September 9, 2018

September 9, 2018

Rio de Janeiro has two famous landmarks. Today we drove around the corner from our hotel to explore the second, Sugarloaf Mountain. This steep cone-shaped mountain is the most distinctive of the mountains that litter the Rio landscape. It is a granite pluton similar to Half Dome in Yosemite National Park. A cable car system was built years ago to carry tourists atop the peak.

The summit gives outstanding 360 degree views of the Rio landscape including the many beaches and lagoons. We watched several jets cross the city below us and land at the municipal airport.

Rio de Janeiro was the capital of the Portuguese Colony of Brazil. From Sugarloaf we drove to the downtown business district and the heart of the colonial city. We passed the pyramid-shaped Monument to the Portuguese founder of Rio and the Roman-style Carioca Aqueduct that supplied the colony with water. The aqueduct has now been repurposed as a tramway.

Like most of South America, Brazil is predominantly Catholic. We stopped at the Metropolitan Cathedral. It was built in 1979, in the shape of a Mayan pyramid. At 225 feet high, it has an enormous stained glass window rising on each side.

Our next stop was Alagoas Square circled by City Hall, the ornate Municipal Theater, and the Old Post Office.

Rio has a lot of graffiti and street art. We stopped at a very popular one known as the Selaron Steps. Made by a Chilean artist it is a an alley stairway of 215 steps decorated with colorful tiles; mostly the green, yellow, and blue colors of the Brazilian flag.

We made a brief stop back at the hotel for lunch before continuing our tour of Rio's old center. This time we passed Paco Imperial, the old Colonial residence of the governor. When Napoleon invaded Portugal, the king fled here. When he left, Brazil declared its independence from Portugal and got little resistance.

At the Port of Rio we stopped to see another piece of street art painted along one of the old warehouses. At 600 feet long it is the world’s largest wall mural. It has five faces from indigenous peoples around world. The Asian face is the Long Necks Hill tribe woman we met in Thailand earlier in the year.

Along with the Caribbean, Brazil was a center of the African slave trade. They were brought here in the millions to work Sugar Plantations and had a huge impact on the culture. We next visited a Samba School where we learned about the African influence on this distinctly Brazilian dance and music genre. We had a live demonstration by this year's Samba Queen. Boy can she dance and shake her booty!

Rio is world famous for its annual Carnaval and features elaborate floats with music and hundreds of costumed dancers. A competition is held to determine the best entry. This Samba School's work is mostly devoted to this contest. The warehouse has old float props and lots of former costumes. Our guide explained the history of the event and the strong African slave influence on this Catholic pre-Lenten party. We finish with the guides dressing us in a variety of Carnaval costumes and teaching us a little Samba,

We are also given a glass of Brazil's national cocktail, Caipirinha. It is made from Cachaca, a fermented sugar-cane alcohol. Sugar and muddled limes are mixed with it. It is very similar to the margaritas I make.

Tonight we celebrated our last night in Rio at a traditional Brazilian restaurant. We had an appetizer of fried Cassava, a Tropical tuber that tastes like potatoes. My dinner was a farm stir fry of beans, rice and sausage, a typical meal of the African slaves. Like the Creole food of Louisiana, it is slave-cuisine gone mainstream. Spiced up with pepper sauce it was very tasty.