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72 Hours in Rio Limbo

My friends and I aren’t the type to read travel guides. Brazil requires a visa of U.S. citizens, so most of the tourist info we picked up was an adjunct to acquiring our documentation. Other than that, Ari probably glanced at a few web resources concerning restaurants, and I scanned and summarily ignored a few safety warnings—not because I have a death wish, or am indifferent to the possibility of my kidneys ending up bound for Bangkok courtesy of Organ Pirate Airlines, but because I grew up black and poor and can see trouble coming from miles away. I don’t always stay out of it, but I can spot it like an inbound freight train. Which means I don’t need to see a State Department travel alert to know that Rio risks are cousin to Los Angeles risks or Chicago risks. The only pertinent question is whether you are comfortable taking those risks.

All four of us were fine with it. I was an upstart ladder-climber at Playboy (before rejecting it all for a move to the third world), but didn’t feel as if Beverly Hills lunches and parades of soon-to-be Photoshopped models had dulled my edge. Ari was raised middle class but had lived in Costa Rica and was perhaps more acquainted than any of us with tropical squalor. Steve was military-bred, and had grown up dirt poor in trailer parks and shoebox apartments all over the American south. And our last was Doug. He was the only one of us still tethered to his turbulent past. He actually arrived in Rio two days late after being coerced by his family into attending the funeral of his father—who once stabbed him. Put it all together and we just weren’t the worrying types re: personal safety and Rio.

In a city so large and alien, it was inevitable we would spend our first couple of days getting the lay of the land. Ari already talked about the restaurants in his last post. Here’s what we learned about the beaches: the accepted wisdom that they are standing room-packed with perfect, near-naked bodies is a myth. A substantial percentage of the locals have fled town, and a great number of pale folk from the northern hemisphere have arrived to fill the vacuum, which means the sands host a mix of people, not all of them ready to be crowned Miss Brazil. The best-known beaches are Leblon, Ipanema, and Copacabana. In terms of cleanliness and exclusivity they rank as listed. Another frequented beach is Botafogo, on the backside of the bay. No matter which you choose, the earlier you arrive the more they live up to their hype. But there’s one small problem with that—you’ve been out drinking and dancing until sunrise. You have to sleep sometime. If you enjoy the Rio nightlife, you miss the prime hours of its beachlife.

But you win whichever choice you make—because it's Rio.

There are clubs all over town, but after dark Copacabana is where it really happens. It took us three nights to get over there. Not because we were avoiding it (which many travel guides suggest), but because we first thought chic Ipanema would be home to better nightlife. But while Ipanema buzzes during daylight, with its shopping and restaurants and that amazing expanse of sand occupied by volleyballers and frescobolistos, it’s quieter after dark. Night two we opted for a foray deep into the city via cab searching for hidden hotspots. We found hotspots, alright. Hell, we found little enclaves so supercharged they were practically fissile (even the doorman at one of them couldn't take anymore and passed out—above), but we didn’t find a spot that felt right. Damn—we were missing it. We'd made it all the way to Rio and carnival was passing us by somehow.

Night three was Doug’s first, and we had grand plans, but the emotion of his father's death and subsequent funeral chose that evening to catch up with him. He got obliterated on caiparinhas and broke down in tears. It was a full meltdown. I was like: "Dude, the guy stabbed you."

Doug's response: "He was still my father."

And with that he staggered into the night. I could have stopped him from leaving. There was a moment when I could have poured him into a cab. But I was actually somewhat preoccupied watching a bateria and dance troupe rock the nightclub. The drummers were deafening, and the dancers—male and female—were near-naked and undulating under blue and purple lights that made them as radiant and strange as jellyfish. Doug wasn't an afterthought, by any means. But I figured he was just going out for air. My mistake, and for the rest of the night and into the next morning I kept imagining his carcass bobbing in on the tide, his liver extracted and slated for auction in Thailand after arriving via an Organ Pirate red-eye (see paragraph 1).

I needn't have worried, though. Doug survived, like always. He passed out in a gutter and, in a miracle that can only be attributed to the compassionate Buddha, was neither robbed nor harvested for his eyeballs. He awoke the morning after his Chernobyl event with two girls standing over him. He said they looked like they were going to school, but no schools are in session during carnival, to my knowledge. They must have been guardian angels—garbed as schoolgirls to symbolize a lesson learned. Doug said he managed to croak the name of the guesthouse and they brought him to us, an act of purest kindness toward a foreigner they would never see again. I think I told Doug he’d used up a life on that little misadventure—eight more to go.

And only eight more days left in Rio.

posted by Egan Ehlers @ 9:51 AM