Colonial Road through the forest

The Colonial Road to Petropolis
by Deborah Freire
Translated by Tom Moore


On a previous journey, my gringo boyfriend and I discovered
Vila Inhomirim, the final stop for line 5 (via Penha and Caxias) of
the train which leaves from Central Station in downtown Rio, and we
heard of the colonial road, built by slaves in the early eighteenth
century, which for years was the principal access to Petropolis,
seeing countless visits by the viceroy, and later the emperor.

We were amazed to hear that one could still go up that side of the
valley on foot, indeed only on foot, since the road was long since
impassible by horse and buggy, let alone by car. At most one might be
able to go up it on a motorcycle, and even then there would be
difficult stretches – you would have to be skillful and macho.

As neither my boyfriend or I are "bikers", and what we enjoy is going
up mountains on foot, we decided to return once again to Vila
Inhomirim and walk up the colonial road. By now of course, the trek by
train was old hat. Subway to the Central Station, electric train to
the station at Saracuruna, and finally a diesel train with four
passenger cars to Vila Inhomirim. From Rio to Vila Inhomirim is two
hours.

We got to Vila Inhomirim by 11 AM, amidst a incredible din of students
from a local elementary school, who were returning from a parade down
the line which had been celebrating, a few days late, September 7 –
Independence Day for my beloved Brazil. We had craned our heads out
the windows to see the parade of school bands on the street which ran
parallel to the railroad tracks.

It is always a pleasant surprise to arrive in Vila Inhomirim, a real
oasis and easy on the eyes and other senses, after the train has
passed through so many poor and frankly ugly spots. It puts a smile on
your face, and gives you a mystified but happy feeling. We made a
point of refueling with lunch at the Pensa¯o da Vovó Dui, where we had
stopped on our last trip, since we had heard that there was no place
to eat on the road (or that if there were, our innards would regret
it).

Replete, we set out on our expedition – intrepid explorers carrying
two bottles of water, two sandwiches, and full of curiosity, and a
certain amount of irresponsibility, since, in fact, we had not talked
with anybody who had actually walked up the whole road, and could give
us details on the trek. We had no idea of exactly how long the road
was, nor the time that it would take to walk it. I was psychologically
prepared for something like seven hours on the trail. We started up a
little before noon, the sun high in the sky, the eternal mountains
before us, and a rather steep climb beginning to unfold.

Just a few minutes up the road we had the good fortune to meet
Antonio, a guy about fifty or so, in enviably good shape, who was born
and raised in Raiz da Serra (the original name of Vila Inhomirim). He
knew the road well, went up it to Petropolis frequently, and offered
to accompany us up the road to the point where the old cog railway
crossed it. I, being a city girl, a suspicious carioca, was more than
a little skeptical, but Tom is "peace and love" kind of guy, who
believes in the good will of others (of course he is right about
this), thought meeting Antonio was a stroke of luck, and happily
accepted his offer.

Something quite sensible and intelligent, in fact. The road, which
started out as a broad thoroughfare well-paved with ancient stones,
got narrower and narrower, and after a few kilometers, was little more
than a trail with some of the paving stones peeping out, going up
through a dense Atlantic forest, damp and cool. We were going up past
breathtaking walls of stone, with an impressive variety of trees. Our
guide was continually showing us one medicinal herb after another,
such as arnica, good for bruises and contusion, assa-peixe, used in
treating bronchitis and respiratory problems, azedinha, a sort of
clover which was good for the heart and circulation (and which had a
flavor which was quite tart and agreeable), wild raspberries (I
confess, that as a total urban paranoid, I was scared to eat one and
drop dead on the spot. But I did, and they were delicious!),
cipó-cravo (clove-vine), and so forth. His knowledge was impressive,
both in relation to the herbs, and to the history of the road over the
years. He told us about torture and arrests made in the forest during
the military dictatorship, about bandits, showed us the remains of
slave quarters from the plantations during the Empire, the graves of
slaves who died during the construction of the road (stones marked
with a simple cross), as well as legends, such as the forty-foot long
snake which swallowed, without chewing, a little girl who was passing
through the forest, and whose father, going to look for her, was
devoured by the same snake. The "monster" was said to have been
captured, killed, and then sliced into steaks of 40 cm in diamenter. I
couldn't help asking:
"Did you actually see the snake, or did you hear about it?"
and Antonio answered: "I saw it!"

