Rio De Janeiro: Third World City With European Style

Before this trip Brazil had been an abstraction, obviously a real place but not a place I thought much about. My total awareness consisted of a childhood memory of the band Sergio Mendes and Brazil 66, the Girl from Ipanema song, soccer star Pele, the bossa nova, the samba, the movie title Blame It On Rio, and most recently Brazilian steak houses. All that changed 10 days ago.

Brazil is the largest country in South America, the only Portuguese speaking country there, ranks fifth in population (212 million) and first in Catholic population. Portuguese explorers are credited with its discovery around 1500 and for 500 years harvested its natural resources for Portugal; first sugar cane, then gold and subsequently coffee. For about a decade during Napoleon’s reign in Europe, Portugal’s capital was moved to Rio De Janeiro, an historic first and last for any European country.

Brazil takes its name from a hard wood tree that yields red dye that became a valuable commodity for dyeing clothing back in Europe centuries ago. Rio De Janeiro (hereinafter referred to as “Rio D”) is the second largest city in Brazil with 13 million persons amounting to 5% of both Brazil’s population and its economy. Its name means “January river” and was incorrectly named by the explorers who assumed its bay was the mouth of a river.

We came to Rio D for its internationally-acclaimed beaches, Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon and can vouch that its reputation is well deserved. The beaches boast a crystal clear ocean, and a wide, nearly 10 miles of pure white sand with no rocks or broken seashells to bombard your feet. Right now Rio D is in winter with a climate perfect for beach goers: 70s for both surf and turf and enough humidity to keep the chill away.

We stayed in Ipanema, which is smaller, more upscale and more laid back than Copacabana, and has small boutique hotels and dozens of cafes nearby. Copacabana, to the east, is much larger with an impressive hotel skyline, but with a much less accommodative collection of local bars and cafes, even though two thirds of Rio D’s visitors go to Copacabana. Just west of Ipanema is Leblon beach, a quieter residential area.

Five million visit these beaches annually, and mostly during Rio D’s summer. It is difficult to imagine more people here because the crowds now at the beach and in the streets during their winter are overwhelming and appear to be near capacity.

Copacabana and Ipanema are considered two of the "sexiest beaches" in the world, probably because the display of female and male pulchritude is abundant and extraordinary. The Brazilians take fitness very seriously especially at the beach where dozens of joggers, bicyclists, and soccer and volleyball games can be seen throughout the day.

Brazilians take soccer very seriously where kids and adults of all ages fuss with soccer balls wherever you go. Although soccer jerseys are ubiquitous and prevalent, occasionally you will see basketball jerseys too, most notably from the Chicago Bulls (especially Michael Jordan 23) and L.A. Lakers. Most surprising are the many New York Yankees caps worn by both men and women especially because Brazilians typically don't play the game and don't follow major league baseball.

Most Rio D visitors come from neighboring Argentina. Visitors from the USA and Chile rank second and third, respectively. Perhaps Brazil is South America's Florida for its neighbors, especially during their winter months.

We stayed at Sol Ipanema, which is a 4-star rated boutique hotel with 90 rooms. The physical features were adequate but I believe the 4 stars comes from its beach front location, the high level of service provided by the concierge and staff and the fantastic restaurant that performs a dual function that offers hotel guests a complimentary gourmet quality buffet breakfast, and is open to the public for lunch and dinner as a top rated Italian seafood restaurant called Masserini.

Despite the outstanding physical amenity of the beach, the dozens of mobile beach vendors make the beaches less than relaxing. You can buy apparel, personal items, food and drink, and even massages from these seemingly ubiquitous vendors, but must endure constant noise, cooking fumes and peripatetic commotion that accompanies this frenetic activity. My sense is these youths are expending lots of energy for very little pay. Just another reminder of the large scale underemployment that exists in this emerging economy. Also, we were advised to pay cash to these vendors who have been known to play fast-and-loose with credit cards. Making matters worse, few vendors advertise the cost of their products.

When was the last time you went out to dinner to nine different restaurants and were satisfied each time? We were amazed at the excellent food quality, consistency, variety, and concentration of eateries everywhere, across all food types; meat, fish, seafood, fruit, bread, and desserts; certainly the best we've had in this post Covid world and even the best I have experienced since I started traveling 40 years ago, even compared to places known for their great cuisine such as Italy, France, Spain and Holland, which obviously offer some great food but I have found each to be inconsistent. My only disappointment is that for such an agriculturally rich country, evident from the abundance of great fruit, vegetables were not featured in recipes in typical meals. It is a head-scratcher, because when vegetables were offered, they were superb.

