There is no river here

So, the city is called Rio de Janeiro. Most people would then assume that there is a river nearby that the place was named after (In Portuguese and Spanish, "rio" means "river."). They would be wrong -- no rivers in Rio.

I have heard two explanations why Rio has its name. This first is that the explorer who discovered (and named) Rio thought that the large bay there was actually the mouth of a big river. The other is that "rio" used to refer to any body of water. Either way it's very misleading for anybody who comes to Rio expected a river.

Luckily, most people come to Rio for the beaches and aren't too disappointed. I wasn't.

I'm writing this e-mail from Franklin, Michigan (From the couch). After this dispatch, I will write a final summer recap to put a fitting end on my adventure. For that email, I am looking for some reader assistance. If you have any questions about my summer travel, send them to me in the next day and I will answer them in the email. (You can ask anything you want. If you want some help on questions, below you will find the link to the recap post from the summer I spent in Israel)

Without further ado, my two weeks in Rio.

My capoeira nickname

When you play capoeira, the other members of the group don't refer to you buy your traditional name. Instead, everybody in capoeira has their capoeira nickname. For example, my teacher's name is Scarecrow (Espantalho). On my last night of capoeira, I received my capoeira nickname - cascao (pronounced caSh•cowng).

They wouldn't explain to me what it meant but they told me that it is the name of a Brazilian cartoon character. They told me to look it up on Google when I got back to a computer. Here is what I found:

It is the name of a character in the cartoon Matilda's Gang. Cascao is known as the charater who has never showered or taken a bath. He is afraid of water and always carries an umbrella in the case that it rains and he gets cleaned. I think that I earned this nickname by wearing the same white shirt (by the end, it was a brown shirt) to capoeira every night. When you are a backpacker and have limited clothing, it is easy to lable your clothes for a specific purpose - such as beach shit or bar shirt. So, my white shirt was my capoeira shirt. In English, Wikipedia translates cascao to mean smudge. You can learn more about him here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smudge_(Monica%27s_Gang)

This used to be The Big House

If one thing is abundantly clear in Brazil, it's that everybody loves soccer (futebol, pronounced Foo•Chee•Ball). And everybody has their team. In Rio, there are four big teams, and everybody identifies with one of them. The center of soccer in Rio (and Brazil, for that matter) is the Maracana Stadium.

Built for the 1950 World Cup (which Brazil lost to Uruguay in one of the most disappointing moments in the country's history), the Maracana had a maximum capacity of over 200,000 people although official attendance numbers are impossible to know for sure. The stadium has undergone some renovations to make it safe and ready for modern sports competitions (like the 2007 Pan-Am Games and the 2014 World Cup). Now, the capacity is about 95,000.

During the week, I went on a stadium tour that allows you to visit the locker rooms (they are very basic) and step on the field (an awe-inspiring experience).

Then, using my Michigan Daily sports writer credentials and the connections of a sports writer friend I made in Rio, I had the opportunity to sit in the press box for a game and go down to the press conferences afterward. I only understood one line from the press conference, which was when the Internacionale coach complained about having to play three road games in six days. It was a truly memorable experience.

It's like Welcome Week (except every weekend and without the cops breaking it up at midnight)

In addition to its beaches, Rio is known for its nightlife. The epicenter for much of this nightlife is the Lapa street party, which happens every weekend night. People gather in the street and have a good time. There are carts selling alcohol and other people walking around with bottles of Jose Cuervo and little cups. Every Carioca (person from Rio) that I talked to said they go to Lapa almost every week. So, in addition to being a great party, it really brings the city together.

It is a great people-watching spot. And if you know me, you know how much I like people watching. Actually, if Rio is good for anything, it's good for the people watching. Whether it be the street party, the beaches, the centro, or the Metro, you will always see interesting people. Some of the best people watching questions were: man or woman?, foreigner or Brazilian? Carioca or just Brazilian? and homeless or favela?

Poverty tourism?

Before getting to Rio, I read about favela tours where you go with a guide into the squatter settlements to see how they live. Favelas are famous for being some of the poorest and most dangerous places, where you can't even walk inside the gates without being harmed. Plus, the idea of paying to see poor people didn't really interest me.

