Familiar but not quite, that is how I would describe Brazil. I came to this conclusion after watching the chocolate seller, a woman in her forties with the type of face that you’d imagine had seen it all but through everything still had enough determination to flash a smile with tones of gentleness. Watching her walk along Praia do Flamengo selling her homemade chocolates wrapped in pretty ribbons the scene seemed familiar but it was the realisation that my imagination along with Loulou’s were on overdrive that made us conclude that Brazil has a slight touch of the exotic to make it different enough to make us feel like outsiders looking in.
Top: Sugarloaf at sunset from Flamengo Beach.
Middle: Cablecar up to the summit.
Bottom: Praia do Flamengo from Sugarloaf.
Somewhere along our journey we had decided to write a book, a sort of haphazard love letter to Brazil, the country which never ceased to offer us an abundance of characters. The chocolate seller, she had now turned into a bitter serial killer, once spurned by a foreign lover her chocolates and pretty ribbons now concealed a measure of arsenic to those who reminded her of those days when love had brought her near to heaven. Then there was the beautiful girl sitting on her balcony in an expensive condo in Copacabana. To us she had married a rich man who had took her away from poverty and now a kept woman in a gilded cage she would sit there bored everyday staring towards the ramshackle huts of the favela and longing for her childhood she would reminisce of those days that had felt worth living. Then there was the beautiful boy with green eyes wearing the sky blue t-shirt riding Bus 174 through Botafogo. He lived in the favela where he would spend his days building a chapel made of cardboard and wood. He would only come down to the asphalt city to search for discarded newspapers and posters, hoping to find images of Jesus in them which would become the great Michelangelo artwork of his sanctuary. Yes, at first sight Brazil seemed familiar but it is when you realise that you are an outsider looking in that you understand this is not some lost European country but rather somewhere with it’s own unique identity.
Warsaw-on-Sea. The Centro district Rio de Janeiro.
While I know for sure that Brazilians are the kindest people I have ever met I couldn’t quite make up my mind about the Cidade Maravilhosa and it’s reputations of beauty. Most of the architecture of downtown Rio is modern bordering on brutalist and if it wasn’t for the cities location nestled between Sugarloaf, Corcovado and Tijuca National Park I could have quite easily christened it Warsaw-on-Sea. Rio de Janeiro is definitely not my kind of city. Show me the sardines vying for space on a packed beach and I will run a mile. The same goes for certain cities with their myths of glamour and the people attracted to it, who, too busy making selfies in the latest place to be seen hardly notice the beggars they are stepping over.
Ipanema late afternoon
Of all the beaches in Rio there was only one I actually enjoyed and that was the one nicknamed The Poor Man’s Beach, Flamengo. If you just want to sit somewhere quiet sipping on a cocktail unpretentiously wrapped in polystyrene without the endless hawkers and crowds then head for Flamengo around sunset and marvel at the great hulk of Sugarloaf Mountain. Here it’s façade seems gigantic and as the slipping sun will make it’s rockface turn quite volcanic you will marvel at the children and their confidence as they swim in the breakers which seem to my eyes more used to the North Sea quite terrifying. The same cannot be said for posh Ipanema or crowded Copacabana and while the walk along Ipanema and Copacabana’s Avenida Atlântica was truly iconic I longed for the back streets of Old Delhi with their chaos and grime where life seems far more edgier.
The famous view from Corcovado.
One morning Loulou and I followed the tourist trail up to the summit of Corcovado to view Christ the Redeemer. While the statue is beautiful but much smaller than I had imagined the views were astounding. I couldn’t help but giggle to myself while watching the tourists all crammed on the balcony below, which from that angle made them look like one big angry cockroach their waving selfie sticks like the insect’s antennae reaching out trying to catch something, for the tourists just a memory. Sugarloaf was no different. Unhappy queues of tourists crammed into cable cars for the ride up to the summit and while the views again were amazing it was the crowds that made me want to flee. I was surprised though that on top of Sugarloaf there is small forest where if you search long enough you can just about escape from the crowds although I suspect the marmosets have become jaded or wise and fled the summit long ago.
The Avenue of Palms in the Jardim Botânico. When you tell me these Botanical Gardens are amongst the world’s finest I was expecting far more!
Walking in “the armpit” … this neighbourhood is nicknamed so because it’s located under Christ’s right armpit.
There was only one moment in Rio and actually the rest of Brazil that had for me eclipsed all others and that was in the unlikely location of Rio’s main train station called Central do Brasil. It must have been sometime last winter when cycling home from work in a particulary nasty downpour that I had got home looking and feeling like a drowned rat, the prospect of the upcoming darkened months seemed to have weighed heavier on my shoulders that day. Trying to cheer myself up while dancing to Bossa Nova music on Youtube I had stumbled upon a Brazilian movie called Central do Brasil.
Corcovado and Christ the Redeemer from Parque Lage.
Artwork in the Escola de Artes Visuais do Parque Lage.
Central do Brasil tells the story of a boy searching for his father who becomes friends with a letter writer who sits in the main hall of the cities train station. This film captures Brazil and it’s emotions so beautifully that I couldn’t help but watch it a number of times and it was this film that made me decide to go to Brazil. One afternoon after walking what seemed like all over the city I would say fate brought me towards the train station where approaching it’s main hall I had felt a rush of excitement, the only time I had felt that in Brazil.
The building of dreams…Central do Brasil!
This moment is when I could say I loved Brazil the most standing at a coffee counter in Central do Brasil’s main hall wearing my beat up strawhat and dusty clothes where I sipped on an intense cafezinho and gazed across the crowds searching for Dora, the letter writer and Josue, the lost boy. In doing so I saw all of Brazil unfold before my eyes. People with unfamilar provincial features were flowing into the city carrying their lives in one suitcase, their sparkling eyes crammed full of dreams, while others, the downbroken, were going back home dejected by the Marvelous City and all that it had offered them. In between it all smartly dressed business workers could have been flowing out towards the suburbs after a day’s work lost in their thoughts and drama of big city life while beggars milled around in search of a few reais. The only thing that seemed permanent was the building itself with it’s huge images lining the main wall. These were of places in Brazil like Brasilia and São Paulo now faded and covered in dirt showcasing the country in another time when Brazil had seemed more optimistic. In that moment I understood the vastness of Brazil, of the world, and us, just one in billions with our hopes and dreams we are all in someway searching for the Cidade Maravilhosa.
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gracetheglobe 
Such an intriguing perspective on Rio. After traveling to places like India, Nepal and Myanmar I, too, feel that grittiness actually adds to a city’s charm.
Oh I would love to read your post on Johannesburg as almost everyone and everything advised me to avoid the city for its high crime rate. However upon hearing such negative reviews I always think of the locals who live their lives day by day in the city. It shouldn’t be that bad, right?