Rio de Janeiro - Delirium tremens with Taio Cruz

Rio de Janeiro (Brasil)
26 Dec - 27 Dec 2011

Europeans first rolled into Rio on the 1st of January 1502. It just goes to show that even back then this place had the reputation of being the very epicentre of the 'good time and good vibe' world. I often think that as the Portuguese made their way up the Brasilian coastline on that New Years day, courting the inevitable mead related hangover, hushed and whispered tales of wild brotherly love surely would have bubbled to the surface from the subterranean depths of the ship, gaining vibrancy and clarity via a new day on the back of sun drenched decks. The leader of the expedition and captain of the vessel, Gaspar de Lemos, who more than likely would have been caught in several compromsing positions the evening before in what would have been a debaucherous night of revelry, excess and 'fast living', would have stood proud and tall on deck. Dehydrated and searching his ruck sack for Nurofen, his enigmatic pronouncement that they had encountered the mouth of a mighty river and that it should be now known as the River of January I'm sure would have been met with the equivalent Portuguese response of 'What a dumbarse!'. Seriously, that's your best captain? The River of January? What about those mountains we passed yesterday? I guess they're the Mountains of December, or that jungle the previous months, the jungle of November! You sir are an idiot! In all honesty the crew weren't all that far off the mark, the river was actually just a bay (Guanabara Bay), but, Rio de Janeiro just sounds so much cooler doesn't it?
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Our crew of three didn't exactly have the luxury of making our way into Rio via the rolling, karmic waters of the Atlantic. We had intelligently opted for the 7hr ride on terra firma from Sao Paulo. Something I was completely fine with as my desire to take to the skies in South America was going to be limited to Emirates flying me out. There's something about South American air crash statistics that don't quite instill me with absolute confidence, nor do I like the idea of lying out on a glacier somewhere calously calculating which of my friends I'd have to eat first (it would have been you Jet, FYI).
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Arriving at the main bus station in Rio several hours after our scheduled time of arrival we were greeted by our driver Jorge. This was a beaten man. His feeble attempts of conviviality however unravelled smartly like the contrived fantasies of a compulsive liar. His face weathered, eyes sunken, sullen by demeanour, this wasn't the warm samba style, free wheeling, free loving welcome I had anticipated! Of course, I think he had been waiting at a mind numbingly boring bus station without notice for three hours, perhaps all the while anticipating his arrival home hours earlier to a lovely wife who had probably prepared him a hearty dish of feijoada. Well, whatever Jorge, the drive into Copacabana was always going to be the end of out association.

But who cared!! There we were, in Rio de Janeiro man!! This is the place that I had anticipated on being in about a year earlier and perhaps would have been but for some light fingered bandits in La Paz, but ok, that story is old hat and the scenario that I found myself in right at this moment was by far the better option. I had JJ and Jetson with me and this place was going to get taken out, like a boss!

Copacabana Beach - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

Copacabana Beach, overcast and with a 'hint' of rain. Unfortunatelty this was to become a familiar sight over the next few days

Home of the Olympics in 2016 - Welcome to Rio!
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I always feel that those few moments when you arrive in a new place are always filled with mystery and intrigue. Your senses are alert to everything going on around you and your mind, well mine at least, always tries to make sense of location and lock in a familiar landmark. This I found was somewhat easy to do in Rio. Sambadrome on the right,  a minute or two later our first sighting of Cristo Redentor (on and oddly clear evening) then Sugarloaf (Pão de Açúcar) as we rounded the bay in Botafogo,through Tunnel Velho and finally spitting us out into Copacabana itself. The apartment that we were going to call home for the next 10 days was located on Avenida Prado Junior, just over one block from the beach. From memory we had arrived just as the sun was dropping out of sight and after what we had been 'assured' were going to be the last of the days of rain that Rio had scheduled (yeah, I'll get back to that one).

