We’re settling into a rhythm, revolving around the beat of the games, and a west coast inner clock we can’t seem to shake loose.
Every day we’re waking up around 11, watching the first game of the day, and then setting off after lunch.
[su_note]Did you know its 100x harder to wake up earlier than the day before – compared to later? Years ago they stuck people in a windowless sleep lab, deprived them of knowing what time it was, and people settled into a 25.5 hour day. It turns out our bodies naturally want to sleep for 1.5 hours longer each day. So all we need to do… is slow down the rotation of the earth about six percent.[/su_note]
After watching Switzerland’s thrilling last minute win over Ecuador, we hit the streets, which in our case means the beach, as it’s a 50m walk from our apartment.
Perhaps because it was Sunday, perhaps because its the World Cup, they restricted traffic to just one lane.
The streets were teaming with people, and an insane amount of Argentina fans, who it turns out have arrived in Brazil en masse. By the large numbers of Argentinian license plates, it seems most have made the journey by car.
For a change, we decided to hop on the bus to Ipanema, to speed our journey along the promenade, to an area of the beach known as Post 9.
In Rio, the beaches are labelled by the number of the nearest lifeguard tower, and each area has its own personality.
Post 9 is known as where the young and beautiful hang out. Part of this may have to do with it being in the middle of Ipanema, which so far seems the trendiest and liveliest area we’ve found, and part of it may have to do with the police apparently turning a blind eye at this location to people smoking dope.
We weren’t planning on stopping at Post 9, our destination was up the hill, but the sight of.. so many people on the beach, in glorious sunshine, was something we couldn’t ignore.
Eli wanted to play volley-football, Semma went off on an errand.
We hung out waiting for Semma
A gratuitous shot of my… face
Feeling a little over dressed, and with Semma back from her errand, we decided to continue on our original mission… inland and up the hill to Cantagalo. You can just about make out the favela on the hill in the background.
Cantagalo is one of several so-called pacified comunidades (communities), where the police have kicked out the drug dealers and gangs, leaving a relatively peaceful community behind. The operation has not been without controversy – in some cases entire communities have been moved for dubious reasons, but I’ve no doubt the residents who’ve not been relocated prefer their new situation.
We decided to skip any kind of formal favela ‘tour’ (the thought of being in a group didn’t appeal), and decided to head in solo. We walked towards the Cantagalo elevator, that takes you 210 feet into the air, from the edge of Ipanema to Cantagalo hill.
We had no idea what to expect, and nor did we have much of a plan. We checked with a couple of police officers near the entrance whether it was safe to go up, and they suggested it was. We’re generally pretty comfortable in poorer neighbourhoods, but nonetheless we were still a tad nervous following all the news reports, as we joined the Cantagalo residents in the elevator that has made their lives easier.
You walk a tunnel at the top which takes you from the elevator tower to the hill.
I instinctively turned off my camera and we entered the rabbit warren that is Cantagalo favela.
The first thing that hit us was a loud wall of Brazilian reggae music.
There were two small alleyways, going off in different directions. At first we followed the people who had been in our elevator, but after about 100 feet they were splitting in all directions and we suddenly didn’t feel particularly confident, or comfortable, about where we were going, or what we were doing.
We were watching the faces of the residents, to see if anyone looked at us strangely – like we were out of place. We didn’t pick up on anything, but our problem was that we didn’t know where we were going.
We circled back towards the elevator, retracing our steps, so we could re-evaluate. I remembered reading that there was a bar near the top of the elevator, but that and the presence of a Pousada (a small BnB)… somewhere… were the only details I’d got.
It turned out that the loud music was coming from the bar, and we walked up a couple of steps in its direction. The proprietor came towards us and welcomed us in, and we instantly felt comfortable in our surroundings, and settled down for a drink.
The bar consisted of a small wooden platform, perched on the edge of a cliff. The elevator tower is to the right.
Guys were setting up sound and lights.
A woman, who we would later get to know, had the cutest kid…
Before long we had chatted up the bar proprietor – Carlos, and the mother of the girl – Jennifer, who offered to take us on a private tour of the favela.
We set off up the hill, and into Cantagalo proper…
We approached a party in the alleyway…
I didn’t feel comfortable filming, so I turned off the camera until we’d walked past
We saw lots of kids playing in the alleyways
And stopped briefly at a second bar
We had a great view of the favela from here, which up until this point had been hidden from us.
Carlos, who spoke only a small amount of English, had somewhere he wanted to take us.
He motioned for us to clamber up some rocks, and we turned around to be greeted by a crazy view
Eli was impressed
And we stayed there taking it in
Getting back down required steady nerve and foot
Another coolio view on the way down
There’s one road in Cantagalo it seems
It was starting to get dark
And DJ’s were springing up everywhere!
Actually there were a few discos
But no raving for us…. It was time to head home…
Altogether a pretty thrilling and enlightening day out.