Even more amazing is how generally inexpensive food and drink is here. Brazilian beer (e.g., Brahma, Praya) cost $3 and cocktails (e.g, caipirinhas made with cachaca rum, Brazil’s own) were downright cheap at $5, sandwiches cost $6-8, great burgers made with real beef with fries and club sandwiches cost only $10-12. Typical entrees in most cafes are less than $20 in most cases, and maybe reach $40 for swanky luxury dining. And portions are most generous as a rule. By comparison, McDonald's in our neighborhood was rather pricey. Even though not publicized, a 10-13% service charge is usually included in your bill even though it often does not specifically appear as a line item. But additional tipping is not expected, as in Europe.

In addition to our hotel, we dined at Rio Brasa, a local churrasqueira which is their name for a Brazilian BBQ. It was like our Las Vegas favorite Fogo de Chao on steroids, with more variety, better quality, and less expensive. A full all you can eat meal there including a cocktail, dessert, and service charge cost us less than $70 per person. We dined at one of the best known fish restaurants in Rio D called Satyricon for a similar cost. Even the simple cafes a few steps from our hotel offered outstanding meals. The Girl from Ipanema Cafe, just around the corner from our hotel is the actual site where the lyricist of that song was inspired by a 17 year old girl passing by in 1960 (who by the way is 83 years old now). Great eats. Barzin, another 2 minutes away, has in the words of our concierge the best burger he ever ate, a statement we can defend after sampling the goods. Barzin also offered some of the best tapas we’ve had in years! Others in the area were great too. Further away we found a gem of a Chinese restaurant that served us a great traditional meal that even included mu shu pork, which apparently most folks west of the Mississippi in our country have never heard of. Great stuff!

All of the aforementioned eateries have been in existence at least 25 years, with many approximately 50 years old.

If you plan to come here or most places in South America, you need to at least fake your way through Spanish and even if you do, a group or private tour is well advised, and Brazil is no exception. This is a Portuguese speaking country and although few speak Spanish or English here, many do understand some. English is spoken by 5% of the population. Despite the language barrier everyone we encountered here was friendly and tried their best to assist us.

Assuming language is not an issue you must remember this is not Europe, where travel infrastructure has been developed over many years. Communication and organization is idiosyncratic here at best, which means plans are not always executed as expected. Be prepared to be surprised and even disappointed at times. When we took our city tour, we had to pursue the tour bus twice to ascertain our place on the tour. Even obtaining typical services from our hotel didn't work the same way two days in a row. Be patient and be prepared to be pro active.

Physical infrastructure here is also lacking. Getting on and off the beach was a struggle in many places, and poor sidewalks make walking around the city more challenging than you might imagine. Beach entrances are makeshift, and sidewalks can be difficult to navigate.

Despite all the hectic pedestrian and vehicular traffic, the atmosphere is generally easy going but the obvious police presence is reassuring. Most of the residential and commercial structures in our area had huge imposing steel gates to shore up security and made us wonder what circumstances caused them to be deemed necessary. Also, despite all the commerce taking place at the beach and the complete lack of trash receptacles, this area of Rio D is extremely clean.

Rio D is a great place for those seeking a world -class beachside experience and some great food and drink. Those seeking a more cultural experience may be disappointed. The city tour is basically a trip to Christ the Redeemer, which, as one of the world's seven wonders, is well worth the trip. But the rest of the city tour is a half hour drive by you can easily do without. A visit to Fort Copacabana, a museum that acknowledges Brazil’s significant involvement in World War 2, is near Copacabana beach and is worth a trip and provides a nice vantage point to view the entire beach front. There's a nice outdoor cafe there too.

One final note. You can't get there from here, at least not easily. Las Vegas is approximately 6,300 miles from Rio D and it takes at least 18 hours with required transfers and layovers. Door to door you’ll be traveling more than 24 hours. By comparison, a nonstop flight from London, a hemisphere away and slightly shorter distance is 11 hours. To us that means if you come here from Vegas, plan on spending at least a week because it will take several days to recover from the trip there and back.

Those who know me know I would be remiss if I didn't complain about something so here goes. I have often complained about the health risks of traveling on a jet-propelled petri dish in sub-humanly sized accommodations (you'll need to be double-jointed or to engage a chiropractor to use those tiny lavatories or sleep in those tiny seats). However, when you add in the obstacle course of running around an airport with heavy bags because of poor signage trying to catch your flight, waiting on long TSA and immigration lines that seem to serve no real purpose, you have the makings of a stress test that NASA ought to consider using to condition astronauts for flight. On the plus side, I was inspired to write about our trip to take my mind off the physical discomfort and horrendous waste of time of getting there and back, which I hope you found useful reading.