Rio de Janeiro: Açaí, Praia e Grafite

Well I made it to the promised land! The land of good music, great culture, and amazing bodies. The process for getting here wasn't all too easy however. Normally the travel time from BA to RJ is about 5 hours door to door but since I flew through Sao Paulo it took about 13. In the end it was kind of worth it because seeing Sao Paulo, the world's 2nd largest city, from the sky is mind-blowing. In any case, the airport seems to be as crazy as the city itself, easily the most cluttered, unorganized airport I have ever been to in my life. Upon landing is when I realized how much Spanish I know. Portuguese is craaaaazy. Fortunately I had a good 4 hours there and was able to get to my connecting flight to Rio with plenty of time to spare.



I was hoping to have a daytime landing in Rio because the view is supposedly out of this world but I landed at about 7 and it was already dark. It's funny when you land in a new city at night because the next day when you look outside there's all this stuff you passed and had no idea. In any case, I arrived at the hostel, Casa Carioka, run by an Australian woman Alegra and her husband Fabio, who is from here. This past Saturday was their monthly Couchsurfing sponsored party so it was great timing, within less than 2 hours of landing, I had a caipirinha in hand. The party was a lot of fun, people from all over the place, and a lot of cariocas (Rio natives). I had a long day but managed to stay up until 4 am dancing, in true Brazilian fashion.

I woke up on Sunday to get started on the project I was here for in the first place, documenting graffiti artists and their work. Karina (my friend here in Rio that I met working the pubcrawl in Buenos Aires) and I headed down to Praia Vermelha (Red Beach) to meet up with Leandro, who goes by Tick (pronounced Cheeky), to take photos of him working on his newest piece. Watching graffiti artists at work is very interesting. You would never guess the finished work to look as it does based on how it starts. The piece that Tick was working on was of a face of a black kitten. There's always a story behind these artists works, sometimes good, sometimes bad. This cat apparently had been beaten by some kids in his favela so him and his friends tried to nurse it back to life, apparently staying up all night trying to help it. Unfortunately in the end it died, but now lives on on a wall.

The next day Karina and I headed to the Santa Teresa neighborhood to check out some works by some other artists that we would be working with and get some food. Santa Teresa is a very, very nice part of town, but just like everywhere in Rio, has favelas all around it. The way you get around is by a trolly that takes off from the center. The views from it are incredible. Here is a picture from the restaurant where I had my first feijao (traditional bean dish).
After going around taking pictures for a bit, we headed back to the hostel, where I was able to take a nice long nap, before heading out to the Marina da Gloria for a party hosted on a boat, which by Argentine standards cost quite a bit. The party was not too incredible, but seeing Rio from the water at night was amazing so it was well worth it in the end.

Since this was not so much a vacation but work (albeit a very fun job), Tuesday ended up being the only day of my 9 days in Rio that I got to spend entirely at the beach. Rafael, one of the guys that works at the hostel, had his day off so we went down there together. Really cool guy, been living in Brasil for about 3 years now and has perfected his portuguese, and is such a Brasilian expat that he teaches his own capoeira classes to kids in the favela. Anyways, we spent the whole day at the beach with a really nice Japanese guy in the hostel and a hilarious young Irish couple. We spent the whole day swimming, drinking beer, and lounging. Couldn't have come at a better time. One of the funniest things about Ipanema beach is the amount of vendors. One constant theme in Latin America is that because of the amount of vendors everywhere, any successful ones have developed their own style. My favorite was the abacaxi (pineapple) guy whose tactic was to go up to unwary sleeping beach patrons and screaming AAAAAAAAAAAbacaxi in their faces. I guess he's so well known that people don't get mad at him, they just laugh and end up buying a couple. It's all in good fun anyways, and I'm really happy I got a nice picture of him, he really enjoys his job. One thing I found hilarious about Rio culture is that because the beach is such an integral part to life, there is actually a salutation specifically for people on the beach, boa praia, good beach, or good beachday to you, love it! To round out the day, we headed to Lapa that night, the neighborhood where samba originated and continues to have a strong presence. It was a blast, we spent the whole night dancing in the street while local musicians gathered around a table at a bar and jammed out. Samba could quite possibly be the most beautiful music I've ever heard, and since a lot of the songs are standards, everyone knows the lyrics so it's like an interactive concert. So much fun!

