Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

For my third trip out of the city of Buenos Aires, I traveled to Rio de Janeiro with my friends Lennart and Shannon.

It's difficult now (afterwards) to think about what my opinion of the city was before going there. I think that I had impressions of beauty and lots of color and culture, but I know that those impressions would have also included ones of violence, danger, and poverty.

Now, looking back, I have to say that its one of the cities that I absolutely have to recommend going to if you have the chance. (Unfortunately, the cost and inconvenience of getting a tourist visa for a U.S. citizen might be enough to persuade you otherwise - about $170 and several trips to your nearest Brazilian consulate are involved) But, if you get there, you will be able to experience what is without a doubt one of the most aesthetically beautiful cities in the world, populated with some of the warmest, friendliest, and most attractive people you'll ever have the chance to meet.

The city is located on the eastern coast of Brazil, far enough north that it has a relatively beach-worthy climate all year round. By some natural phenomenon that I'm not aware of, the landscape is made out of these crazy, steep, rounded mountain that seem to simply just rise straight out of the ocean. There would seem to be some kind of battle for the livable territory that these mountains provide between the city and the forest, a battle that the forest would appear to be winning. Rio is perhaps the only major city I have heard of to be situated not beside, but AROUND a national park. It almost seems unfair that Rio be able to possess all of these different kinds of beauty - the whitesand beaches with tall, surf-worthy waves, the towering mountains from which you can watch breathtaking sunsets over the city, and the rich forest populated with the kind of exotic wildlife (toucans, monkeys) that one would normally associate either with a zoo or the untouched tropical rainforest.

Towering above everything else is the Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer). The amazing statue perches in a way that seems impossible on top of Rio's highest peak. The size of the monument coupled with the difficulty of its erection (a special train had to be built going up the side of the mountain - "steep" doesn't even begin to describe it) has earned the Cristo status as one of the new 7 wonders of the world, and with reason. The statue is truly breathtaking, as is the view from its feet, as you can see almost the entire city (including the innumerable favelas) stretch out beneath it, and the smaller mountains rising out of the sea in the distance. And the best part of about the Cristo is the way that it represents the Brazilian view on Christianity - there is no sense of sadness or guilt involved as with the more common image of the crucifix - the Cristo's arms are stretched out in a warm gesture of love and welcome. The grandeur combined with this somewhat unique portrayal make the visit a rather inspiring one.

Besides the amazing imagery and people, possibly the most interesting and affecting thing about Rio are the stories of its famous favelas, or slums. These ridiculously expansive communities are remarkable not only for their size, but for the fact that, unlike in most cities where the slums lay on the outskirts, these are scattered all through the city, often in the shadows or between the city's wealthiest neighborhoods.

I wasn't sure how I felt at first about doing a tour of the favelas - to me it seemed kind of like voyeur. But Shannon and Lennart wanted to do it, and the first thing that the tour guide told us was that the people in the favelas wanted us to be there - they felt that it gave them a chance to fight against the prejudices of violence that were widespread around the city and around the world. They succeeded in doing that - it seemed as though all of the people we encountered were warm and friendly, interested in us and what we were doing and eager to be sharing their own stories. I half expected the favela experience to be a depressing one, but instead it turned out to be something inspiring. In the areas where the people had taken an interest in making the places better, the favelas had a strange but palpable beauty to them, rich with colors although the closeness of the quarters shrowded most of it in shadow. It was an amazing and eye-opening experience. I could never imagine living life with the same hardships that these people dealt with every day - drugs, violence, poverty and discrimination were simple facts of life for them, yet the kind of mobilization that was being undergone to change these "slums" into close-knit, often beautiful communities where family and education were the priorities was truly amazing.

The favelas give another side to a city that might otherwise seem like something out of a dream. Some of the memories border on being truly surreal - sitting on beautiful Ipanema beach sipping on coconuts while watching beautifully tanned and muscled men playing soccer seemed like something out of a dream. In a lot of ways, Rio seemed like a kind of black hole, something you could just get sucked into in a matter of hours and then never again have a desire to go back to where you came from. It didn't help that the area around our little community of hostels was always packed full of people from various places who had come to Rio with the intention of just seeing the city and then passing through but had then never left. It was easy to see the appeal of such a scenario, with the beautiful landscape, always-perfect weather, and gorgeous, warm, and inviting atmosphere that Rio's people gave the the city. In many ways, it was a true paradise.

I was glad that I went and experienced the city, but I'm not sure if I feel as though it is a place that I would need to return to some day.