The 9.5 hour flight to rio took off without a hitch. This was shocking. There was a big snowstorm the day before, that continued into the morning, and so many people's flights had been canceled and delayed that the line to get through security was, longer than I'd ever seen it. It took an hour just to get through.
Our flight left on time, despite my mom telling me there a a 2.5 hour delay.
Our bed and breakfast is in Santa Teresa, a bohemian, artsy neighborhood on a hill a bit away from the beach. I had fallen in love with this part of rio on my first trip here, and even though it's a little way from the beach, I knew Lysia would love it. The B&b has local art all over it, and murals painted by friends of the owner, and soda-bottle terrariums all over the place.
And, strangely, a lot of Jesus. Our little room looks a little like what a convent might, with small, separate twin beds, an old dresser with a cracked mirror, "fixed" with two clear stickers that say "Jesus." We also discovered a random Jesus head on a wood panel above the entrance.
In rio, Jesus is, almost literally, everywhere.
Our first day involved an unceremonious amount of walking, lysia's introduction to Brazilian things: açaí, pão de queijo, coxinha, aipim, the ubiquitous fruit juice stands. Waiting for buses that never arrive. Looking for the tram that Santa Teresa is famous for, only to discover that three years ago, there was a a horrible brake failure that resulted in a crash, a number of deaths, many injured, and a lasting distaste and distrust of Brazilian government.
Lysia is beyond impressed with my shitty Portuguese, mostly because I think she is confusing my stammering mmmmmmm and uhhhhhhhhs as actual Portuguese words, but it was enough to allow this wonderful woman to negotiate five of us sharing a cab up the hill to the B&b when the bus never came.
We get back to the B&b, and I am pretty freaked out that I look at my iPad and realize that the time on my watch doesn't match. Did I really spend the entire day an hour off? I'm on vacation, so it doesn't matter, really, but I couldn't stop thinking about how I must have spent the whole day being wrong about this time. Lysia was trying to tell me she read that daylight savings time had started in rio, but I didn't understand it until the morning. Daylight saving started that evening. Never underestimate the power of jet lag.
One of the staff of the B&b, Marco, tells us he is taking a whole group of people to a carnival practice the next day, and asks us if we'd like to go. This is why I always prefer to stay in hostels or small B&bs, because if you find a good one, they show you a lot more than you would ever find on your own. So Lysia and I, a couple from Italy, a couple from LA, a mom and daughter from Germany, and a 6-pack of gorgeous, young, Canadian lesbians venture out to see some carnival practice.
Carnival in brazil is big business. To be in the stands costs hundreds of dollars, so only tourists and the rich go. Everyone else, according to Marco, goes to the weekly practices that are free to attend. The new stadium holds about 60,000 people, and it was expected that about 40,000 people would attend that night.
Rio was seeing its first rain in a month, and it stopped no one, including us. Pouring rain. For hours. We get to the stands and momentarily decide we'd be ok without the ponchos everyone else was buying. The second we gave in, it starts pouring. FOR HOURS. We're dancing, and the movement renders the ponchos useless, and it just doesn't matter. People of all ages, sizes, many wearing teeny-tiny amounts of clothing and 4-inch hooker heels are dancing samba in the pouring rain, singing the songs they've committed to memory, over and over again. Old people, newborn babies, out in the pouring rain. Brazilians are tough motherfuckers.
There's a woman next to us who has not stopped dancing... She's got to be 55 years old wearing short-shorts and high heels, singing, smiling... Once the first set of drums go by I start dancing, but I quickly run out of steam. I hadn't eaten anything of substance, and I was sure I was dehydrated. She says to me, in Portuguese slow and clear enough so I could understand her, "you are DONE. Me, they call me 'the battery', because I keep going." We are hysterical. I tell her, hoping my Portuguese, was correct, "vôce é minha heroina." She laughs heartily and hugs me and I figure I got it about right. Another girl in front of us dancing calls me over to dance with her. It's magical.
We take a break in a shelters area, and the group of people next to us bust out a HUGE chocolate cake topped with truffles or profiteroles or something, and had a firecracker for a candle. They're singing happy birthday in Portuguese, and we're humming and clapping along next to them, and they start slicing some cake for us on napkins, imploring us to take some. I have my Invisalign in, and nowhere to stow it, so I politely decline. The birthday girl rubs her belly, tells me I'm too thin and I need to eat some cake. Invisalign be damned... I hug and Kiss her wish her a happy birthday, and devour that cake.
We danced and stood in the rain for hours, and Marco, who speaks 7 languages and seems to know everyone in rio, takes us to an area roped off so that we can enter the samba school and dance behind them. He is intensely negotiating, and it doesn't happen as quickly as he wants, but at some point they let us in. We are now dancing in the actual path that the schools will take during the actual carnival. We're exhausted, soaked to the bone, and beyond thrilled at the experience.
We go to a cafe for a midnight snack, and without Marco's consultation, in Portuguese, I order a caipirinha and a large order of fried yuca to share. Marco gives me the thumbs up and a wink.
A tiny bit of Portuguese, a love of dance and music, and passion for yuca is all it takes to fit in, it seems. Lysia and I did right by the brazilians, I think, even though I don't think I can handle any more fried yuca for a while.
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