Brazzil
February 1999
Impressions

A Night
Out

Postcards from Rio

This is my second time to Sugarloaf, but the first at night. The place is starting to pack. It is after 1:00 AM and still people are arriving by gondola. Marta and I have a few dances, we lose a few inhibitions, and umm, it's kind of feeling groovy time. The live music starts at 2:00 PM with Fernanda Abreu. She sings passionately about the spirit of the Carioca, Brazil, love, Rio, dreams and music.

John Miller

On Saturday night, Marta and I met with a very cool Moosehead by the name of Bryce. We planned to go to a concert at Sugarloaf Mountain (Pão de Açúcar). So after a bit of stuffing around, we go by taxi to Sugarloaf at about 10:00 PM at night. The traffic is very bad as we approach Sugarloaf, and I suspect that we may not get in as all the tickets may be sold ($25 each). However, this is not the case and we get tickets to go up to the first level.

It is worth describing Sugarloaf Mountain at this stage, even though you have seen this in countless James Bond movies, etc. It is the most famous sight in Rio de Janeiro along with Corcovado (Cristo Redentor—Christ the Redeemer). The area around Rio is very famous for its mountains and rock formations (hey, I am no geologist, so I can't give you the technical explanation). The mountains are a very distinct conical shape. In the case of Sugarloaf, it consists of two separate conical mountains; the first one is about 180 meters high; the second is 280 meters high. These two mountains are linked to the ground by gondola cable cars, and they ascend to the top of the mountains in two legs at a very rapid rate. The angle of incline from the base would vary from 15-45 degrees, almost like going up in an elevator, except you are out in mid air.

The cable car ride is very exhilarating, a real highlight of any visit to Rio de Janeiro. The cable cars have been in operation for over 50 years and only one accident in 1972, when a cable broke, and the occupants had to be rescued by helicopter. Definitely a very safe experience, it is maintained to very high standards, but also a bit of an adrenaline buzz for Pepsi Max drinkers.

This is my second time to Sugarloaf, but the first at night. In the day, you can see all of Rio de Janeiro and it is breathtaking. The sights include (in a clockwise direction) the inside of Rio Harbor, the bridge to Niterói (14 km long), Niterói itself, then sweeping around to the Atlantic ocean and the islands off Brazil. Further around to the south you see the beaches stretching south including Leme, Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. Further around again you see Lagoa, then Corcovado and the statue of Christ, and onto Botafogo, Flamengo, then to Rio Centro itself, and the domestic airport of Santos Dumont returns you to the harbor again. Rio harbor would be at least 20 times the size of Sydney harbor, maybe more, and holds hundreds of large ships all the time. It is the second most important port in Brazil (Santos feeding São Paulo is the first).

At night, the view from Sugarloaf takes on another perspective. The lights of Rio come on, which are mirror reflected in the harbor. Coffee table books, postcards, photos, film, IMAX Theater could not catch this sight, this is one to experience first hand. A lot of countries say that Jesus Christ was really born in their country, here you can believe it, as the hand of God has been working to make this place so special. Christ stands illuminated at the top of Corcovado like a beacon announcing "I will look after the Carioca and Brazil". The favelas (shantytowns) are lit up like the stars in the sky at night, a slight yellow tinge to the lights from the low wattage electric lighting. Just beautiful. And to top this all off, we have a clear sky, a slight breeze and a full moon. There is magic happening. You can feel it. We have experienced this magic about six or seven times now, the first night we were together, at Búzios, when we were driving along the great ocean road in Vitória. Music brings out chemistry in us, really strong feelings, and we are very connected tonight.

We arrive at the summit of the first mountain, and I had forgotten how large the summit is. This place has been very tastefully kept, a blend of tropical vegetation, sheltered walkways, and panoramic 360° viewing. The place is a buzz. Security on entry is serious (the odd body search), but not over the top. At the summit, I am expecting the place to be wall to wall security, but it is not, just the right amount of gorillas, but instead of scowling at everyone, they say hello and smile a lot. I estimate the crowd at about 4000. Alcohol (beer, caipirinha, vodka, whiskey) is cheap and very available. I am a little concerned at this initially, as I have been to many functions in OZ like this, and you know how alcohol can make some young men a little hot headed and over zealous. But it is evident very early on that the atmosphere has very good karma, the whole place has a `feel and be good' about it, and the consumption of alcohol is largely moderate, with one or two exceptions. The Mary Jane is pretty popular too, this may be adding to the chill out factor. I am very impressed by the mood of the place. The average age would be early twenties, and even number of men and women. Dress is casual, but as usual, the ladies take that little bit extra care on special occasions and look very attractive.