Well, I had to respect the story, even if I had my doubts, and after
all, better safe, than sorry. And Antonio reminded us to keep our eyes
out, so as to avoid encounters of the snaky sort, which might be
painful and poisonous. Snakebite was definitely not something I wanted
on my CV.

There were three spots on the trail where we might well have taken a
wrong turn without our guide. The first was about 30 minutes up the
trail, where the road seems to divide, and it is hard to say which is
the mainstream without having been up the road before (go up the hill
to the right, rather than down to the left). The second is much
farther up, where the road comes out into a clearing. Turning right,
as we did following Antonio's lead, we came to a little water fall,
with a series of pools of cool and crystalline water, good to drink,
or for a refreshing dip. At this point we got our first really good
views, since we had been closed in previously by the forest. A very
nice spot, with lots of green, and plenty of rock faces, vertical
walls almost oppressive in their size and strength. A place of
striking beauty.


Heading back in the opposite direction (where we would have headed
turning left), on the way up the hill once more, we were treated to
more marvelous views, and began to glimpse, beyond the peaks, the
Baixada Fluminense, and parts of the city of Rio de Janeiro.

After about two hours on the road, we came to our third turning point,
an almost civilized (though unpaved) road, where you could drive a
car, and which had once been the bed of the cog railway that went up
the hill to Petropolis. The train had been made up of a little
locomotive with a boiler fed with wood, which pulled two relatively
light cars, made of wood, with benches for passengers. Once we arrived
in Alto da Serra, a neighborhood of Petropolis (the highest point on
our trek) we passed by a park which included as decoration as planters
in the shape of a train, and even two of the original cogs. Without
the cogs (gears which pulled the train up the mountain) it would have
been impossible to ascend such a steep stretch (the little train that
goes up Corcovado is an electrically-powered cogtrain). Even with the
cog, Antonio told us about a terrible accident, about forty years ago,
when the train fell off one of the bridges, shattering there below.
Now there are only memories of the old train, making its smoky way up
amidst spectacular vistas.

A few more minutes up the old railbed, and we came to our first
bridge, quite a long way up over the stream that passed below. We were
already in the city of Petropolis, and a long way up. We could see
practically the entire city of Rio laid out beneath us in a panorama –
Sugarloaf, Corcovado, Tijuca Peak, Gavea Rock, and almost all of the
Baixada. I had never had such an ample view of the city.

Shortly we came to the second bridge, longer, and much higher up.
Looking down it was impossible not to feel a certain vertigo, and
think that it was hard to even see how far you could fall. The second
bridge looks quite old – all in stone, with arches, which made us
wonder if it dated to the period of the colonial road, rather than the
railroad. It was impossible not to stop for photos and admire the
scenery, and to have a chance to bid farewell to the forest, as we
passed by the first houses, and made our way into Petropolis.

With our arrival at the outskirts, we made a quick stop to have a
refreshing sacolé. If you have never had one, it is a sort of
home-made Popsicle frozen inside a little plastic bag. Technique: bite
off the end of the bag, and suck out the frozen liquid as it thaws.
The sign by the house had a huge variety of flavors (it turned out
that only a few were available), and we opted for chocolate – a little
watery, but at 25 cents each they were cold and tasty.

Having arrived at a paved road (cobblestones, not asphalt), it was
time to bid farewell to our guide, and continue into the center of the
city. We gave our guide a tip, which he was happy to accept. He had
shown us the way without a mention of lucre, but it was certainly
welcome. A great guy!

We made our way up the steep and curving streets toward the center,
but first sat for a few minutes gazing back down the valley, legs
tired, and sense of victory in our hearts. In another hour we would be
in a restaurant in the center, enjoying a well-deserved strawberry ice
cream sundae. Our trip had been rewarding, with stupendous views,
exuberant nature, waterfalls, and stories. But my body was ready to
take it easy, and I was happy to sink into the padded seat of an
air-conditioned bus back to Rio.


Tips:

Buy the combined ticket for the Metro and Train for R$3.30. From Rio
to Vila Inhomirim is a two hour trip.

****

Lunch at Vovo Dui is only R$3.50. R. Fábrica de Papel, no. 7, Vila Inhomirim
(Raiz da Serra). Telephone: 3666 5151.

