Day 16, Jan 19, 2006: Rio, Day 2
On three of the four days I was in Rio I had breakfast - cafe da manha - (remembered dialogue from Portuguese 1: "Eu tomo sempre o mesmo café com leite.") at the Mercearia Barão do Flamengo, a little hole in the wall grocery store/breakfast counter not far from Fernanda's apartment. The owner, Senhora Bertão, from Cape Verde, her assistant and her daughter, Andreia, who ran the cash register, kept me well supplied with café com leite, suco de abacaxi (pineapple juice), pão francês (French bread) and queijo (cheese) and generally made me feel at home in the big city.
Senhora Bertão (right) and assistant


Andreia Bertão


Having spent most of my first day in a fruitless pursuit of a rental bicycle, I decided to make up for lost time my second day by entering hyper-tourist mode. After another round of Senhora Bertão's rib-sticking, brain-waking goodness, I hopped into a cab for the ride to the Pão de Acucar (Sugar Loaf Mountain), the distinctive, giant madeleine-shaped mound of rock that guards the entrance to Rio de Janeiro harbor. Buying my $R35 ($15+) ticket, I boarded the bondinho (cable car) made famous by Brigitte Bardot, James Bond and so many others. Although the air seemed clearer this day than the day before, a thin, sickly haze hung over much of the city. Still, the view was spectacular.
View west to Corco- vado and Botafogo neighbor- hood from the lower Morro da Urca (Urca Hill)


View from Morro da Urca to the north: Flamengo neighbor- hood and beach


From whence we came: Morro da Urca and a bit of Ipanema neighborhood and the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas


Copacabana Beach (large white crescent in the back- ground) and the Atlantic Ocean


Flamengo


Flamengo Beach, downtown Rio and the Santos Dumont airport


Yes, I really was there.


Rio street scene near Fernanda's apartment in Flamengo

Day 15, Jan 18, 2006: My first day in Rio de Janeiro
As I mentioned in a previous post, Fernanda Cavalcante, a good friend of my friend Cristiany's, had offered to let me stay in her apartment for the four days I had in Rio. (Fernanda herself was still in Fortaleza, but a friend of hers, Paul Jurgens, was staying in the apartment while she was away. As it turned out, Paul, a total stranger to me before I arrived in Rio, was a good friend and a great resource for me during my stay in the city.)


My first daytime view in Rio. Despite living on the seventh floor, Fernanda
has a lovely rose bush growing in her bedroom window.





The first morning I was in Rio I went out for a walk looking (unsucessfully)
for a bicycle to rent. Despite having been warned many times about the city's
beauty, I was still unprepared for what I saw on that first walk: Corcovado
("the hunchback").





Corcovado, partially obscured by clouds, seen from Botafogo Beach





Statue of Simon Bolivar



That night, on the advice of a chance aquaintance, I went to check out the samba at one of Rio hottest nightclubs, Carioca da Gema. With Carnaval less than two months away every Wednesday night the club features a different one the great samba schools or Rio.


This parti- cular night Carioca da Gema featured the group "Imperio" and its
legendary leader Arlindo Cruz.





Standing room only! (unless, like I, you sat on the stairway up to the
lavatories)





Everyone seemed to be having a great time, dancing wildly and singing along
with the songs.






Arlindo Cruz of samba school "Império Serrano". Unfortunately, not having been a student of samba before arriving, I failed until afterwards to appreciate fully what I was seeing.

Day 14, Jan 17, 2006: Leaving for Rio
After a last lunch at the local Chinese buffet with my new friends Amaury and Jaqueline Amaury drove me to Pinto Martins International Airport, where I boarded a Varig flight for Rio de Janeiro.
Here is the plane I rode to Rio with Fortaleza in the background


The one that got away...