We get a couple of drinks and wander round looking at the sights, and Marta shows me all the facilities available on Sugarloaf. This place has an indoor restaurant that would hold 300-400 people, and then outside seating for another 1000. There is an indoor/outdoor discotheque area with large screens and seating, plus an amphitheater (dance area would comfortably hold 800-900, and the terraced area another 600-700). This is where the live music will be and it is already packed with people in the mood. The usual mirror ball and banks of computer controlled TVs. A DJ plays a mixture of current and golden oldies, Brazilian and international. Lots of good video clips playing on the big screen of U2, David Bowie, Tina Turner playing Maracanã, Rolling Stones, Dire Straits, etc. The Brazilians know their music very well. Hey, is that the Beach Boys playing, yes it is. "I'm thinking of good vibrations, she's giving me excitations."

The place is starting to pack in now. It is after 1:00 AM and still people are arriving by gondola. When does the show start? Marta and I have a few dances, we lose a few inhibitions, and umm, it's kind of feeling groovy time. The live music starts at 2:00 PM with Fernanda Abreu, a female vocalist and 8 piece-backing band. She is electric, the music is very modern Brazilian. She sings passionately about the spirit of the Carioca, Brazil, love, Rio, dreams and music. It is one of the best small-medium venue live concerts I have been to.

The music continues for about two hours, and the guitarists start a long solo piece. We decide that this is a good opportunity to split, get a drink and go before the queues form for the gondola. We step outside the amphitheater and I think for a moment that the special effects people have gone overboard, and turned on the biggest fog-making machine. After a minute or two I realize it is God that has turned on the fog-making machine. All you can see is Christ and the moon, and a cloud has descended below Sugarloaf to make an island in the sky. It is a very magical moment. We get our drinks and see the queues have already started. No problem, we have much to talk about. And we do, for about an hour we sit and talk about some heavy-duty stuff between us. Like chil…still have trouble with this word, but maybe… I want to change the topic to selling wine, networking, getting an Australia Day Party in Rio de Janeiro, an Aussie Rules football game at Maracanã, an Ipanema Beach Cricket Club, hitting sand wedges on the beach at Leblon, these are my dreams. How can my Carioca wife possibly understand the importance of these things?

We sit and watch the fog and mist roll in, clear out and roll back in again. About 5:00 AM we decide to join the queue to the gondola to descend Sugarloaf. This is going to be about an hour wait. So be it, we are in good company. Two young people, maybe only 20, start talking to us. They have not paid to come in to the party, and have climbed up Sugarloaf Mountain under cover of dark, and have fresh scratches on their arms to prove it. This is quite a feat of courage in the dark, and I am just in awe at the risks Carioca teenagers will take to go to a party and not pay to get in. As a side comment, the tallest of the two mountains that constitutes Sugarloaf was first climbed by a woman in 1876.

More Bus
Adventures

Buses can also be an excellent place to go shopping. On most city metro bus journeys, a Carioca (someone from Rio) will get on the front of the bus, start peddling his wares for 60 seconds, then walk down the aisle of the bus hawking his goodies. This usually takes about 1-2 km or 5 minutes, and then he gets off, transacting all the way. Then he repeats the process in the opposite direction. There appears to be defined turf's to sell in, as frequently they get off the bus without completing the sales at the back of the bus (tip, if you do not want to buy anything, get a seat at the back of the bus).

They have an excellent sense of balance, as they must carry their goods in one hand, money to change and dish out the products in the other, and hang on for grim death with their elbows and feet as the bus rockets around the back streets of Copacabana. The products range from combination toenail clippers and scissors (it would appear that no self respecting Carioca would be without one), chocolates, bonbons, Chiclets, beads, cigarettes, and just about anything that has fallen off the back of the truck or cannot find shelf space in a supermarket.