****

It is a good idea to bring along some sources of quick energy
(chocolate bars, granola bars), and isotonic beverages. Even though
you are not mountaineering, the jaunt is still a good workout, and you
don't want to get dehydrated, something that might be dangerous, and
disagreeable to say the least.

****

Sacolés are for sale at one of the first houses on the left after the
second bridge, for only 25 cents. The menu included flavors such as
doce de leite, leite
condensado, avocado, pineapple, mango, etc., but when we passed bay
not all of them were available. Not the best sacolé in the world, but
after a hike up hill something sweet and cold hits the spot.
Recommended.

****

Buses from Petropolis to the Novo Rio bus station leave every thirty
minutes, on the hour and half-hour. Tickets range from 11 reais to
12.50 (with air conditioning), the latter a comforting luxury after 4
hours hiking.

uphill to Petropolis

We trained out to Vila Inhomirim yesterday AM and after a brief lunch started walking up the old colonial road to Petropolis, quite a substantial vertical ascent. We had never talked to anyone who had walked up the thing or who had accurate info about how long it would take, the route, etc. As it happened we lucked into a local guide who, as we walked by, asked us if we had been up it before, and told us he would walk along with us.

Antonio seems to be about 50 (or maybe mid-fifties) and is in excellent shape, as he seems to walk up and down the road regularly, even at night! He was amazingly full of medicinal lore, and found us some wild raspberries off the path. It turned out to be only about two hours brisk walk up some very steep going (I thought to myself that every stone on the
road had been put down by black slave labor). You can see how the road was at the bottom end - it doesn't take too long for it to get overgrown to a trail. At the top it joins the former route of the cog railway which used to go up from Vila Inhomirim to Petropolis (something our guide remembers). It had a very small wood-stoked engine. At the top there is a park in the former right of way which has some original cogs and a piece of the cog rail.

The weather was amazingly fine, blue sky, with a very stiff wind up at the top
in the mountains.

A dozen pix are at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomazmoore/

O Bar do Kaká ( Kaká's Bar)

O Bar do Kaká

by Deborah Freire
translated by Tom Moore

My boyfriend Tom lives at the bottom of Dona
Marta (the favela in Botafogo), but in a building that is still part of the “asphalt”, not the slum. He is a flutist, and sits in now and then with a group that plays in front of the bar/butcher shop across the street, has been up in the morro (once), and people certainly recognize his face nearby.

And so on Friday I heard an unusual invitation:

“Do you know Dona Marta? Shall we walk up to the entrance of the favela?”

I was a little taken aback by the idea:
“Now, at night?”
“Why not?”
“OK, let’s go!”

And so we went. We walked up the street a little way, just far enough to get to the point where the road stops, and the first staircase heading up into the morro begins. From there one can see another landing, a few of the houses/shacks, and Kaka’s Bar (Bar do Kaká), not open for business yet, but with the opening date already set. We stopped there for a few moments, looking around, making some observations to each other, typical tourists. But these moments were fleeting. After a minute or two a woman who was heading up the stairs said:
“Hi, can I help you? Are you looking for someone? Going somewhere?”
Tom answered in his fluent Portuguese (with a gringo accent, of course):
“I was showing her Dona Marta, because she hasn’t been her before. I used to play with Rodrigo Simões who grew up here - do you know him?”
She continued to chat with us, and said to a guy who was walking down:
“Rodrigo...? I don’t know him... hey, Kaká, do you know
Rodrigo?”

This was Kaká of the Bar do Kaká. A young man, twenty-three years old, with two kids and another one on the way, Christian name, Cassiano, and who goes by Kaká.
A really nice guy, very outgoing, he came over, introduced himself, and began to chat with us.
“Hi, I’m Kaká and that’s my bar. Yes, I think I know Rodrigo. But did you want to talk with him? I am going down to my dad’s bar to eat some carne de sol with
aipim, the best in the world! Want to come drink a beer?”

I had kept my mouth shut up to that point, listening attentively (but passively) to all the conversation. As my hair, skin and eyes are quite light (not very characteristically Brazilian), he asked:
“Where are you from?”
Me: “From Jacarepaguá” (translator’s note: this is a neighborhood in Rio which sits in the area inland from Barra Tijuca, and is surrounded by two mountain ranges. About an hour by bus from Zona Sul, if the traffic is light.)
“But what country?”
“Brazil! I am a carioca, pô!”
And Kaká guffawed and said: “And here I am wasting my English!!!”

