Been around the block

This post has no pics. Let’s get that out of the way. But the experience is still worth recording so eight months from now when we’re looking back, we have a more realistic memory of the trip. The good, the bad – the worldly.

Yesterday was our first bloco experience. Banda de Ipanema parades along the beach followed by costumed and "accessorised" locals weaving back through the neighbourhood. It includes a short “block party” at the end of the street we currently call home before hip shaking on. It all culminates with street vendors and a final fill of music at a local park, disbanding around 9pm. If you’ve ever been to New Orleans, it plays like an extended second line. Instead of “Carnival Time” you get “Mamae Eu Quero” and with short blip of a memory from years ago, for half a block I sang along like a local . . . well, that’s what I told my beer-holding, bum shaking self. I wish I had a picture of the guy who got in my face scream singing along with me, but . . .

From the moment we were picked up at the airport, we’ve been told about the crime in Rio. Of course we were prepared as you are for any big city, but there has been a spike lately that has everyone we speak to extra spooked. Certain tourist destinations are off limits as too risky (gang fighting, gun violence on the increase) and the streets are notorious for the bag, phone or watch “snatch and run” game. As we watched the parade from the median of Vieira Souto Avenue, a crowd of kids raced through us chased by a swarm of military police. A bloodied face, a tackled kid, mobile phone retrieved and returned to a relieved tourist ended it all as the parade continued unfazed. We were reminded of similar incidents when living in New Orleans and the crime problems right outside our front door on Magazine Street. Another less festive point of comparison. So we’re taking the warnings to heart. “No jewellery, no bling, no wallets, no credit cards, no phones” so no photos.

This city is alive and humming with every walk of life thrown together. It brings it’s challenges, but makes up for it in the spectacle.