Rio de Janeiro (4 of 4)

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The antique, and endearingly creaky cog railway which wound its way through the calm greenness of Tijuca forest - the world's largest suburban forest which was entirely replanted at the time of Dom Pedro II - dropped us 122 steps from the top and we joined the throngs of sunburnt tourists in the hot and sticky climb to the top. I complained constantly all the way up - about the heat, about the tourists and about the tacky tourists shops that lined our route. But, standing on top of the Corcovado Mountain, under the outstretched arms of the statue of Christ the Redeemer, I realised that I was in one of the most wonderful places in the world. I looked down on Rio, spread out in all its double-edged beauty. Part of the city was edged by the white sand of Copacabana, Ipanema and other - less famous - beaches, whilst elsewhere there were mountains and slums. The First and Third Worlds come together here, and the result is extravagant and undeniable. The only sound we heard was the constant 'click click click' of cameras.

We watched line after line of tourists ape the pose of the thoughtful Christ and then, after having had their picture taken, rush over to marvel at the sublime view down to Gunabura bay - a view, which no matter how cynical you are, is indeed one of the most thrilling and compelling views in the world. It is a view that redefines superlatives and defies comparison. It almost makes you cry.

Below me, lost in a heat haze was the marvellous city. A city where in 1998, police in the state of Rio (population 13 million) killed more than 700 people, compared to New York, which is slightly smaller, where police killed less than 30. A city whose fabled football stadium holds close to 200,000 fanatical devotees of the beautiful game. A city which has just opened a university in the largest favella and where rumour has it that legs, arms and feet are regularly washed up on the trendy beaches of Leblon and Ipanema. A city whose beaches, you are lead to believe by well meaning journalists who never leave the bar of their 5 star hotels, resemble Hamburger Hill on a particularly bad day.

But as a tourist, and a pretty hapless one at that, it seemed unlikely that I would ever come across more trouble than a bad case of sunburn and the odd hangover. Rio may be a lot of things to a lot of people, but it certainly didn't feel dangerous or ferocious. In fact, most of the time, it felt quite quaint and homely.

On Sunday, Dauro took us to 'pray at the Church of Carioca', more commonly known as Ipanema beach. A beach which a recent article in London's Guardian called 'the ultimate in see-and-be-seen beaches' and then continued with 'the boys and girls of Ipanema beach are visions of bronzed loveliness in the tiniest swimwear known to man.' A few days later under the grabbing headline of 'Rio turning into a giant toilet bowel', the paper proclaimed that 'the sea near Copacabana and Ipanema has been regularly marked with red streaks of algae, caused by high levels of faeces in the water', and that, 'on the beaches there were "black tongues" - dark stains in the sand from various types of pollution'. Which lead me to worry for the health of the bronzed lovelies we hoped to meet and the consistency of the Guardian's journalism.

In actual fact there was some truth in the article as far as the pollution is concerned, the beaches are generally considered polluted and unsuitable for swimming and the only people we saw brave the waters were pale foreigners with lurid beach shorts and peeling noses. I was put off by the large oilrig-like construction that was lurching menacingly off shore and was something to do with major subway repairs.

The beach itself, and this I am sure is heresy, was more than a little disappointing - in this case, don't believe the media hype. The pale sand that stretched some distance along the coast was packed, almost cheek to cheek with cariocas - families, young girls eyeing the young guys, guys eyeing girls, old ladies well past their prime eyeing the young bloods and children with bucket and spades under the watchful care of empregados. There was no shade, no bars on the beach and not really enough room to stretch out and take in the scene. It was the antithesis of a lovely beach and Saskia and I kept sneaking glances at each other as if to say - is this it?

The biggest shock was that apart from Dauro, Saskia and I, the beach was free of tanned gods and goddesses and there wasn't a single tiny bikini on show (I know - I walked most of the length of the beach looking for one). In fact, most looked dispiritingly modest and wouldn't have even made by grandmother blush. Another popular media myth crumbled to dust in front of us. It was all very disheartening and felt like Blackpool with sun and not the paradise I had been lead to believe. Paradise, quite clearly, is in the northeast.

We soon fell into the rhythm of the city, spending our mornings walking the tourist route (Rio must have one of the world's highest densities of LP guide books in the world), having a fruit juice and a pastel for lunch from a roadside bar and then the afternoon lazing around with the papers before a few bottles of wine with friends. This naturally was followed by a long serious discussion of literature and politics with Dauro and then heading off into the night to a decadent bar in Lappa to dance the night away to Samba or to sit in a beachside bar with friends from the local university and talk about our collective hopes and dreams over lavishly fried fish until the sun came up and the frantic activity began again. The days, short and hedonistic as they were, were the halcyon days of my time in Brazil.

On our last day in Rio we took the cable car up to the summit of the craggy looking Pao de Acuar to look down once again on the marvellous city which had done its best to befriend us over the last few months. On this particular day the city was lost in a haze of wispy white cloud. For all our patience we were rewarded with only faint glimpses of the city below. Rio remained enigmatic to the last and that is perhaps the real fascination of the marvellous city that will drag me back for many years to come.

Read all four parts of Rio de Janeiro

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four


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