Days 10-13, Jan 13-16, 2006: Trip to Jericoacoara
The four of us - Cristiany, Uzi, Laurence and I - decided to take a trip to Jericoacoara, a one-time quaint fishing village about 300 km west of Fortaleza along the coast. We bought tickets on the deluxe Redencão coach lines bus for Friday morning and arrived in Jijoca, the closest major town, about 4 pm. In Jijoca everyone on the deluxe city bus had to get off and board an open-sided, baloon-tired dune bus that would take us the remaining 30 km, along dirt roads and ,finally, right along the beach to Jeri.
On the way to Jericoacoara: Fortaleza reggae club


Coming into Jeri- coacoara on the dune bus


Pousada Senzala ("pousada" = "inn") in Jericoa- coara








Fellow resident at Pousada Senzala


Jericoa- coara beach scene


Sunset over the dunes








On the beach at Jeri





Uzi, Cristiany & Michael in front of the ´lazy mangrove´

Day 9, Jan 12, 2006: another beach day
Another day at the famous Croco Beach, Praia do Futuro. A highlight of this day for me was getting to meet Fernanda Calvalcantes and her older sister Andrea, old friends of Cristiany's. Fernanda teaches French at the Alliance Française in Rio de Janeiro, and her sister is an economist at a Brazilian government bank in Fortaleza that makes loans to micro and medium enterprises. This meeting was especially fun because I got to speak French to Fernanda, and particularly auspicious, because she offered to let me stay in her apartment in Rio (while she is still on vacation in Foraleza).
Andrea and Fernanda

Day 8, Jan 11, 2006: Prainha Beach with Franklim and Cristiany
Jan 11 was another hot, sunny day in Fortaleza. (I think I´m starting to notice a pattern...)
View out the back door of the Pousada Romana (Roman Inn) where we stayed.


Once again, Cristiany´s wonderful, oldest brother Franklim invited us gringos to accompany him to the beach. This time the beach was pristine Prainha, a good ways east of Fortaleza, and Cristiany came along.
We stopped at Cristiany´s mother´s house on the way to the beach, and I got to meet her parrot.


Cristiany `São Francisco´ Rabelo


We sped off to the beach.


At Prainha


That evening we went out for some live entertainment: a torchy vocalist and her zombie guitarist.


Cristiany was ALL DECKED OUT! Sorry, guys; she´s taken.

Day 7: Jan 10, 2006: Chillin´ in Fortaleza
On this Tuesday Cristiany, Uzi and Laurence went once again back to beach. I was feeling a little beached out, so I rested up at the hotel and later took a walk out to the ´Dragão do Mar´ art and cultural center, an impressive, modern complex with towers and walkways covering more than two city blocks.
The front (south) entrace to Dragão do Mar


A view to the east from the front entrance


One of the shows was a sort of ´who-we- were´ exposition of old portraits.


We (the visiting public) also got to see how the show was produced.





A neat exhibition of sculpture, including this collection of jungle creatures.


Also an interesting exhibit on the lives of the cowboys of Ceara state. Unfortunately my taking this picture coincided with the only earthquake to have occurred in Fortaleza in the last 10,000 years.


View to the east from the walkway at Dragão do Mar with dusk approaching


To give you an idea of the scale of the com- plex the buildings in the back- ground with the red, pyramid- shaped roofs are also a part, connected by a long, raised walkway.



View to the south from the walkway at Dragão do Mar. The tower in the background is a monument (to Jesus, I think, and OUTSIDE the complex).


View of part of the walkway and the northern part of the complex.


View of Fortaleza Cathedral from the walkway at Dragão do Mar.


Partial view of the courtyard on the southern side of the complex. The raised walkway, just visible at the left, cut right through an old row of shops, some of which still serve as restaurants or bars.


My new Brazilian friend Amaury Cândido met me that evening at Dragão do Mar and took me on a neat driving tour all over the city.
Amaury poses next to a statue of Rachel de Queroz one of Ceara and Brazil´s foremost literary figures.


This building on the central square, once a club and casino, is now a bank, but not like our stuffy, North American banks...