Lapa is also neighborhood to the famous steps that Snoop Dogg filmed a video at and to a lot of graffiti, especially by Ment one of the artists I would be working with.

This being said, I went down during the day with my camera (definitely didn't take my camera anywhere at night...) and went around shooting his work as well as general shots of the neighborhood. It's a very beautiful neighborhood and even though I haven't been there, reminds me exactly of what Havana looks like. Very old buildings with a lot of character.

The whole way that this project came to light is that Karina volunteers in a community center in Tabajaras, a favela in Copacabana, with Tick, who teaches graffiti to the little ones. Through Tick, she got in contact with all the other artists, since they all seem to know each other, mostly from seeing each other doing work on various streets and walls. I decided to go up with her to check out the project and wait for Tick so I could go around with him in the favela and take some pictures of his work. While we waited we had some work to do: organize the library! So for an hour or so, we organized books into different sections and hung out with the kids a little bit. When Tick arrived we headed out and wandered through the maze of the favela. He has work all over the place so there was a lot for me to shoot. I really wanted to take pictures of things going on in the favela: old guys playing dominoes, kids flying kites, gangsters sitting around smoking weed, etc...but I respected the fact that I was an outsider and that cameras are not seen as very positive, so I stuck to just taking pictures of the work. Walking around the favela is amazing, it's crazy how easily he navigated around. If I had been alone I would probably still be trying to figure out how to get out! At certain points, we had to knock on people's doors to see if we could use their roofs to take pictures, no problem. Tick still lives in Tabajaras, now with some friends from all over the world. There's Alex from Cape Verde, Pablo from Colombia, and Emily from England. Their house is great, and seems like a lot of fun. We ended up having a big dinner of feijaoda (feijao but with linguica sausage) and rice that Alex made. Damn good cook! It's really funny how mellow the favela was, how the threat of something bad happening never occured in my mind. This is not to say that bad things don't happen, but if you respect the rules, seems like it's not such a bad place to be. When speaking with richer Brazilians, the favela is about the scariest, worst place one can go. And I would go as far as to say that about 99% of those people have never set foot in one. Go figure...

At this point I had only gotten to meet one of the artists, even though I had plenty of photos of the work of the other three I would be working with. Karina and I got up early Thursday morning to head out to Rio Comprido to meet with Acme, one of Rio's most prolific and well-known street artists. Taking the bus to this neighborhood, which is quite inland, felt like going to another world. Once you are away from the tourist attractions and the beach, you realize there is another Rio out there. Acme recently had a baby and has saved enough money to get his family out of the favela where he grew up. Him and his wife now live on the outskirts of another favela, in a nice little apartment with a balcony for him to do his work (he sometimes sits outside and watches bullet traces at night between the two rival factions across the way from him) and a nice studio inside as well. We spent all morning, about 6 hours, watching him create some canvases that he was preparing for an exhibition he was doing that night. Every artist has a different approach to the work and different subject matter, and Acme's is quite political. He has a massive Che Guevara mural in Tabajaras and most of his work reflects the sentiment of the government forgetting the people, discrepency between rich and poor. He could have chosen a life with the narco-traffickers, but in his own words, "picking up a spraycan was better than picking up a gun". For a lot of these artists, the streets are the best canvas and the best place to truly express themselves. Acme and his family were awesome. His dad ended up cruising by for lunch, and we all ate together. Even though I don't speak portuguese that well, I could tell how proud his dad was of what he was doing, that he has found success in art. We unfortunately had to cut the afternoon short and I wasn't able to see him finish the piece he was working on, but I'm sure it came out great. We now had a meeting with yet another artist, Cash, way across town in Tijuca. On our way out, I got my first look into the drug game, when two kids who couldn't have been older than 14 or 15 rode by on a scooter with gigantic semi-automatic rifles. Karina has spent quite a bit of time in the favelas and seen her fair share of guns, but this was the first time she had seen kids outside of the community that armed.