Sugarloaf (Pão de Açúcar) - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

Copacabana - lesson 1

The Caipirinha - roughly translated to 'country bumpkin'

It's made in the following manner;

Ingredients

1 lime quartered

2 tsp fine sugar

2 oz cachaca (is a distilled spirit from Brazil that is in a class of it's own but it is often associated with rum)

Working it

1.Place the lime wedges and sugar into an old-fashioned glass

2.Muddle well to create a paste

3. Fill the glass with ice cubes

4. Pour in the cachaca

5. Stir well

Now I've been fortunate enough to have acquired some knowledge as to night one proceedings of holidays when travelling with friends, in fact, lets at this point reflect on a few of them for the sake of posterity [Beatles mania in Kuala Lumpur], [Lost Angles - Los Angeles], [KL Streetsmarts in Kuala Lumpur again], and after those classics you can now add to that infamous list, Delirium tremens with Taio Cruz. It was absolutely predestined, it was the rite of passage that needed to be had and the most befitting course of action by which we were to christen night one in Rio. And so it was, that as we exposed ourselves to a relatively balmy evening we took up residence at a small bar overlooking the beach in Copacabana, ordered a first round of caipirinha's and downed the sweet, syrupy, sugary goodness of what a beachside caipirinha is meant to be...but my God, where were the alcohol police when the cachaca was being dosed out so liberally? It reminded me of a few free pouring tequila nights in Mexico City where the simple objective on those evenings was to survive.




The view from Porto Bay - Copacabana Beach - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil



This is the point in time where the infamous carioca haze of feigned lucidity really did a number on my memory because the vagaries of what happened from drink one to waking up the next morning are punctuated only by snippets of residual images that I'm not quite sure are imagined. What I recall was this. We had many drinks on the beach. We ran into a kind fun loving kid whose 'amor' for the world was all encompassing, he really LOVED everyone, EXCEPT Cristo, why that was I couldn't quite decide but to quote him directly, his take on the all dominating protector of Rio was to say this, 'F**k Cristo, F**k him'. Alright bro, I think your friends should probably get you home huh?

Clouded and shrouded - Cristo on a typical day - Rio de Janeiro - Brasil

Check out this link from The Adventures of Jet Frichot - Copacabana Beach

I believe after this point we bunkered down at a restaurant for a few hours, ordering the national drink on what appeared to be an endless conveyerbelt of caipirinha service. In between that point and getting home at 4am it was actually Janelle who requested that we entertain ourselves for a few hours at a local strip joint!? What THE? Yup, that request makes as much sense to me now as it did on that night. I'm sure there was a comment thrown around about 'Just getting it out of our systems' , although for me in all honesty strip joints have always been kind of lame. I kind of struggle to remember anything that happened in there in any case other than the fact that it was practically across the road from where our apartment was............(fade out, night one)

.....then the morning comes

I woke up somewhere around 8am. My mouth was a little dry but yeah, I was ok. Janelle and Jet were still asleep but they had arrived safely and we had survived. I did the internal audit quite quickly and miracously felt quite reasonable. That self assessment was the only encouragement that I needed to jump up, get changed and hit Copa for a run! Crazy right!? I mean I think I was so pumped about doing this that in the days that followed we could only reason that it was the endorphin rush that had given me a 'delayed onset hangover', although in actual fact don't think it every truly arrived.

That first run on Copacabana was a true highlight for me. Hitting one of the most famous beaches in the world, the breakings waves of the Atlantic setting my rhythm, Cristo adorning the peak of Corcovado, breaking through the morning clouds ever so majestically, the magnificenc of Sugarloaf to the north of the beach , it was hard to imagine a more perfect setting to get out and get active? And IF you did need to resort to any type of additional inspiration then there was plenty of fodder in the form of fellow runners to provide that a spring in your step and an increased turn of speed.