Once I got to Rio, I talked to a few tourists about their experiences in the favela tour, and they said it was one of the most rewarding experiences of their trips to Brazil. They said that the guide was great, sensitive to the community's needs. Further, the money from the tour goes to support a day care center in the favela. It would be wrong to spend two weeks in Rio and not see all sides of society (especially, if you have a safe, socially responsible opportunity to do so). So, I went. The favela I visited was Rocinha (Ho•Seen•Yuh). It is the largest favela in Latin America with 200,000 residents.

It was an eye-opening experience. Having worked in Detroit for the last five summers, I have seen plenty of poverty. What interested me the most was how the favela operated. The favelas started in the early 20th century when low-wage laborers moving to Brazil's largest cities moved into government-owned land, cut down the trees, built their homes, and settled there without paying any taxes. The government never evicted these people, and the favelas developed into slum cities. People from the favelas work in the upper class neighborhoods and live in the favelas. Aside from labor, however, there is very limited interaction between people in the favelas and those outside. In the favelas, all of their social needs are fulfilled. There are health centers, schools, post offices, stores, markets, night clubs, and even concert halls (JA Rule played there a couple of months ago). But living conditions are really poor. There is trash everywhere and the scent of sewage is strong in the street (Street is loosely defined. It is more of a narrow, uneven alley with shit everywhere, literally). Very few people wear shoes.

Because the favelas developed as squatter settlements, the residents did not receive any services from the city or utility companies. All the electricity is stolen by people connecting their own wires to the power lines (it looks like a jungle). People don't have addresses in the favela. There is just a central post office there. There is some water availability but for people without access to water, the water company leaves a hose running for three hours a day so residents can collect all the water they will need.

There is some form of elected government in the favelas that communicate with the municipality, but these people are essentially just pawns of the drug gang which control the favelas. Despite the gangs (actually, because of the gangs), favelas can be some of the safest places in Brazil. The gangs want to make sure that the police don't have any further reasons to enter into the favelas. So there is very little crime between people in the favelas.

Throughout the tour, the tour guide said it was cool if we took pictures of the neighborhood. I felt a little (I mean, really) weird taking pictures in the favela, but some things were very interesting and there were some cool views. When I looked over at some people in my group who were smiling in pictures, I was amazed. There were a few times, like when we walked by the guy with the machine gun, when one of the heads of the gang, or when you walk by the lookout guys at the favela entrance that the tour guide told us to put our cameras away.

I have a lot more stuff about the drug gangs in favelas, police raids, and other favela info but this post is gettting really long.

My first motorcycle ride

Nothing against people who ride motorcycles, but they have never struck me as the safest form of transit. But when I went on the favela tour, we got out of the vans at the bottom of the favela and the tour guide told us to get on the back of the motorcycle taxi that will take us to the top of the favela.

It was a pretty interesting feeling. I don't know if it was being in the back of the motorcycle or the fact that I was riding a motorcycle in the middle of the largest favela in South America, it was a very cool experience.

Sugar bread

I arrived in Brazil, I was taken aback by the name of the market and bank Pao do Acucar. Translating it to English, it sounded like Sugar Bread. It sounds very fairytale-ish. If it were in America, it would be called Ginger Bread Bank.

Then I asked someone about it, and they told me that that was the name of Sugar Loaf Mountain - one of the top landmarks in Rio. Now, it makes sense. I'm sure that there are American institutions that are equally ridiculous. But Brazilians are lucky that Pao do Acucar translated to English means Sugar Loaf instead of Sugar Bread. If it meant sugar bread, people could not take that landmark seriously.

By the way, it was a gorgeous view from the top.

Wonder-ful view

One of the most famous vistas in the world is from the top of Corcovado in the shadow of the Cristo Redeemer statue. In fact, the statue was recently named one of the seven modern wonders (not to take away from that honor but I heard that Brazil and Brazilian companies spent millions of dollars on a campaign to get Cristo on the list).

Corcovado was a favorite hiking spot of Brazil's first emperor Don Pedro I. It became of popular vista and, in the late 19th century, there was a movement to get a religious monument to crown the mountain top. In 1921, the statue of Cristo was completed.

