Rio de Janeiro, a love for a lifetime.
For several years I have traveled to many different places in Brazil. A continent disguised as a country, it makes you realize that a whole lifetime is not enough to get to know all of it. Year after year I treated myself to discovering different corners of this beautiful and unique country.
Every time, while admiring what makes each place special and meeting different people, over caipirinhas and the odd “cervejinha”, the same question always came up: “You’ve been to Rio, right?”.
In the north, the northeast, the south, the center or even in other countries, whenever people talk about Brazil, the equation “Brazil = Rio de Janeiro” is taken for granted.
Just as many countries surely have central spots that popular talk turns into synonyms for the whole country, that made me reluctant to visit it. That is why, in those chats, people were always surprised and amazed that I could be so in love with the country without knowing its main star. It was a bit like falling in love with someone without really knowing that person.
But we are talking about a continent-sized country! We are talking about much more than one city! I refused to believe that my love could not be pure just because I had not visited such an eye-catching city.
Well then, let’s see what Rio de Janeiro has that captivates people from Bahia and São Paulo, that makes people from Ceará and Santa Catarina fall in love, and that draws foreigners from all over like metal to such a powerful magnet.
I understand that when someone discovers Brazil for the first time through the gateway of Rio, they fall completely in love. But I attribute that love to Brazil itself. Brazil is a dose every human being needs from time to time. So I went to Rio with a big dose of Brazil already in my blood; I was not going to let myself be so easily charmed by an energy I attribute to the country as a whole and not to one particular city.
So, what does Rio have that no other region can offer me?
It was on the eve of New Year 2018 when the moment finally arrived.
Leaving the airport and heading into the city itself, when you least expect it, there it is: a guardian, an all-seeing sentinel, Christ the Redeemer. Whether or not you practice a religion, it can’t help but steal a smile from you as it welcomes you from afar, like a dear friend or relative waiting for you with open arms.
Every city has its charm: some more at night, others more during the day; some for their museums and others for their street life; some for their architecture and others for the way they live alongside nature. What does Rio have? All of that and more.
Rio is meant to be experienced with all your senses. What defines the carioca in life? Being a lover of pleasure. Rio is a city of pleasure, of temptations in every sense.
Walking along the Orla of Copacabana or Ipanema while the heat tempts you to dive into the water, quenching your thirst with a fruity drink as you are called by the sound of the cavaquinho and the cuíca playing a melody by Martinho da Vila or Maria Bethânia.
Corcovado Hill, crowned by the Christ who welcomed you and invites you to visit in many different ways. Personally, I always embrace that very Brazilian way of visiting places called the “trilha”. We should write a separate article about this way of discovering and exploring.
The neighborhood of Santa Teresa, which never rests and, as the sun goes down, hands over to its next-door neighbor, Lapa, and its street life.
And how could I leave out that little gem that wins so many hearts with its exotic beauty of canals and islands, from its glamour to its quiet, secluded simplicity: none other than Barra, Barra da Tijuca.
The old man leaning on the counter of some boteco, drinking his cervejinha from small glasses and humming a melancholic samba while wishing a “Bom dia” to the worker heading straight for the Metro, who in the train car is accompanied by a street singer sharing her art for 2 or 3 stops; and when you come back up to the city, the heat embraces you and invites you once again to the blue-green sea.
What does Rio have that so many artists have nicknamed it the “Cidade Maravilhosa”?
They say that if you observe, you find more than if you just look. That is why we went to the highest point in Rio, Pedra da Gávea. A highly difficult trilha that takes three and a half hours. As if that were not enough, it was 35 degrees: brutal. A very steep slope, rock, climbing, lush vegetation, lizards and lots of birds, and a little waterfall to cool off, as is so typical of Mother Nature, who never abandons you.
Reaching the top, I understood it: from up there you observe it better. Far from all the city noise, removed from that music that possesses you like a snake charmer with his hypnotized cobra, far from fruity scents and tempting shows, there you see it… It is Rio de Janeiro.
A city of beaches, hills, green, blue and more green, with a host in the distance opening his arms to every visitor, like Christ the Redeemer, and a stage especially dedicated to the Sun so it can light it up and dress it in reddish orange every time it rests on the horizon.
A city that does not hide when the sun goes down; it shows its silhouette in every light that switches on.
And as if that were not enough, Réveillon, the farewell to the year that puts our lives on a calendar, invites us to say “goodbye” under a sky bombarded with fireworks, among 3 million souls gathered on the beach whose good wishes create a magnetic field of energy you cannot help but feel deep inside, on your skin.
There is joy, there is happiness, there is a party; you look around and you are surrounded by smiles and hugs, good wishes are exchanged with strangers, and that world we always wish for comes true for a few minutes.
If Brazil is a country you fall in love with, Rio pierces your heart for life.