...and if that run was spectacular then my return to the apartment was a lesson in what it is to be triumphant in continued drunken bliss. Assuming on my arrival that my fellow cohorts were merely tired and not in the throws of a monolithic hangover, I jumped up on the bed of one Janelle Jordan and gave a bullocking rendition of the Taio Cruz classic I got a hangover. It was only at the point that I'd completely devastated the chorus that I realised that young Jordan was in a world of cachaca induced anguish because her lack of appreciation for what I was laying down, and paralleling by jumping on the bed, was exactly mirrored by her lack of movement. Then my brain kicked in... 'Whoa, she really did have a hangover and she has been drinking TOO much for SURE' ..and as for Frichot, well that man had retired to the spirit world hours before and there was nothing that could be done at this stage to bring him back into the realm of the living, or perhaps my universe of stupidity

(...to be continued)

Sao Paulo - Hitting up Sampa

Sydney (Australia) - Sao Paulo (Brazil)
24 DEC - 26 DEC 2011

My few days leading up to departure on Christmas Eve had been some of the most surreal of my relatively short existence. By extension, my time in Brazil was going to be characterised by an emotional transgression that for me had always surpassed the limits of what anyone else would consider normal. 'Watcha going to do?', when it comes to emotions I've got to say, I think I'm far removed from your average bear, but I'm OK with that and I was more than OK with the circumstances that had somehow attached themselves to my internal fabric prior departure.

Christmas Eve was a standard affair in the Elisher household but at an earlier start time to what we were usually accustomed due to our designated Emirates international conduit departing Charles-Kingsford at 9:45pm that evening. Now for anyone that doesn't know, Emirates are based in Dubai, so if you're just now starting to run the logistical app in your mind then don't bother. The Sydney - Dubai - Sao Paulo route IS the LONG way to get to Brazil! I know that, but somehow the price for the long way significantly cheaper than the most direct routes to Rio, by a substantial margin. I thank my research skills for that otherwise this write up could very well have been How we got to St.Petersburg rather then how we ended up finding our way to the River of January. It was going to be a flight option that both Frichot and Jordan would hate me for some 33hrs later when we finally landed in Brasil.

As flight EK413 thundered down highway 1, i.e., the main north-south runway that assists these birds of coordinated aerial mass movement get 'high and wide', the kiddies in the cabin had already commenced their ritualistic wailing. From what I've noted in my recent years of travel this appears to be a time honoured 'altruistic' activity undertaken by the general populous of individuals under 5 years of age whose objective it is to warn all others of the imminent doom that is lurking, or rather just waiting, in a type of suspended animation within the confines of the cabin. Somehow as adults we never quite get around to understanding the fear conveyed in these shrill cries but have always associated them with the pain caused by the pressure adjustments in the inner ear as the plane ascends. From my studies however this is not the case! After listening to these cries, when they commence and the orchestrated symphony, there appear to be complex communications between the bambini that goes something like this;

Wailing kid 1 - 'Whoa, we're traveling really fast! Oh my God, this huge thing is lifting off the ground, I think I'm going to shit myself!!'

Wailing kid 2 - 'Oh man, I think I'm going to shit myself!!!'

Wailing kid 3 - 'Yeah, I know I'm going to shit myself'

Wailing kid 4 - 'I totally shit myself! Man, I shit myself bad, oh I can't believe it!'

Wailing kids 1 & 2 - 'Oh that dude shit himself! We're all going to shit ourselves, we're doomed!'

Frichot or Mr FML when it comes to air travel is just like a mosquito zapper in these situations. Somehow how these little turd busters are always so strategically placed around Frichot that when the chorus commences you just now that the prime position for its appreciation will be in the very seat that Jetson is occupying. Once the head shaking started and once the manic seat rocking intensified I just knew that the next 15hrs to Dubai would have him exiting his right mind somewhere high over the Indian Ocean. I offered my mate a Buddhist like blessing and wished him well in his search for a Zen like state but I knew the realities, I knew the route ahead and I knew that he didn't have any Xanax freely available (not for himself but to hand out to the kids), he was as they say on the slopes of Everest, In the death zone, and nobody can assist you there, not a soul!

