We have been incredibly busy on the journey between Rio and Manaus and, as a result, have never finished blogging about our Rio experience after the Candomble ceremony last Sunday morning. This will not be an extensive report but we will include some pictures of our activities in Rio.
After the Candomble ceremony we visited a favela in what's called the German complex, where 80,000 people live. Recently the government put in a Gondola lift that spans the complex allowing residents a faster commute. These areas are know for their violence from the drug dealers, but in 2008, Police Pacification Units (UPPs) began to be implemented within various favelas in the city of Rio de Janeiro. The UPP is a law enforcement and social services program aimed at reclaiming territories controlled by drug traffickers. By October 2012, UPPs have been established in 28 favelas. The German Complex has a UPP police force in it. We felt safe walking there and eating ice cream.
This is a view from the gondola.
Notice the cluster of policemen and women. They had bullet proof vests and automatic weapons.
The gondola station.
After that we visited a variety of sites in what is known as "Little Africa," an area near the downtown area which has the first slave markets and slave living areas. In 1996 homeowners began a renovation project that uncovered more than what they were expecting, a slave graveyard. The graveyard was most likely established in 1769.
This the main square which was once a slave market AND where, from one of those balconies, the end of slavery was announced.
The area in Little Africa where the slave markets were moved from the main square.
The slave graveyard discovered under a house.
As we were walking to see the old port area where the slaves were brought in, we stumbled on to music and dance or capoeira. Capoeira is a Brazilian martial art that combines elements of dance and music.
The next day we took an SAS sponsored field lab to a small favela, Vale Encantado (enchanted valley) on the mountaintops overlooking Rio in the Tijuca National Forest. The Tijuca National Park the largest city-surrounded urban forest and the second largest urban forest in the world, has been a National Park. Vale Encantado has had a hard time making living first growing vegetables, then flowers and then a granite mine. There was little money is selling the vegetables and flowers. The mine was closed down due to the harm it was doing to the environment. In 1992 they began working together to create a tourist trade. The ecological trail in the Tijuca Forest preserves the eco-system and generates income for the community, made possible to open a cooking school that uses local produce, trains residents and feeds the tourist that visit. This employs many of the residents on the favela of only 150 people. We were shown how to fix a Brazilian dish that mimics a Portugeese one that uses fish as its main ingredient. A women in Vale Encantado has substituted Jack Fruit, which is readily available, for the fish.
The view from the Vale Encantado.
The Chef and her creation.
After our visit to Vale Encantado we had some extra time so our tour guide took us to see Rio's famous beaches, such as Barra da Tijuca, Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon. We saw this incredible Sand Castle on one of the beaches.
Our last day in Rio was wet, but we still managed to get out and see more of the city.
…the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian which has 315 ft. internal diameter and a height of 246 ft. It has a standing-room capacity of 20,000
We also walked up the Escadaria Selarón (Selarón's Staircase) the colorful stairway is made up of 250 steps. The steps are decorated with over 2,000 brightly colored tiles from more than sixty different countries. They have been featured in everything from Fanta commercials to the pages of National Geographic. Most recently they appeared in Rio's 2016 Olympic video bid "The Passion Unites Us." We actually got to meet the artist who created it.
No comments:
Post a Comment