We walked down with Kaká to his father’s bar. Don’t think of a bar in the sense of a building, door, chairs inside, etc. etc. The bar is a movable cart (substantial) which can be closed up at night, but the customers sit or stand on the street. We sat down at a metal table on the street (no sidewalk this far up) with other people from the area, all friends of Kaká. We met Celo and Márcio (brothers),
Sofia (Kaká’s second wife, already very evidently pregnant, with a big belly), Pica-pau, Francisco (who worked at the bar), Seu João (Kaká’s father), Caetano (a guy wearing a shirt of the Flamengo Football Club, known as Gringo because of his unusual blue eyes and light skin), and Cassiane.

Cassiane deserves her own paragraph. She is the little four-year-old daughter of Kaká - beautiful, with curly hair, a charming smile, dimpled cheeks, who left us completely captivated. She kissed, played, laughed and was a ray of sunshine.

As far as the carne de sol com aipim is concerned, I never, repeat, NEVER, ate one so good. Fit for kings! The beer, Skol and Antartica, was ridiculously cold. The music was a mix of forró, samba, funk, and hip-hop, both Brazilian and American music. The chat was entertaining, relaxed, and “alto astral” (Brazilian for “great state of mind”. I felt flattered, since I was sitting with the men, something not so common, as I could see that the men and women were distinctly separate in their conversations. We were invited to the grand opening of the Bar do Kaká the following week, with live pagode, free sangria for the ladies, and fireworks at midnight!

After countless beers and plates of carne de sol, we realized it was time to head home for the evening. We asked how much we owed, and they wouldn’t let us pay! A few hours before I had never walked up to Dona Marta, and suddenly we were guests of honor. As Tom says (quoting the poet Manuel Bandeira), "aqui sou amigo do Rei..." (Here I am a friend of the King).

(http://www.releituras.com/mbandeira_pasargada.asp)

We went home happy, holding hands, smiling, enjoying a magical, simple, warm and unforgettable evening. I invite all my readers: check out o Bar do Kaká.

Women’s Liberation and Washing Machines

Women’s Liberation and Washing Machines

by Deborah Freire
translated by Tom Moore


I have a deep and abiding interest in how people behave and its relation to the human soul. And this is even more the case when it has to do with women, since, in addition to my innate curiosity about other people’s lives, I am an actual specimen, and am intrigued by any thing that can shed a little light on my existence, that can make my own life more comfortable and intelligible.

And so, with this goal in mind, I had a chat with Grandma, something I do frequently. My grandmother is one of my favorite sources of knowledge, because she is always accessible, and at the same, represents a distant and almost fantastic reality.

My grandmother has been a widow for more than twenty years. She never had another man after her husband died, which is something that seems unimaginable for women of my generation. But two or three years ago she had a beau. The talked on the telephone, lunched together, became friends, but nothing more than that. I was mystified. He was a respectable gentleman, intelligent, well-mannered. A good match. I wanted to understand her motives. What led her to not be interested in going further?

After she cleared up a few points, I could begin to understand my grandmother’s logic, and that of a good portion of the women of her generation. The romance went no further, simply because it had gotten to the point where sex was inevitable. She knew that. He knew that. But she could only accept sex if she were to get married. Please note, this only has to do with her case. It wouldn’t make a difference to her if I had sex outside the context of a marital relationship. But for her, the notion is simply unthinkable.

So we moved onto more investigations and queries. Was he a "cafajeste" (a heel)? He didn’t want to get serious? He didn’t want to get married? Not at all. He DID want to get married. He wanted a friend, to invest in a stable and companionate relatioship.

And here I felt stymied. After all, didn’t she want something serious? didn’t she want sex with commitment? Well, in reality, what she didn’t want was the commitment. She didn’t want to live together. Didn’t want to have to get used to different snores. No new weird habits. Didn’t want to have to lose her individuality. And most importantly, she DIDN”T WANT TO HAVE TO WASH HIS UNDERWEAR.