Among the people who have visited the statues, aside from me, are Pope John Paul II, Albert Einstein, Princess Di, and 300,000 people per year.

Everybody takes the obligatory picture with Cristo in the background. I found some Israeli tourists to take said photo.

I only trusted authority once in Brazil

When you travel to Brazil, everybody warns you not to trust law enforcement. You hear stories about how the police are dirty, corrupt, and can always be bought off. So, throughout my time in Brazil, I was always wary of people in uniform. This was until I had a run in an army training exercise.

A friend of mine had told me that one of the most rewarding views in Rio comes from the top of Pedra de Gavea (it is the largest seaside boulder in the world at about 900 m). On a clear day when the view would be the best, I decided to embark on this journey. After an hour and a half of hiking, I made it to what I thought was the peak. Then I walked around a bend and saw that there was a mountain I would need to climb, rather than hike. I haven't actually climbed since I went to Planet Rock (Ruby thinks I last went there in 1997). Then I arrived at this ascent.

When I made it around the bend, I saw a guy in a camouflage uniform carrying his gun. But he wasn't alone. He was with an entire company of soldiers doing a training exercise. When they saw that I wasn't an expect mountaineer, they offered me to use the rope that was already in place. Having already seen a few soldiers ascend the same rope, I trusted that it would hold my weight. As I climbed up the rope, my leg accidentally bumped into the butt of one of the soldier's guns. It was the only time in my entire trip that I came into physical contact with a gun.

Brazilians are proud to be from Brazil

It is very refreshing to see how proud Brazilians are to be Brazilians. In Rio, it is really common to see people wearing clothes with the Brazilian flag. It could be a towel, swimming suit, t-shirt, or anything else, you always see Brazilians wearing Brazilian gear.

In America, you see some people gear wear clothes with the American flag, but you don't see too many people in NYC wearing American flag. In both Sao Paolo and Rio, it was common to see the yellow, blue, and green of Brazil.

They are also proud of their national music. I didn't find a Brazilian who dislikes samba. I can't think of a traditional music style that is so universally loved and unites a population like samba does in Brazil. At a samba club, you see people of all ages enjoying the music. It's just very refreshing.

Hey, Super. Hey, Juicy

One thing that I really like about Brazil is the availability of exotic fruits. (there are quite a few things that I really like about Brazil) Given the countries size and tropical location, there is a large variety of unique and delicious fruits for me to try. On nearly every street corner, there is a juice bar that serves these interesting fruits in juice form.

Having two weeks to spend in Rio, I made it my duty to try as many of these juice flavors as I could. I focused in on one juice bar between my hostel and the Metro station - Bigbi (no relation to the formerly offensively named coffee shop). Because of its location, I passed it numerous times per day. After sampling a few of the juices, I decided that before I left Brazil, I would try all of the juice flavors offered on the menu. And I don't even know what half of the fruits are called in English (neither did the Brazilian I asked to go over the menu with me). But by the end of my trip, I had tried each of the fruits offered on the menu.

Some of my favorite juices on the menu were acerola, abacaxi, and caju. My favorite names for fruits were camu camu, umbu, and maracuja.

English swear words aren't swear words in Brazil

Sitting in the back seat of a Rio cab, I was enjoying (or just listening) to PIMP by 50 Cent. I was following along and, as they got to the chorus, I realized that they didn't get rid of the swear words or use a radio-friendly version. They don't face the same restrictions or English-understanding audience that they do in the United States. So they can play all the swear words they want.

An aside: In my three months in South America, I never heard one Kanye song. But I heard 50 Cent at nearly every bar, club, or cab I was in. If the "PIMP" and "In Da Club" are now popular in Brazil, I say that Kanye will become popular here in two years.

Eu so aprendo portugues no bar e mar

When I crossed the Argentinian border in Brazil, I didn't speak a lick of Portuguese. After three weeks of intensely studying the language (i.e. bringing my Brazilian Portuguese Phrasebook to the beach and the bar), I can now handle a conversation in Portuguese, especially if they speak slowly. (editor's note - i don't know how to write the portuguese accents on this keyboard yet).

To translate the title of this bullet, it says "I only learn Portuguese at the bar and on the beach." And I think that I studied a lot of Portuguese while I was in Rio.