and towards ordering again something that worked last time. Especially when the only word in the description that you understand is “frango”.

We ate a lot of grilled meat. The places we went did not seem to have a dinner menu or a lunch menu - they just had a menu. Lunch and dinner were pretty much the same thing - one just a few hours later than the other. Our usual pattern was built around the group stage game schedule. We’d wake up when we wanted and get breakfast (see next post) or not, depending on the time. The first kickoff of the day would be at 1 PM. Depending on the importance of that game, we get to a restaurant with a TV either 30 minutes before kickoff (to get a decent view of the TV) or at halftime (when tables freed up as people moved on). We would start with something to drink. In Fortaleza we discovered beer came in 600 ml bottles, twice the size of a choppe, delivered in styrofoam jackets to keep them cold and usually just R$5 or 6. That alone could hold us for 90 minutes if we wanted, but at some point we would order a dish to share. That was lunch. The next game was at 3:00 and often we skip it unless it was the big one and then be back in a restaurant at 6:00 for dinner and the night cap.

It was a lot of fun because the restaurants were always packed and the fans were always passionate - but it was not a five-star culinary experience and the grilled meat did get old after a while. There were options: lots of pizzerias, more Italian style than US and there was McDonald’s. We mostly avoided that, except for the Mokarito McFlurries. They were the perfect late night snack.   We had a few.

Breakfast

Breakfast depended on where we were. In Fortaleza and Natal it was offered at the hotel, so of course we obliged. The hotel in Fortaleza was pretty big so they had a full on buffet with lots of choices: eggs, cold cuts, quiche-like dishes, sweet bread items and even cereal and milk to go with your excellent Brazilian coffee and odd juices. Most of the juices were odd. Made from some fruit that I had never heard of. They even had cashew juice one day (it’s about like you would imagine). One of the interesting things about the juices was that they were all unsweetened.  If you wanted sugar you just added it yourself, like in your coffee. It was a little alarming to be confronted by the reality of how much sugar I needed to add before the juice was the way I like it - but good to know, I suppose.

In Natal, at Noelle’s Pousada, breakfast was much more like a special day at home. While we were there it was just six Americans – us, and another couple in town for the US-Ghana match. Noelle asked what we wanted and that’s what we got: Eggs, jams, cold cuts and homemade banana bread. And a succession of juices, made from stuff I had never heard of, had never tried, will probably never see again and that I don’t think I will miss. Still, those juices were not the strangest one I had. That happened at our favorite breakfast place in Rio.

In Rio we were not in a hotel, so no breakfast. We had to hunt. Hunting was not hard. On the corner in front of our apartment was a juice bar that served fresh-baked pastries.  My favorite was the ham and cheese.  You can never go wrong with ham and cheese, cooked into a bread.  And then of course they had juices. They must have had 30 choices.

Our Juice Bar

The first day I played it safe and went with the laranja (naranja-orange, thanks high school Spanish - I guessed right!) The second day I came more prepared. I looked up and downloaded a list of fruits translated into Portuguese. I decided to try the pineapple (abacaxi) I said it, and I thought I pointed to it on the menu board. The waiter repeated. I said “Sim!”. Were good to go. Small or large? I love pineapple, let’s go large. A few minutes later my juice came - kind of a green sludge. It was not abacaxi it was abacate (avocado). I am not sure what the difference in pronunciation would be.  Portuguese does not seem to be pronounced exactly as it is written and I guess when I put my finger on the board he thought I wanted the one above (abacate) the one I put my finger on (abacaxi).  So I had an avocado smoothie for breakfast. Not the worst thing I ever had.  Still, the next time, I was much more careful.

Getting Around Brazil

In the earliest phases of planning our trip to the World Cup, we wrestled with the problem of internal travel - once we got to Brazil. The games would be spread out all over what is a very large country. You could pick one city and stay there, but then you just get whatever games they assign - probably not the games you want. And, you don’t get to see much of Brazil. We knew that would not work for us.  Our trip would need to include multiple locations and that meant we would need to figure out how to get from point A to point B.

Once the draw came out and we got a line on ticket availability, we settled on Northeast Brazil - Fortaleza and Natal - partly because the US would play in Natal, but also because Natal and Fortaleza were not that far apart.  The trip could be manageable.

My first thought was we would just drive. It’s only 300 miles between the two. We would get to see some of the countryside, it could be fun. Then, I started researching. I read the warnings about bad roads, bad drivers, and bad people waylaying travelers on Brazil’s roads. I asked a colleague who had been what he thought. He said he wouldn’t do it. Great. Back to the drawing board. If you can’t drive, how do you get from Fortaleza to Natal?