Between the buses and the beaches, I see no future for shopping malls in Rio de Janeiro.

Medicine

Medicine seems to come in industrial strength form. I think they must use elephants or horses to test things on for humans. One penicillin tablet here would cure you of Ebola fever forever. Sure can knock you around if you are sensitive to medication. Definitely when they say take one tablet three times a day you can halve this dosage and still get the desired effect. Perhaps this is why most medicine is so expensive here. But what isn't expensive here?

Vanessa

Marta bought her some warm clothes the other day. We went down last weeknight to give her the clothes and some food. One of the highlights so far. You cannot buy moments like this (OK, we spent $15). The joy on her face was just so precious. Oh shut up, John, you are pathetic.

While Vanessa was eating, I took her Chiclets and tried selling them in the street. Most of the car drivers just looked at me with a wild expression, wound up their windows, and drove off at a fast pace. So I hit the Garota de Ipanema Bar. The manager and bar staff were really pissing themselves laughing, and I sold all the Chiclets in one sale to a couple of Swiss back packers. Enough Chiclets to keep the Swiss back packers' chewing gum all the way through Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Brazil. And enough money for Vanessa to go to school for 4 weeks. Vanessa did not even pay me a commission. (Well, I got another cuddle). She can be brutal sometimes.

Rule No 2:
Don't go looking
for business

Do not go looking for business. Wait for the business to come to you. The key to the process is putting yourself in a position where you will meet the people you need to connect with. Then you can relax, socialize, and build a relationship without the tension of business driving discussions. And it is more fun this way and you'll learn more before the discussion turns to business.

Example. I have been looking for a slide projector since I arrived. I need a Kodak 35 mm slide projector with a high quality lens, 1:100 focal, remote control and carousel. I am prepared to spend good money to get this tool. We have been looking everywhere. A new one will cost $1,400, out of the question. We have traveled to the city, to suburbs in Rio you would not believe looked in the Rio trading post and come up with zip. I have seen the most weird slide projectors you have ever seen and a few other unknown brands that I would not trust or get a spare bulb or parts for. So I have been looking, looking, looking….

Yesterday, we paid the rent to the landlord. Guess who had exactly what I wanted? He also did not want us to pay for it as he was about to toss it away. Christ is helping me I am sure.

Food,
glorious
food

No shortage that is for sure. And I have one or two perks in my job of eating at the odd five star hotel/restaurant.

Rio de Janeiro has not made its name as the cuisine capital of the world, but you still should prepare your taste buds for a combination of Portuguese, Indian and African cooking. When you eat corn, beans, cassava and fish, think of the Indians. When savoring such desserts as doce de leite (a soft caramel) and ovos queimados ("burnt eggs'` made of sugar, cinnamon, cloves and egg yolks), think of the Portuguese. The practical colonizers endowed stews, codfish, and empadas (turnovers with a variety of fillings, like little pasties). The strongest influence in the Brazilian foods undoubtedly came from the Africans. Slaves spiced up the local cuisine with peppers, ginger, coconut milk and dendê, a thick palm oil. One of their major contributions is the national dish, feijoada.

Feijoada

Feijão means beans, and feijoada is a casserole of black beans and everything from a pig, and I mean everything: tails, ribs, ears, nose, and trotters. Feijoada Completa is a banquet of feijoada accompanied by pork chops, bacon, pork tenderloin, jerked beef, Portuguese sausage, smoked tongue, usually in separate cauldrons, plus fluffy white rice, sliced oranges (essential for aiding digestion), couve (kale or collard greens), Milanese bananas, ground cassava (manioc) and a small drink concocted with pinga (sugarcane liquor). Be careful with the very hot malagueta pepper sauce. Traditional feijoada is offered Wednesday and Saturday; the latter preferable so one can sleep off the meal. Post-feijoada behavior should not include playing any energetic form of sport, wild sex or extensive pre coital behavior, bending at the waist, or wearing tight jeans. Appropriate post-feijoda behavior should include rest, sleeping in hammock, listening to bossa nova, with possible soft and gentle foreplay only.

