Rio con bRio | bRazil
P
eople make cities, and it is Cariocas, as the inhabitants of Rio are known, who make Rio. Spectacular setting aside, the images the Brazilian city conjures are of its people – exuberant and unusually attractive football fans, costumed Carnival dancers, tanned figures trailing along gorgeous beaches... Famously good-looking, Cariocas are party people: chilled, spontaneous and fun-loving. With a shrug and a smile, they take pleasure in pleasure, whether it’s lunch with friends, an afternoon at the beach or an evening of samba. There is a gritty underside to Rio, of course, in the favelas. But even here, there’s an extraordinary energy, a brazen commitment to living large.
To Cariocas, Rio is the most beautiful, most vibrant, most fun city on Earth. It is, because they have made it so. When asked to explain the hard-working, stressed lifestyle of São Paulo, Brazil’s other metropolis, Cariocas shrug. The answer is simple: São Paulo doesn’t have a beach; Rio has beaches to die for. Separated only by the rocky Arpoador promontory, Copacabana and Ipanema (with their two further extensions of Leme and Leblon) roll out more than six kilometres of wide, golden sands in the heart of the city. Every day, Cariocas take to these fabulous stretches to sunbathe, to shoot the breeze, to play games – and to admire one another. A bad day at the beach, Cariocas say, is better than a good day at the office.
This page: Cable car going to top of Sugarloaf mountain. Next page, clockwise from top left: Stairway Selaron; Copacabana Palace; Copacabana beach; Carnival parade at the Sambadrome; Niterói Contemporary Art Museum.
May 2013 Kanoo World Traveller 61