Flying was out of the question. We were entering the market way too late. Brazil's domestic air travel system is no doubt adequate for its usual needs and usually fares are pretty reasonable. But these are not usual times. With all the teams playing one game here and their next game there - and all of their fans wanting to follow the teams from place to place - there was a giant spike in demand for seats on planes traveling between the match sites. By the time we got our game tickets (Round 3 of three lotteries) and now knew where we needed to be - most of the seats were sold. You could get a 4 AM flight for $400 one-way but that was way too rich for my blood. 

There had to be alternatives.  After driving, my next choice would have been the train, but Brazil apparently does not have trains. Certainly not trains between two pretty remote outposts which few Brazilians would normally visit.  (Fortaleza & Natal are 1,400 mi. from Rio) Trains require a lot of people traveling to justify the costs of building and maintaining the system. That traffic has never existed in northeast Brazil, so there just aren’t any trains.

But there are buses.  Much more cost-effective, especially if you already have the road to run them on. That’s how most Brazilians would make the trip. But I have a bit of an aversion to long bus trips. We took the bus from London to Glasgow a few years back. After a half-dozen trips to the chiropractor, I was pretty much as good as new. Buses can be cramped and unlike trains you can’t really get up and stretch or wander about. Even so, no planes, no trains, cars too dangerous, maybe it is the bus? Maybe, except that for foreigners, booking a ticket on the bus is difficult. First, the websites are all in Portuguese and deciphering the process was beyond my ability. I am not sure it was even possible, however. Once we got to Brazil and shared stories with other soccer pilgrims, we learned the tickets could only be purchased in Brazil and even then, not too far in advance. If you wanted to do the bus you would have to hope it would have a seat available when you got there. Because we had tight time frames and big commitments to specific dates and specific places, we could not roll the dice on getting bus tickets. We would have to roll the dice on driving in Brazil.

Driving in Brazil

So we reserved a little economy car in Fortaleza and resolved to drive back-and-forth to Natal. How bad could it be? 

Well, our first experiences with driving were as passengers in Rio. It was not too bad.  On arrival we were picked up at the airport and delivered to our hotel. We took the freeway (three lanes) to the surface streets (crowded).  No incidents, nothing unusual.  We could've been in California. Over the next few days we took a bunch of taxis around town. Again no big deal.  Just big-city traffic. Maybe there was nothing to worry about.

On our last day in Rio we had an early (9 AM) departure for our flight to Fortaleza and not knowing how long it would take to hail a cab and get to the airport, we set out at 6:15 AM. As it turned out cabs are plentiful at that hour and so at 6:20 we were in a cab on our way to the Airport. At 6 in the morning the streets were empty and so the cabbie could go as fast as he wanted to.  And he wanted to go fast. we screamed around corners, blasted through signals that seemed kind of red and at one point played chicken with a police officer who was directing traffic at a construction site. It seems like our driver thought if you just barreled forward straight at the cop, the cop would have to waive him through. So that's what he did. The cop thought differently.  He kept blowing his whistle and indicating we should stop. Neither was conceding. Eventually, the cop won. We slammed on our brakes and slid to stop inches from the cop’s leg. He gave us a look: are you crazy? Our driver said something - I’m guessing it was an apology - and all was good. We got the go ahead and begin careening towards the airport once again. It was an adventure.  There may have been some truth to the warnings.

The adventure with the cabbie did not end when we arrived at the airport, however. Now we had to deal with him trying to scam us. Scam us a second time, I mean. I let the first scam go. The first scam was a modest one. Rio’s cabs have two rates, a day rate and the night rate. The night rate is about 15% higher and runs from 9 PM to 6 AM. The meter indicates either rate 1 (day) rate 2 (night). We got in the cab at 6:20. It should have been rate 1 but it was already running on rate 2. Not speaking Portuguese I had no idea how to protest. I decided to let it go. When we got to the airport, the meter said R$50. ($23 US)  Less than I expected. His little scam was not a big deal, but that was just scam one.  He asked for R$80 - R$80? Why R$80?  He took out his card. 

