From the time I left the bachelor pad until I got to O’Hare to hop on the flight down to Rio, I had this horrible sense of panic. Generally when I travel, there’s always a sense of “What the hell am I doing?” and I think to a degree, it’s common and healthy to have. But this was different. I guess all the stories I’ve heard about bad things happening in Rio was starting to get the best of me, and I was worried. It also didn’t help that I just finished reading Gavin de Becker’s “The Gift of Fear” before the trip. It was rather insightful, and despite the years of education and experience I have, you still need to learn to trust your instincts.
The flight from Chicago to Miami was rather uneventful, as most flights are nowadays. It’s a fine little routine I’ve settled into – I generally pick the same seat, sit down, and go through the same motions. There’s something comforting and yet boring about it. After close to a million miles flown in the last seven years, it’s a struggle to find the joy of flying. In a way, flying is a sadistic psychological experiment, conducted by some omnipotent deviant. At the security checkpoint, you have the Milgram Experiment. On the plane, you have triggers for anxiety, paranoia, agoraphobia and my personal favorite, white noise torture. In a way, I’m surprised more people don’t go nuts in a plane.
Landing in Rio wasn’t that bad. The immigration procedures were pretty straight forward and I was able to grab my bags and make my way out into the terminal. The difficult part, however, is that finding a cash machine. Mental note: At GIG, they’re on the 3rd floor near the post office. You’d think that there’d be one in close proximity to the arrivals hall, but there isn’t. There is a plethora of currency exchanges though.
After finally getting money, I hopped on a Real bus per the instructions on getting to the hostel. It was only R$7, which wasn’t that bad for a shuttle bus, along with a free view of the city. The ride itself to Ipanema took about 90 minutes, and I was too jacked up on adrenalin to not stare out the window. What sucked was that the driver didn’t call out stops, so it was up to you to figure out where you were supposed to get off. I overshot my stop by one (Posto 10 instead of Posto 9) and got to enjoy a 15 minute walk (instead of a 2 minute walk.) I ended up at the Mango Tree Hostel, which was not a bad place to spend time. The security was top notch and you were buzzed in and out and also had to carry an ID with you. Very smart. The only downside was the lack of free wifi, but we got spotty signal from the porch (the SSID of linksys is the world’s largest WiFi hotspot) from some unaware neighbor.
After getting situated, I went for a walk down Ipanema eastwards towards Praça do Arpoador, which is a great vantage point between Ipanema and Copacabana. The walk itself was fantastic, with a nice bike/running path along the beach and the bronzed people in the sun made for good eye candy. The women were scantily clad, which left me staring more than I should have. The men themselves were in fantastic shape, and if I were gay, I would have been in heaven. After a few minutes on the beach, I did develop the appreciation for the thong. It’s almost magic in its qualities to take something so little and have your imagination run wild. Had I been driving, I would have run into a lightpole. Ah, the thong. I had two caipirinhas along the beach, and decided to head back to lay out a plan after being out in the sun for a few hours. After travel plus weather differential and the sun, my body called quits on me and I had to regroup.
The first day anywhere is always the “getting to know you” period – meet people, get your surroundings and have a good meal and prepare for the next day. While lounging on the hammock at the hostel (mental note, hammocks make things right in the world), I developed a game plan for the next day: head downtown, see the sights and go from there. I keep forgetting that the point of travel is to periodically relax. There are some who would fly all the way to Rio and just sit on the beach and not interact with the locals. That’s not me. I could never do a beach vacation.
Despite every guidebook and local saying that I shouldn’t venture out alone after dark, I decided to go for a walk around Ipanema and get some bearings. I’ve made a career out of doing things people said not to, so this is just a common trend in my life. I figured, if I got mugged, they’d take me for $30. Not a big deal.
I found a little bar called Popeye Bar, which was a local hangout that had a soap opera on and had a pint of Brahma beer, which wasn’t too bad. I’ve had it before, but it was nice to have my first native pint. After some more wandering around and finding the local grocery store, I decided to have a nice meal at Colher de Pau, which advertised having “sweets and beer.” Awesome.
The steak was amazing and definitely hit the spot after skipping breakfast on the flight, but the Bitburger beer was sort of blah. It didn’t bother me that much, but I could have gone for another Brahma. It was close to midnight, and I figured that I was hitting that wall and wanted to get some Ambien-induced sleepy time before I tackled Rio’s Centro district.