In and about Rio

Rio is an amazing city: beaches, mountains, hiking, climbing, national forests--all within the city limits. We were here for two weeks for Dave to conduct research at the People's Summit of the Rio+20 environmental summit.

Dave taking a quick break from research to consult his notes

We stayed with our wonderful friend E in Santa Teresa, an artsy neighborhood up in the hills overlooking much of the city. It's so hilly up there that until very recently, public transport was confined to a system of street cars called the "Bonde" (after James Bond because he rides one in one of his films). The Bonde has become the emblem of the neighborhood, but a few months ago, a car tipped over and killed 14 people. Now hair-raising buses are running up there instead, but there's a large community-based movement to bring back the Bonde. The movement uses a lot of art work involving the iconic street car with a little teardrop on it, like it's crying.

 

Rio+20=Rio+Verde (on poster above)

Below are the Lapa Steps, an installment of ever-changing mosaics on a very long staircase leading down from the hills to central Rio. Rumor has it that the artist lives underneath the staircase.

There's also a lot of street life in Rio. There's the bar scene, which we didn't get much exposure to because we're old oldies, but the food scene was more our speed. In Santa Teresa, a Bahian woman (named Teresa, no less) sets up a decorated tent every Thursday-Sunday where she sits and makes acarajae, a typical Bahian dish consisting of shrimpy-okra-y-lentil-y paste on these deep-fried buns.

A storied fixture in Santa Teresa is the artist Getulio. His art, made out of repurposed trash, wood, and paint. For the last 25 years, he's occupied a workshop he built on a median in the neighborhood that looks just like a Bonde car. His work is currently being shown in an exhibit at a national museum. It's pretty awesome. It depicts Bonzolandia, a fictitious robot-inhabited world that eerily resembles our own.

"The value of the ticket is respect, charisma, and happiness." (Above)