The Tote that wasn’t allowed out

​Our tote has made it to Rio De Janeiro lately and for security reasons had to be left at home!
 
The Tote that wasn’t allowed out
 
We heard many scary stories as we approached Rio De Janeiro. One more colourful and dramatic than the last. So we arrived in Brazil with a little trepidation and a long list of do-s and don’t-s:

• Wear no jewellery, not even your wedding band.
• Don’t carry a phone – bring a map instead and write down any addresses or bus schedules in advance.
• Book an Uber directly to your apartment and drop your bags.
• Don’t carry any money or bank card – only bring a bit of small change.
• Ok, we understood. Have absolutely nothing on you that would make a robbery worthwhile. Sorry Tote, you’re staying at home.
• There was more…
• Leave the beach before nightfall.
• Stay in Copacabana. It is well protected by security personnel.
• Don’t stay in Copacabana, it is very touristy and therefore gets targeted by criminals. Wait… which is it?!
• Be very careful. We are from Brazil, but we have left because it is too dangerous.
• Don’t worry. It is safe. Just be vigilant.

Oh no! Which piece of advice should we pick. Are we going to survive this?
 
Well, I am happy to report: we survived!

Some of the worst situations we found ourselves in were, when a foreigner asked us in English to buy him food and got very offensive, when we didn’t. “Sorry, we carry no money”. Walking through town in 35 Degrees Celsius with no money to buy ice cream was pretty bad, too, we thought. Or listening to Christmas music, blearing out of cheap speakers, while getting sunburned on the beach. That just doesn’t feel right. And, of course, the experience of being charged 10.- Euro per person at several points on the way up to the “modern wonder of the world”, the Christo Redentor Statue. That was robbery alright. But not of the kind we had feared.
 
On the other hand, there were some really good situations, too, which are unique to Rio de Janeiro and well worth experiencing. The views from Christo Redentor for example were truly spectacular. By the time we visited, we had made a connection with several points in the city, and we could spot them all: this is where our ship arrived! Over there is our apartment. This point here is where we took the paddle boat out onto the lake. And we walked those beaches to the right at sunset (not after dark, though!). The best part of the view is seeing the huge rocks – jungle covered mountains, really – dotted all over the city. They give Rio its famously pretty skyline and butt right up against the city skyscrapers in so many places. 
 
On a visit to the botanical gardens we read that these jungles, are home to 20 000 species of plants, 990 species of birds and 270 species of mammals. That’s a bit overwhelming for someone who is only slowly coming to know Irelands 27 native mammals and 440 species of bird. But it is definitely very exotic, beautiful and incredibly diverse. It seemed pretty amazing to us, that we could pick up the most fragrant and flavoursome, little mangos under a tree, then look up at the squawking above to discover it came from a pair of toucans. We also saw a lot of jackfruit, which we had never seen before. Jackfruit is a huge spikey oval which grows on a stem straight out of the trunk of the tree. When it is fresh, it has a faint smell of pineapple, but as it rots the smell becomes rather unpleasant. This smell is inescapable in Rio, as the fruit lies on the ground uneaten everywhere. If only we knew how to eat it. After our mangoes, some more free, exotic fruit would be just perfect, since we didn’t carry money to buy snacks. As we looked around us somewhat helplessly, a very obliging family of monkeys appeared very close by, and practically taught us how to eat the fruit. They certainly seemed to like it. We were able to observe and video them for a long time, as they dug into the outer skin, then pulled away the unwanted pieces to reach the yellow flesh which was evidently very tasty. This may have been the highlight for us. We marvelled over the kind of environment, where it was normal for monkeys to climb around green forest so near the city’s jungle of concrete blocks and traffic. A city of contrasts, and extremes, which has definitely broadened our conception of what is normal and which has hopefully released us again with our horizons extended that little bit further.

Intreprid Traveller
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