Punk Paulistas in Rio

Cristo Redentor overlooks a city that is truly marvelous. I finally arrived at a city that I have dreamed of visiting for many years. Perhaps it seems appropriate the Christ is a redeemer, since the cariocas might need more than their share :-)








From the Christ, the view is spectacular. It is enough to make you start looking for ways to move here!










In my first day in Rio, I had the luck to meet three fun Paulistas who were visiting the city for a Patty Smith concert. What luck, eh? They adopted me for the weekend. We started out at the beach drinking coconut milk and working on our tans. I bet you if you wouldn't know me, you wouldn't pick me as the tourist... In southern Brazil, people are very white. In some towns, they speak German instead of Portuguese!




Being that I love books and cheesy photos, here is one with and Carlos Drumond (a famous Brazilian poet). I learned that Paolo Coelho is too commercial for the Brazilians I met. I now have a new book in my "list of books to read", Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas, by Machado de Assis. It is about seemingly simple memories from beyond the grave which have a philosophical insight. Written by the son a of freed slave from late last 19th century, it is just my kind of book.




I was very glad to let my new Paulista friends navigate the Rio bus system on my first weekend there. It turns out they don´t speak Spanish in Brazil :-)










During the day, I was indoctrinated into the greatness of Patty Smith´s music and the required black shirt for anybody attending one of her concerts. I bought a ticket last minute mostly to spend more time with my new Paulista friends. They were a joy to be around. I also felt like a local, since there were not that many people wearing Havaiianas (ubiquitous Brazilian flip flops used by backpackers) at the Patty Smith concert. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs were the headliners but we were there to see the legend not the new kids. Just in case you were wondering, even though Patty Smith is like a hundred years old, she still rocks, spits and breaks guitar strings! After the concert we spent the day together at the botanical garden and then my new friends went back to their regular lives as medical and journalism students.

One of the reasons why I have wanted to visit Rio for many years is the song "The Girl From Ipanema". It is just one of the most beautiful songs I have ever heard. There is an actual girl that inspired the song and a restaurant and entire industry based on it at Ipanema beach. This is a photo of the girl that inspired the beautiful song of heartbreak. In reality, as in the song, the girl never looked back at the love smitten poet.










I had the luck to meet two British backpacking doctors who accompanied me to the restaurant and heard me tell them all about the song. They were silly and fun and great travel companions. We were possibly the most over-educated threesome of backpackers but you wouldn't know it if you saw us. After hiking up to the Christ and sharing the Ipanema legend, we decided that we needed even more beach time and that it would be fun to travel together. We headed off together to a island near Rio...