On the Upbeat
Welcome to My World ...
Brazil
My first trip to Brazil was about Rio's beach areas. I even found the only ocean-front hotel perched between Ipanema and Copacabana and I could watch surfers right from my room.
Nearby were buildings with walls covered with whimsical art. And then I began to learn the history here.
It seems that after Pedro Alvares Cabral claimed this land for Portugal in 1500, his explorers came upon what they thought was a river and named the place River of January (Rio de Janeiro). But of course what they sailed into was instead Brazil's second largest bay.
Surrounded by tour guides I got an introduction to Rocinho, Rio's largest favella (housing 150,000 mostly poor Blacks) on hills overlooking the bay.
Hot. hot, hot and quite an experience wending our way up, up and around winding paths with music blaring from speakers on electric poles and with no cars, just Harleys as taxis plus swarms of tiny shops in narrow spaces among all the improvised living quarters.
If you ask me, the secret to Brazil is a real feel for it plus a dauntless tour guide. Without Marcelo and later Joel (say it like noel), I would not have experienced such things as the best and least expensive feijoada (delicious Brazilian stew) or Cachoeira, where Portugal plowed their first sugar plantation. (Perhaps the major cause for the slave trade to shift into overdrive.)
Or the nearby ancient bridge that seemed to play a clanking steel tune as we drove over it, or a sugar mill abandoned a century ago.
Or a Candomble (Africa-based religion) ceremony with entrancing drumming, dancing and chanting in Yoruba language. (No pictures allowed.) Or, indeed, staying in a homey Barra beach area apartment instead of a hotel room. (Remember, DON'T put the t-p in the toilet!)
Or the nearby ancient bridge that seemed to play a clanking steel tune as we drove over it, or a sugar mill abandoned a century ago.
Or a Candomble (Africa-based religion) ceremony with entrancing drumming, dancing and chanting in Yoruba language. (No pictures allowed.) Or, indeed, staying in a homey Barra beach area apartment instead of a hotel room. (Remember, DON'T put the t-p in the toilet!)
And oh the music! Especially in the Pelourhinho (historic slave pillory) of Salvador da Bahia. 
Around every corner jazz and reggae and Olodum's soul-stirring drumming. With nearby samba schools ever rehearsing for Carnaval. And on Thursday free live music and dancing on cobblestones in Teatro de Jesus surrounded by ornate 17th Century churches.
And oh yes, I'll never forget the lady who took me by the hand through a gate to the grounds of a music conservatory with busts of the famous plus a fabulous bay view.
