Hi….my name is Merryl and I’m a mother and grandmother who wants everyone to know the energetic wonder of eating living foods.
Arriving in Rio was exciting. We were encouraged onto a trolley car to take us to border control. At border control the foreigners queue was so long that we were sent through the priority lane and were out of there in no time.
Building the bikes on the pavement right outside the Arrivals door was an encouraging experience. Taxi driver’s and shoe-shine boys wanted to know what we were doing and were duly impressed… especially with me. I received a lot of “strong woman” compliments and pats on the shoulder.
I noticed one particular shoe shine lad called Diego, who had announced that he was from the favelas, had a good command of English. He learnt to speak the language so well from spending thirty years speaking to tourists.
Then we headed for the Ibis near Copacabana beach. Patrick set the shortest route with his google maps. We’d be there within two hours. But not!
I was so unprepared for the traffic. I was unprepared to find myself in the middle of 4 lanes of speeding cars and having to cut across to the right side amongst much hooting, brake-squealing and fist shaking.
I managed to convince Patrick to use a more cycle friendly route as I was unaccustomed to the bike, to riding on the right hand side of the road and to carrying loaded paniers on the back of the bike. Plus we had been travelling for twenty four hours.
The route took us through the favelos (slums) of Rio where we got to see life happening on the car-quiet streets. A little girl chased a cat over here, a boy was clothed in ammo over there (complete with automatic weapon), a macaco monkey on a rope, elderly men playing cards on this verandah, a group of housewives gossiping there. Military tanks and personnel stationed on many corners, youths on motorcycles calling to us “Gringos, you will die in there”.
It took us till 3pm to arrive at our hotel, having left the airport at 10am. I was ready for a good shower and to be rid of my stinky sweat soaked clothes. We rested a bit and then went in search of a Churrascaria for Patrick again. No problem for me as I could then load up on clean fresh salads.
Next day after the awesome fruity breakfast, we headed off to see Christ the Redeemer statue. It was a little easier to handle the traffic - no motorways involved. The challenge came with the elevation required to get up that mountain! The road up is brick paved and slippery in the rain. 100% chance of rain of course. I barely started up the mountain when I had to walk. I walked as fast as Patrick cycled.
I did realise that wearing my strong outdoor British raincoat was a waste of energy. I was wet from sweat inside quicker than the rain could drench me from the outside. One just embraces the constant wet. My clothes are damp and wet all the time. I wash clothes but they are as damp the following morning. I have two bags in my panier. One for wet clean clothes and one for wet unwashed clothes.
Lesson learned after two days are that drivers hoot a lot in Brazil:
A toot means go.
A toot toot means I am passing you so don’t do anything stupid and all will be fine.
A tooooooooooot means why are you on my road and in my way!!
I expect to be starving at night but I am not.
Live well and find the happy,
Merryl @ GreenSmoothie.com
P.S. The start to Christ the Redeemer - on cycle paths in the rain.
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