Upon meeting Cash, I was surprised by his appearance. Out of the four artists we worked with, he was the only one not from a favela. He was small, 20 years old, and white. None of this matters though, he is an amazing artist, and is respected by all street artists in Rio, from favelas or otherwise. His work is much more cartoony and visually enticing. He is still from the big city after all, so his work is a reflection of day to day experiences and encounters. When he started to work on a wall at a park, the lighting was bad, so I wasn't able to get any pictures of him painting, I did however go the next day to see what he had done and was bummed I didn't get to see him create it.

In the meeting with Acme, we had arranged to meet in his native Pavao so he could take me around and show me his work. The favelas here are interesting because of their proximity to rich neighborhoods. You turn the block and all of a sudden you are in a different world, loud music blaring, little kids with fireworks every 5 seconds, people selling everything you can imagine. I took a mototaxi up to the Museu da Favela to meet him, but he never showed. It is Brazil after all. In any case, the 45 minutes I spent waiting was entertaining enough just watching the world go by at the top of hill. On the way down I ran into Felipe, a local kid I met at the Couchsurfing party when I first arrived, who is from Pavao as well. When he saw me walking through the community he called me over and was like "O quê você está fazendo em o morro", translated to "what the hell you doing up here on the hill?" as in he was surprised that I was just walking around up there by myself. I told him I was looking for Acme, who everyone knows, and he said he wasn't going to be showing up. It also turns out that Acme teaches graffiti to kids in the Museum, which he started, and that Felipe is one his students. Small world.

Later in the day I was in the complete opposite of a Rio favela, as I moved into my friend Stephanie da Souza's family's apartment on the border of Copacabana and Ipanema for the weekend. What an amazing place! After moving in, it took me about 15 minutes to head to the beach and get me one of those amazing caipirinhas and go for a walk on the beach and just kind of remind myself where I was. Later that night I met up with my friend Lexi, a fellow Duck, that now lives in Rio. We hit up a fun club in Botafogo and once again got my samba fix before hitting the sack.
I got to sit down with Ment on Saturday and talk to him about his work and take photos. He is also very well known and very prolific. His style is amazing, out of all the artists, his work really spoke to me. One of his expertises is doing memorial walls for Brazilian musicians that have passed away, famous or not. One in particular is of a guy that few people knew the name of but was one of the most important Samba composers of Rio. He didn't even know the guy, but his family found the mural and sent him a picture with them posing in front of it. Anyways, very cool guy and a real inspiration. I can see BucketFeet getting some ideas from him for sure. Saturday night is Baile Funk night, so that was the plan. Funk is a very popular Rio favela music and it's standard to have the parties outdoors but unfortunately it started pouring rain so it was cancelled. We thought we were going to go so we were given the list of rules of what NOT to do at one of these parties. Even though it is a fun party, they are set up as a front to sell drugs, this means that everywhere around are gangsters. Here's the list of rules, at least for us gringos anyways:

-No cameras
-No phones
-No doing drugs
-No getting drunk
-No speaking or dancing with pretty girls (you never know who they are related to or dating...)
-No eye contact with gangsters
-No speaking during moment of silence for fallen gangsters
-No peeing on random walls, only designated ones

It would have been a great experience to just be there and see what it's really like but, hey, can't control the weather. Fabio, our friend that was going to take us to the party and who is from that favela, knew about a birthday party of a friend so we went there and in the end became the best night of the trip. The people there were so warm, so friendly and had a gatorade sized cooler full of amazing caipirinhas. They also had the barbecue going so I ate to my heart's delight: linguica, chicken, steak, miscelleneous meat products (chicken hearts, etc...). The night turned well into morning, with all of us dancing to Funk and Samba in a tiny little room, having a blast. The night was most definitely saved.

The rest of the trip, the next two days, consisted of me editing my photos and taking notes down for the blog. I did get up to Cristo and I did have as many acai's as possible before taking off. The experience was unforgettable and I am definitely going back, sooner rather that later it's looking like. There is going to be an exhibition for this project and it has been postponed for another month so since my Visa will still be valid, I'm going to try to get back up for it. This time by bus I think...

I apologize for the length of this post but it was necessary. I hope it finds you all well! Boa Noite!

For pics on facebook go here
Hi-res pics coming soon!