We had encountered the card before.  In Rio, the city sets taxi fare rates and adjust the meter accordingly. The rates change January 1, but there are thousands of cabs and it takes time to bring them all in to adjust the meters.  So between January 1 and their turn to have their meter adjusted, cabbies are allowed to add a surcharge to the metered fare. The amount is on a laminated card which cabbie shows you when you arrive at your destination. How someone who does not speak Portuguese would know if this particular meter had been reset or not, I do not know. It’s possible that every time we were shown the card we were being scammed, but how would we know? We just paid.  And I would have paid the airport cabby too. It was just 7% more, no big deal. Except he showed me the card and there was no correspondence between his number (80) and the meter’s number (50).  He just wanted 80.

Because I had to ask him to use the meter in the first place and because he used the wrong rate when he did turn on the meter, I’d had enough. He kept pointing to the card saying 80. I kept pointing to the meter and saying 50. I gave him 50 and said Bom Dia. I won. We survived our first driving adventure. It would not be our last.

Actually, driving in Brazil was not the worst I have experienced, but it is not like driving on Sunday in downtown Danville either. We did not pick up the rental until the last day of our stay Fortaleza. By that time we had been there five days and had had plenty of time to get to know the city a bit. We rode the bus from the airport to the hotel and then back across town to the stadium for the game. We had taken a hike downtown. We had seen how the traffic flowed and what the major arteries were like. So when we went back to the airport to get the car it was no big deal. I got this.

Our car was a small four-cylinder manual transmission Brazilian Chevy. We hopped in and headed south towards Natal. The airport being on the southside of the city we were out of town before you knew it. The first few miles were piece of cake. Four lane divided Hiway.  Easy-going.  At the outskirts of Fortaleza we lost a lane and for the next 300 miles it was a two lane road. The road is in good condition, straight and flat and for the most part everyone was going about 100 km an hour.  The trick was when he came up on one of the trucks with whom  we naturally shared the road. Time to pass.

Different people have different tolerance for risk and different speeds at which they like to drive. The truck doing 95 km/h might be something I could live with for a few miles. Brazilians, not so much it seems. People would come up behind you and avail themselves of gaps that seemed too small to pass in my eyes. Now they were passing me and the truck.  If it turned out it was too small a gap, they were just squeezing between me and the truck. It was a little unnerving when the bus did this, but after a while I got used to it and would slow down and create a space for them, just in case - since they were coming in anyway, space or not.

Along the way...

I got a little more aggressive as the day wore on, especially if we were headed downhill. Uphill? No chance.  Those hamsters under the hood were spinning as fast as they could. By the end of the day, I was in a groove. There's only one moment when I had my doubts. In retrospect it’s kind of, whatever...  There was a big transport truck that must’ve been sitting behind an agricultural vehicle for quite a while through one of stretches that was a little bit windy. As soon as the road is straight, he just went. No gap. He just went. I’m sure he knew that we would see him and get out-of-the-way, and that is exactly what happened. We all hit the brakes and slid over into the shoulder and when he’d passed we’re back on our way. No harm, no foul. Probably not legal. Not how we do things at home.  But I learned an important lesson. The traffic laws are mostly just suggestions.

That was especially true for city driving in Natal. Turn indicators? Who needs them? Lane striping?  Just general guidelines.  Red lights? It's okay if it's about to turn green. Once you get comfortable with that you just go with the flow. ‘All in One Rhythm’ applies to driving as much as soccer. At the end of the trip, I was completely comfortable driving in Brazil. Next time I just need a car with a bigger engine. And better shock absorbers.   One of the interesting things about driving in the small towns was the prodigious use of speed bumps to get you down to a speed that gives pedestrians a chance.

In the stretches between towns, drive is fast as you want. When you get to town you find the world's biggest speed bumps. For us, a small car with four passengers and luggage, we needed to come to nearly a complete stop to get over them without scraping. Most of them were well marked. Most of them. After a while it became Christopher's job to call them out. Even so we hit a few surprises. I was happy that when they inspected the car at our return they did not look underneath.

Speaking of inspections. Another thing we experienced almost nightly on our drive home from downtown Natal to the secluded beach village where we stayed was the sobriety checkpoint set up in front of the police station that we had to pass. Not sure what the legal limit was in Brazil, I decided to stop drinking while I had the keys. I still don't know what it is, but the police did seem disappointed when I blew a 0.00. The second night he did not even ask me to blow. Our host at the Pousada, Noelle, says he was disappointed.  She's convinced the point of the checkpoint is to generate a little pocket money. R$50 can make a lot of problems go away it seems. I am glad I never found out for sure. Maybe we were just lucky, but at the end of the day we drove as much as we wanted, and lived to tell the story.