Days 68 - Internet-less in Rio

Our trip back to Rio started on a sunny afternoon, but naturally, as soon as we comfortable situated ourselves on the top deck of the ferry boat, it started pouring once again. In fact, the rain was so bad, that we had to not only run to the lower deck, but also hide in the most closed-off parts of the boat, because the water was getting inside from every possible direction. You could tell that Melanie was completely devastated – she is hydrophobic and doesn’t like adrenalin rushes, and this whole trip for her so far was one big water disaster. She has been a real trooper though, never complaining, always smiling through the most unpleasant wet moments.

Today is sad, because we are starting to lose our crew members.

Marcela is our brilliant trip organizer. She planned every step of our way and booked hotels and transportation in the most convenient way. Plus, of course, being Brazilian she speaks Portuguese, which is very helpful, as nobody here really understands English or Spanish (as I was falsely lead to believe by every Brazilian who I ever met before I actually came here). Without her we would most definitely be lost. With her we don’t have to worry about anything. And she is leaving today to spend some time with her family before she goes back to NYC!

Tom is leaving, too… He has this peculiar trait – he never travels for more than 4-5 days. It seems to always be enough for his taste. It is very strange to me: I love to stay put in one place for weeks or even, as it turned out recently, months on end, I love to make a new place my home, establish some kind of routine there, have my favorite café, my favorite hang-out place, my favorite thing in every daily life category. And Tom doesn’t seem to mind a brief encounter with a country, and – the most interesting part for me – he actually takes away a lot from those short trips. He somehow knows how to get to the very essence of a new place in only a few days, after which he moves on, back home, back to work. This is a true travel talent.

Upon arriving to Ipanema and dumping our luggage at the hotel, we went to the best churrascaria in Rio, Porcao, conveniently located around the corner from our place. It was our last supper together, and, boy, was it a great one! The meat there is absolutely spectacular, and it just keeps coming. Just in case you are not familiar with the concept of Brazilian meat restaurant culture, this is how it works. When your group is seated at the table, each person gets a round card, one side of which is green and says “Yes”, and the other side is red and says “No”. If you have your card on green, the waiters keep the various meat options coming, cutting off generous portions from the giant piece of meat on a skewer right onto your plate. At any moment in time you can turn your card to “No”, signaling that you’ve had enough… for now. Marcela says that it is very common for Brazilians to spend the entire night (from 5PM until closing, which is around 11PM or midnight) in such restaurants, taking breaks, having drinks, and then resuming the feast. In addition to meat, there is a deliciously diverse salad bar that offers sushi, salads, soups, side dishes, etc. The whole experience is superb. We stayed there from 5PM till about 9PM, by the way.

And then we were four. Tanya, Dima, Melanie, and I. After dinner, we went back to our hotel, saddened by the loss of our dear fun friends. The feeling was amplified by the obligatory rain…

Back at the hotel, Dima and I discovered Picasa (because I wanted to download some program that would help me organize my pictures - I have so many nowadays with all the traveling and what not), and Dima immediately developed a new addiction – compulsive people tagging and collage making. In the following days in Rio, the first thing he would rush to do upon returning home is overtaking my laptop and obsessively organizing and tagging photos on Picasa. It would occupy his whole evening, and every night he would go to bed way after all of us were fast asleep.

We didn’t mind this hostile take-over of the only laptop we had for the four of us, because, surprisingly, in Rio there was almost no internet either. Although we did pay for it $12/day in our hotel in addition to the daily rate for the room, it almost never worked and even when it did, the signal was so weak that we couldn’t even upload any pictures to Facebook. Honestly, I’m shocked by how little the internet connection is valued in Brazil. Nobody seems to care about it. In Cozumel, even some little cafés have free wireless. When you are on vacation, it is fine, I guess, although we are now so used to the internet that it is hard to imagine (and especially to experience) its complete absence. But I am not on vacation. I need to figure out where I’m going next after Brazil, I need to buy plane tickets, I need to do many little and big things online, and I am unable to do so. Of course, there’s always internet cafés, but this is quite different. I don’t like the concept, because here they don’t provide wireless service in those places, and you cannot use your laptop, so it’s very inconvenient anyway.

P.S. Who would have thought that cashew nuts actually come attached to a pretty delicious fruit (used in caipirinha here, of course)!