Churrasco

Cowboys (Gaúchos) from Southern Brazil introduced churrasco, grilled or barbecued meat. It can be marinated in olive oil, onions, garlic, and other condiments (very much tomato sauce used), but more often it is salted and grilled over the charcoal fire on a long skewer. To eat the meat in true Gaúcho style, dip it in cassava or manioc meal. Churrascaria is a restaurant, which serves this grilled meat or churrasco. There are two types of churrascaria: one in which you order the meat of your choice and another called rodízio, in which an endless variety of meats, ranging from sausages, chicken hearts to a shank of beef is brought to the table on the skewer and sliced. It is common behavior to not eat all day prior to churrascaria, and then to gorge on this fixed price banquet.

Seafood

It's all here: salmon, codfish, prawns, snapper, coral trout, shark, white bait, crab, sea urchins. And the fresh water fish are awesome and great variety. My first customer in Rio runs the best Italian seafood restaurant in Rio, Grottomare. The cooking, the decor, the water color paintings on the walls, and the hospitality of the owner Angelo Neroni and his staff are first class. His presentation of food is 5*, the portions generous, and the service would leave you gasping and it is also delivered with good humor. Thursday 13th July I dined here with the Oz Consul General and a couple of Cariocas and had a great night. Drank an absolute tanker load of Oz wine too.

For the Vegetarian

Sorry, Brazil has great vegetables, just not too many specialist vegetarian restaurants.

Beverages

Now you're talking. Something also close to my heart and the Carioca. Cachaça or pinga as the Paulistas (those from São Paulo) call it, is a potent, devastating, diabolical, rocket fuel, sugarcane liquor. It is drunk straight (as in your cars fuel tank), or served as mixed drinks—caipirinhas or batidas. A caipirinha consists of crushed limes (peel and all), sugar, cachaça and ice. A batida contains cachaça, fruit juice, or coconut milk plus generous amount of sugar. This is shaken (batida) with ice. A caipiroska is the same as a caipirinha but with vodka instead of cachaça.

Follow? You will not if your have more than two of these drinks. A lot of home distill work in this area and the alcohol content can vary from 40-50 proof to 100 proof. The 100 proof cachaça is also good for cleaning the family silver, taking rust off your car, loosening bolts, as anti freeze, test firing NASA rockets, breaking land speed records, cooking, oxy-welding, as a flame-thrower or Molotov cocktail, removing the lining of your throat and stomach, and other medicinal purposes.

What you will typically find in a Rio restaurant

What you will not find in a Rio restaurant

Iva,
Hygiene Cleaning
Engineer and
Consultant

Once a week, Marta outsources the major cleaning projects of the apartment to a long-standing assistant. Iva (pronounced Eva) usually arrives about 9:30 AM and finishes about 7:30 PM. Her standard rate is $25 but Marta insists that we pay a little extra to cover the "Aussie Babe factor" (Notice how I was able to carefully sidestep using more direct pork terminology). Now Iva is one of those gems of people, shy like you would not believe, is so confident of her cleaning abilities that she eats on the floor. She works without complaint, always has a smile for me, and is just the most delightful person to help Marta and I.

As for her work, I am sure she is using the proverbial toothbrush and cotton bud to clean the apartment, top, bottom, inside and out. Iva certainly cleans in places I would not consider (no surprises I hear you say, well check this out). We are 10 stories up, the ledge is 9 inches wide, she cleans the windows on the outside with no harness!!!!!! Now you have to understand, I have a huge phobia about heights, always have, and always will. I just don't like even leaning out windows too much. I am strictly two feet on the ground stuff. Sometimes this place just leaves you gaping in awe when you see someone working for $30 per day and they take these risks with their lives.

John Miller is an Australian, living in Rio de Janeiro, selling Australian wine. `Postcards from Rio' is a journal of his journey in the land of the Cariocas.

For contact:
John and Marta Miller
Rua Joaquim Nabuco, 106 / Apt 1001
Copacabana CEP 22080-030
Rio de Janeiro
Brazil
Tel: +55 (021) 521 8568

E-mail: millerj@gbl.com.br  

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