This blog entry was supposed to come to you from Rio de Janeiro but my Internet connection there was too weak to post it. Now I'm back in the States and here is my concluding travel blog concerning Brasil, Brasil.
We flew from Ushuaia to Buenos Aires and then on to Iguassu Falls, which is located where the borders of Brasil, Argentina, and Paraguay come together. Much cross-border smuggling happens here, as well as even more tourism. Some falls may have more water (Niagara) or be higher (Angel) but none is longer than Iguassu. Imagine if you can beautiful falls that go on for nearly 2 miles, not in a straight line but with curves and arcs. There is nothing even close in the world. The roar, the mist, the sheer sense of movement are awesome. The setting is pure tropical; at this time of year (summer) the conditions approximate the inside of your mouth: 98.6F degrees and 100% humidity. It is as big a tourist attraction in South America as Niagara is in North America or Victoria Falls is in Africa. The area is booming, the population is ten times what it was maybe forty years ago.
While in this area we also visited the Itapu Dam which takes advantage of the immense volume of water and the drop in altitude also responsible for the falls. Itapu is jointly owned by Brasil and Paraguay and is one of the world's largest hydroelectric projects. For some reason hydroelectric power has a bad reputation in the U.S. but the rest of the world sure loves the naturally renewable power resource of rainwater running toward the sea. This is one time they are right and we are exhibiting an excess of environmental puritanism.
After Iguassu we flew to Rio de Janeiro. The second largest city in Brasil, after Sao Paulo, Rio has one of the world's most spectacular natural settings. The city runs for miles along a bay and coastline with islands and peninsulas and causeways and bridges and lagoons and beaches and more beaches and all of this punctuated with steep mountains like Sugarloaf and Corcovado (means "hunchback," not very PC) which is the one with the 100+ foot statue of Christ the Redeemer standing with his arms spread in the shape of a cross. A cog railway runs to the top of Corcovado and a pair of sequential cable cars take you to the top of Sugarloaf - fantastic views from both that approximate flying over the city in a small plane.
In many ways Rio is best viewed from upon high. Up close its status as a third world city becomes evident. The city's slums, locally called favelas, run up hillsides in tightly packed clusters of homemade buildings which house the city's poor, mostly migrants from the countryside. Favelas are ruled by drug lords, the police mostly enter to pick up the bodies. The situation is like the warlord fiefdoms in Afghanistan or Somalia. Fights over turf tend to be brutal and drug enforcers deal out street 'justice' to folks who can't get along. However, 3-4 blocks from favelas you find apartment buildings with units that sell from 1/2 million to 5 million U.S. dollars, depending on the amenities, size and view. The rich and poor live near each other and the working class lives elsewhere. Unfortunately, a middle class of the sort we have in developed countries isn't very strong.
We arrived just in time to see the last night of Carnival, Rio's version of Mardi Gras. Their celebration goes on for about 10 days and can lay a fair claim to being the world's biggest party. Rio dudes can really boogie, I mean samba. The role of krews in New Orleans is fulfilled in Rio by many samba 'schools' with roughly 5000 members each. They dress up in a panoply of fantastic costumes, or wear nearly nothing, or both, then they parade with several giant floats for each 'school' while dancing and singing and shooting off fireworks more or less continuously. Their samba song often has a political or social message but everybody is having 'way too much fun to take the message seriously. The last night, which we saw, featured the five winning 'schools' and lasted from 9 p.m. to maybe 4 a.m. (we didn't stay that late). The stands in the samba stadium hold maybe 100,000 people who are all standing, dancing, drinking, singing, taking pictures, and milling about while grinning. It was a happy crowd, we never felt at all threatened although pickpockets were probably at work. Security was much in evidence but we never saw them hassle anybody, nor did we see anybody who needed it.
Rio has a "beach" culture. Office workers will sometimes take a quick swim on their lunch hour. The "girl from Ipanema" is alive and well; I must have seen a thousand ladies who could have inspired that song. It is quite common to see young women walking down the street in a skimpy bikini top, tight shorts or jeans, high heels, and sun glasses. The heat and humidity are good excuses for this attire. Because people spend a lot of time in beachwear, they tend to be trim and body conscious.
Brasil hasn't caught the Peronist disease that hobbles Argentina, with the result that it is doing well economically. It and Canada are the world's two main exporters of commuter aircraft and it produces most of Latin America's automobiles. Brasil has achieved energy independence, which means they no longer import petroleum products. They have some oil production and have covered most of the shortfall with alcohol distilled from sugarcane which grows nicely in the warm, wet climate. They are also beginning to produce biodiesel from soy beans. One guesses that the energy independence comes at the expense of thousands of square miles of rainforest converted to farmland. Life is full of tradeoffs.
