Riowakening

Brazil through an Australian's eyes

Why do Brazilians give hugs to complete strangers?

I was getting out of the lift in my Rio de Janeiro apartment building when the random Brazilian guy riding alongside me gave me a hug goodbye. I’d never met him before. Even more strangely he was with his wife at the time who just smiled like it was totally normal. But it wasn’t a hug hug, like the wrap your arms around the person variety you’re probably thinking of, it was a Brazilian Portuguese hug from his mouth to my ears. It was classic Carioca warmth with him saying t

If Madonna can do a Rio de Janeiro favela tour so can you

Normal one day, crazy the next. This would be the honest slogan for Rio favela tours, ripping off Queensland's era-defining "beautiful one day, perfect the next" tourism campaign. Like a dormant volcano, random eruptions of violence between rifle and grenade toting gangsters and police happen with unexpected but inevitable (in)frequency, the uncertainty in the last word really depends on your perspective. But despite these sporadic outbursts, tours of ‘pacified’ favelas, w

A gringo's guide to Rio’s Carnival, the world’s biggest party

I had my insider's guide to Rio Carnival published on news.com.au. There is nothing better than writing about things you love, and this fell 100% into that category. The words just rolled off the tongue as I drew back my experiences from my first Carnival which will forever stay crystalised in my memory as one of the best times of my life. I hope it can convince anyone who reads it to put it on their bucket list! Unfortunately, the formatting of the story has since become c

Technobloco strikes back on the streets of Rio Carnival

Technobloco? More like Cryptobloco. The legend of Technobloco spread so far and wide over the past year that it grew with as much hyped up ferocity as Bitcoin. After the hundreds of us there had one of the best nights of our lives 12 months ago, word of the magic of this underground bloco had levels of FOMO so high that thousands of people filled the street for it in the early hours of the final morning of Carnival on Wednesday. All day private messages had been running hot

Ipanema Beach acai woman Vanessa Esplendorosa can teach us all about happiness

There's a great woman who works on Ipanema Beach that is impossible to forget. Vanessa Cabral dos Santos, or Vanessa Esplendorosa as she's known on the sand, sells acai, the Amazonian berry superfood turned purple smoothie health snack which can be mixed with things like banana, granola and powdered milk. It's loved by Brazilians and has made its way to Australia and anywhere else there are hipster, health-conscious people. But she doesn't just sell it, she lives it. This l

A love letter to Rio, a gangster’s paradise

I’M living in a city where the gangs are so out of control the army has been called in to keep the peace. Like many predicted before last year’s Olympic Games, Rio de Janeiro’s hopes for a new beginning were snuffed out along with the cauldron. The economy is in recession, automatic gun fire echoes through the skies, innocent lives are being lost and Brazilian soldiers are now helping police try and keep a lid on this explosion. Instead of just guarding the main highways and

The battle for school children learning in Rio’s favelas

Back earlier in the year I had the pleasure to do a story on the work of the Mais Caminhos charity in Rio's Ipanema just around the corner from where I live. It is part of Caminhos Language School where I studied Portuguese when I first arrived in Rio last year. Besides being the city's number one ranked Portuguese school, and a great place for foreigners to make friends while they're here, they also help in the local favela called Cantagalo. More correctly they prefer to re

Getting robbed at Rio's Christ the Redeemer statue

DOES Brazil’s Christ shed a tear looking down over the sadness below him? It’s a question Rio de Janeiro’s residents ask as they gaze up to what has become the most dangerous wonder of the world. Last Friday the steep 4km Corcovado jungle trail to the giant Christ the Redeemer statue was closed the day after a Polish man was stabbed, one of 58 people to have been robbed along the trail in just 10 days. More than 150 people have been robbed this year. Young, armed criminals f

20 Brazil and Rio tips for travellers visiting for a holiday

If you’re thinking of coming on a holiday to Brazil and Rio it's a great life choice to make, believe me. There can be a lot to get your head around as a tourist though so here are some travel tips and advice for anyone that wants to jump on a plane for a Brazilian holiday. Follow these and you'll thank me later. 1. COME! Brazil’s reputation is bipolar, it’s either known for out-of-control gang violence and petty crime or for its crazy culture, beautiful nature and even mor

Why Brazil needs Uber and Uber needs Brazil

Hardly a country has needed Uber so much as Brazil. Between its huge traffic jams, chasm of social inequality, tumbling economy and ripoff taxi drivers, the nation of over 200 million people had been crying out for disruption. It has exploded in popularity here and is now the phone app’s third largest market after the USA and India and following the same narrative which has unfurled wherever the ride-sharing service has flourished, the taxi industry has declared war on it an

"A good criminal is a dead criminal": Rio's civil war

"A good criminal is a dead criminal." That’s the meaning of the Portuguese words “um bandido bom é um bandido morto” on the lips of people from one end of Brazil to the other. But it’s not often it’s caught on camera, City of God style, where police officers shoot criminals dead, expediting the court process and laying down a death penalty not allowed in the country’s constitution. Machine gun fire between police officers and drug traffickers outside a high school in Morro d

Technobloco, Carnaval, Rio, Friends and Freedom

Ambushing the Sambódromo with hundreds of other Brazilian Carnaval party animals was one of the best moments of my life. The epicentre of Brazil’s biggest celebration just days earlier now lay empty of the floats, colours, beats and beauties which had danced through it before thousands of the happiest people in the world. At Technobloco it was our turn to take it over and Rio’s streets to have so much life-affirming fun in a way I can’t imagine you can find in too many othe

Rio de Janeiro is like the Berlin of South America

Heading to a music night in the back of an Uber through Centro’s grungy streets dotted with dilapidated, graffitied-covered buildings, I couldn’t help but think ‘Rio is like the Berlin of South America’. These two cities aren’t the the richest in their countries, but they're the coolest, and if walls could talk, oh the stories each could tell. Rio is about as edgy as cities come, a word also synonymous with Berlin, and they achieve it in their own unique ways underpinned by

Saudades for the beautiful Brazilian beach town of Buzios

As a Christmas orphan I hopped on a bus to find other family-less travellers in beautiful Buzios. Along with backpackers from the hostel we chased beaches for days across this laid-back beach town. It feels like it’s a million miles from Rio, but in actual fact it’s only a few hours. The standard of living here is on a whole other level to Rio, it blew my mind walking down the main street at night seeing giant glass shopfronts not covered in shutters and bars. Homes similar

Sydney lockout laws: A bad problem or a Baird problem?

I've been living in Rio for most of the year, a city which suffers from some pretty bad problems. But for all its issues it doesn't suffer from Baird problems - the imagined kind of our conservative NSW Premier, like city streets full of drunken louts apparently too dangerous to walk down at night. In Rio the issues police deal with are real and in-your-face and luckily for the law-abiding, fun-loving people of this great city, of which there are many, its politicians don

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