I had on the other hand taken what I felt was the more audacious challenge and that was to occupy the seat next to Janelle.......for 15hrs! Now to call JJ a talkaholic would be liking call Charlie Sheen a casual user, we both know that just ain't so. On the other hand I'm more of your counter punching conversationalist, I don't mind listening more than talking but this to me was going to be my own type of moonshot. My masterstroke however, and the key to my defensive arsenal is my ability to sleep on any form of transport. Once there's movement and I'm locked in for a journey them I magically commence my travels through ethereal lands for what ends up being hours, literally hours. I'm uncertain of how I manage this but all I know is that after the supper service had been completed, the lights dimmed and the cabin settled, I was dialed in to what must have been 30+ playings of the Rumours album - I was hostage to my internal air travel zombie.

Dubai International Airport - U.A.E - Frichot in disguise, Speedball is just that big in the U.A.E

 

Just under 15hrs later we were following our glide path into Dubai International. There we were, half the distance to our destination, halfway around the world and in an airport on Christmas morning. You just know that in a situation such as that, with 5hrs between flights and then 15hrs from Dubai to Sao Paulo, the only obligation you have as a traveler is to find a bar and drink. That's realistically the only way that you can rock Christmas Spirit authentically when you're locked away in transit. If there was a Facebook page for 'I Drinking whilst in transit'  then somehow I'd find a way to be giving it two thumbs up!

EK261 - only 14hrs to go - Dubai International Airport - U.A.E

Our ride

I don't remember much of the flight from Dubai down to Sao Paulo, I slept for most of the way, much to the chagrin of my accomplices. Some 14hrs of quite time with Fleetwood Mac and half baked attempts at watching Senna on 'ICE' entertainment, seemed kind of appropriate considering we were going to be landing in his home town.I have it in my mind that I attempted to watch in four times and failed on all occasions. Somehow I had lucid dreams of F1 and grand failure all across the Atlantic, kind of disconcerting when you think back to Air France flight 447 from Rio, and oh yeah, Frichot's premonitions of frolicking in the water after what he imagined to be a plane crash.

'Merry Freakin' Christmas Jeston' - photo 1 of the 'Jet sleeps through Brazil' series - Serhs Executive Hotel - Sao Paulo - Brasil

Somehow we all survived the 35hr torture test to Sao Paulo, some better than others. Arriving late on Christmas day we were dishevelled, mentally broken and in need of a place to lay our hats, because for that night, we were going to be calling the Serhs Executive our home. Oddly we all managed to escape the clutches of the hotel in direct pursuit of a good 'ole fashioned Christmas dinner, but where to find one when you're not exactly in the city centre and in one of the most Catholic countries on earth? Certainly it was going to be a somewhat fruitless attempt in the barren wasteland of the burbs of Christmas central? So you would thing in any case. Magically, in charmed, Christmas miracle type of manner we stumbled just a few blocks into a hotel that had majestically set up a buffet for what they anticipated to be hundreds of people.When your three heroes walked into the scene we automatically doubled the attendance, with the other people present being the wait staff. It was odd and amusing, in a way that a Phonsovan hotel room is cavernous and soulless.

Downtown Guarulhos - Sao Paulo -Brasil

The New York of the southern hemisphere - Sao Paulo -Brasil

Sao Paulo -Brasil

Turning the page on Christmas Eve the next morning we headed down to the main bus station in Sao Paulo and jumped ourselves a ride into Rio. Originally the plan had been to fly internally but a few logistical issues had us on a 4hr meander through the back blocks of Brasil. I was good with that failed opportunity, I don't mind losing three hours for the sake of losing my sanity at take off, although, I almost did lose my sanity with Jetson whose attempt to exchange a few dollars into reals nearly had us waving goodbye to our ride! Man, oh man, that would have been entertainment for the whole family to see.

On our way!

In any case, there we were, riding high and on our way to samba central. Rio and I were going to get acquainted, finally.