This page: A breakfast of pão de queijo (cheese bread) and a bowl of açaí with granola at Cultivar Brasil.
ONE OF RIO’S MOST STRIKING ARTISTIC TRANSFORMATIONS IS IN THE
favelas.
de queijo in Brazil.” Pão de queijos are delicious little round cheese breads; made of tapioca flour, eggs, oil, and cheese, they are soft and chewy, like a fluffier version of the Japanese mochi. We ordered a bowl of them, along with two açaí bowls, a traditional dish made of frozen and mashed açai fruit. Having tasted several dissatisfactory açaís in Ipanema (too sweet, too tart, not sweet enough), we were thrilled that this deep purplish-blue açaí was the perfect tangy mix of sweet and tart, accented with crisp granola. Down the hill, in the gritty bohemian neighborhood Lapa, we met a young carioca artist, Aline Campbell, for an art tour. Aline makes string art, intricately weaving colorful strings around nails to form geometric patterns. A few works are mounted on a rundown cement building nearby—her own form of street art. Through the grand dingy-white arches of the Carioca Aqueduct 58
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and down an alleyway is Escadaria Selarón. A candycolored mosaic staircase composed of tile fragments from around the world, the art installation, covering 215 steps, was crafted over 20 years by Chilean artist Jorge Selarón as a “tribute to the Brazilian people.” One of Rio’s most striking artistic transformations is in the favelas. Aline and I ventured into Santa Marta, an incorporated slum famed as a backdrop in Michael Jackson’s music video, “They Don’t Care About Us,” and for a cluster of rainbow-colored houses. A few years ago, Dutch artists Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn— better known as Haas & Hahn—transformed over 34 homes with a design that might best be described as an explosion of vibrant rays. A steep, labyrinthine maze of passageways leading to brick and wood homes stacked along the hillside, Santa Marta provides a glimpse of Rio in transition. As you enter, a motto scrawled on the wall reads: The rich people want peace to keep being rich, we want peace to keep us alive. The precipitous tram ride to its peak reveals stunning views of Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain) and Cristo Redentor. A great irony of Rio’s favelas is many possess the city’s best vistas. Inside the Santa Marta favela lies another world—an intricate web of crumbling stone stairways weaves past random doors, general stores, bars, a school, and the brightly striped rainbow houses. As we navigated the hillside, past decaying walls enlivened with bold murals of Rio’s landscape, a stray dog materialized and guided us for a stretch. Children playing on a dirt-covered terrace eyed my camera curiously, then coyly posed