Rio De Janeiro, 1973.
Losing all track of time in my aimless wandering, I soon found myself on a series of winding labyrinthine narrow streets in picturesque Bohemian-looking quarter, bordered on one side by the looming shadows of imposing 1930’s style office buildings. A real old-time flavor… businesslike efficient shoeshine stands, snack bars with a colorful variety of fruits and strange bottled concoctions on shelves behind ancient tiled counters.
I turned a corner and made my way up a heavily vegetated overgrown path that led up the steep hillside and was by now bursting with lively activity. There was of course the impromptu sidewalk gatherings in the shadows of the playful dusk abounded about these walkways, in front of open air bodegas. The smokey smell of grilled sardines and garlic filled the air along with the sweet/sad plaintive sound of unmistakable chorinhos mixed with mingled voices and peals of animated laughter.
Looking up into the hills I saw clusters of ornately-façaded weather-beaten colonial houses surrounded by wild haphazard vegetation and helter-skelter wormy cobblestone paths. Off on a slightly more distant hillside I saw the teeming ticky-tacky cluster of shantytowns, the inevitable and barely accessible favelas, the oddly constructed slums of Rio which dotted its verdant hills like complex ancient tattoos, unfathomable hieroglyphics on the corpse of a sacred mummy.
Walking along I came to an intersection and, looking up, I saw what looked like a long-arched aqueduct spanning a wide plaza and dividing the bustling downtown area from the old imperial neighborhood that disappeared into the lush tropical hills. Glancing up at the expansive old bridge I suddenly realized with delight that it wasn’t an aqueduct (though I’d found out later that it originally had been, back in Imperial times) but indeed a functional viaduct. I spotted an ancient toy-like blue and yellow electric streetcar crossing over it noisily, packed with passengers and raucus shirtless young children hanging from the side-rails like so many playful monkeys jumping up and down with the sheer joy of being alive.
Copyright Jonathan Shaw 2009.
lovin’ the picturesque travel blogs.