8 December 2006

Rio is better looking from the air than São Paulo, I can say for myself after landing in both cities. São Paulo is by far the most vast, sprawling metropolis I’ve ever seen but it lacks the green, rocky hills of Rio. The plan was to achieve three things, in order, upon landing: 1) get my bag, 2) get money, and 3) call Enrique (the man whose hospitality will allow me to stay on Copacabana for an undetermined amount of time). All were achieved and only the last required Portuguese, but from then on everything has been communicated in that language and the fact that English will actually be missed is already clear. I got a taxi and found the route from the aeroporto to Leme to be quite similar to the one from SEA to the downtown ferry terminal, but only to the extent that the viaduct with its amazing north-bound view of the cityscape contends well with the viaduct I used in Rio today. The driver is from Fortaleza, which according to him is extremely touristy, especially after December fifteenth. Maybe I’ll pass on that one.

Enrique’s son Estevão makes me feel extremely comfortable and welcome in his home. He showed me around before his dad got home and after his arrival that was accompanied by seven grocery bags full of Brazilian food, he took me to walk on the beach at Leme and bought me uma agua de coco. I’ll definitely take some more of that, the sugary drink from the inside of fresh (green) coconuts whose tops are removed with two strokes of a facão (machete) to make way for white plastic straws.

Enrique is very generous and a complete ajussi. I got to talk with him and found that he’s extremely patient with my inability to comprehend a lot of what he says. I met his neighbor Paulinha who is a TOTAL ajumma and already seems massively enthusiastic about taking me around on Sunday. We’ll go to Pão de Açucar and then to Barra da Tijuca to meet her daughter who works there, she says. Estevão and Enrique say that she’s crazy (each of them said this separately, which makes me slightly concerned), and they didn’t qualify their statements with an “… but in a good way” addendum or anything. She was the flower girl at Enrique’s first wedding, though, so that is comforting because the image of anyone toddling down the center aisle of a church sprinkling rose petals on its floor fails at eliciting any sort of fear in me. Paulinha has a cat and also seems to have a great relationship with Ze, Helena’s tiny cyst-covered pet dog. The first time I saw Paulinha she was negotiating the price of four packs of cigarettes in the threshold of her apartment doorway with an adolescent boy. She’s also promised to connect me with a local organization called If this Street were Mine that sounds like something good.