So now we have come to the crux of the problem, the principal point: for her generation, sex=washing underwear. The right to pleasure is bought at the cost of periodic washing of the undergarments of the partner in question. To exculpate your sin, you have to spoil your nails. As she DIDN’T WANT to wash underwear, she couldn’t afford to give herself the right to have sex. She gave up on it simply so that she wouldn’t suffer. Since her pleasure seems like an ill-gotten gain, something that is not hers by right, her choice is easy, and seems obvious. She completely ignores another possibility, that of having pleasure WITHOUT washing underwear, because that would mean believing in the RIGHT to pleasure, something that women of her day did not have. At the most they had a temporary contract.

I think that feminism, the movement for women’s liberation, for the recognition of women’s rights and desires, must have an intimate connection with the invention of more modern washing machines. The less time that women spent washing the intimate garments of their partners/husbands, the more time they came to have for themselves, and for the discovery that yes, they could and ought to have pleasure. With the modernization of washing machines, my God, even men can wash their own briefs, saving important, precious time for their relationship with their significant other.

We owe a great deal to the inventors of the washing machine - our modern possibility of being independent, mistresses of our own desires, of our sex, and of our destiny. We ought to drink a toast to the buttons, the detergent, the fabric softener, our soft, smooth hands, to our relationships based on love and not o convenience. And ought never to forget those who came before us, who grew up in another reality, who believed what they were told, and who, today, simply cannot get free of underwear and obligations, whether real or imaginary, which oppress and dominate.

Paterias - translated from Alvin's blog

PATERÍAS (FAGGERIES)

by Alvin Figueroa
translated by Tom Moore

Language, in as much as it is social semiotics, almost always shows the joins of its own ideological construction, although not intentionally. And so we presently have an entire discourse involved in hunting down the phonemes which we use in our daily conversation. The agenda of political correctness constitutes a desire for sociolinguistic revisionism, since there is no tool which is more indicative of the prejudices which we harbor within than the very language which we use to communicate with each other. In other words, when we open our mouths we put our foot in it, and not infrequently we have to apologize for what we say, that is, if we are even aware of the problem.

In his essay entitled Bad Hair, my dear friend Luis Rafael Sánchez shows, with his usual biting sarcasm, how racism in Puerto Rico articulates a “category belonging to morality or pathology” in order to describe the hair on the heads of half the population. The word which articulates this is that which at any moment of any utterance unfolds the social prejudices which the language has been constructing for centuries. This is the case for the adversative conjunction pero (but), the grammatical function of which is to denote a concept which is in contradistinction to a previous one. Familiar expressions such as "Es negro, pero decente (he’s black, but decent)" or "Es estadista, pero buena gente (he’s a statehood supporter, but a good guy)", mark the semantic negativity which we attach to certain adjectives which have become nouns, or to certain words which we use in our daily lives which stem from a very characteristic view of society. In this way, language connotes an exclusionary space for some segments of our population. The process goes on with various group: Cubans, patos, marimacha, Dominicans; and the ideological value assigned to the word gets sealed.

The register which our languages occupies when it speaks of sexuality or gender is something which deserves our scrutiny as well. In the same way that the language generates a complete racist ideology, the space of sexuality is constantly the oboect of abuse: abuse which is trying to enforce the discourse of power. For example, in the popular diction of Puerto Rico a place which is disordered or disorderly is called a crical. It does not take much analysis to see the phallocratic voice at work here, as crica is the usual and vulgar word to refer to the vagina. If language is a patriarchal construct, as feminist theory affirms, it must respond to the interests of the ideology which supports it. Other voices, those not spoken by the phallocentric order, are those which are trying to dismantle this millenial mechanism.

As a homosexual man I am concerned with the exclusions which take place when the heterosexist voice tries to “define” me. In our country, when some object which is used daily is damaged, we say that "salió pato" (went queer). The person who inhabits my body shudders with this connotation of “defective, broken, useless” which names me. In and of itself the word pato (duck) dehumanizes and degrades me, and marks my otherness within the reach of a sexually conservative society. (To what degree the term is based on Classical Latin patichus, which denoted effeminate men in ancient Rome remains to be investigated. At any rate, if in fact the Puerto Rican vernacular refers to the characteristic gait of the bird, the image means to ridicule a large percentage of the population).

Feminism has contributed a discourse which works toward liberation. And yet the linguistic codes which (de)form us continue to reduce us and almost exterminate us. When I think about how the media in Puerto Rico, particularly television, try to “represent” us, I laugh, but the bitter laugh of one who knows he has been silenced. If I try to think back and recall how we appear to the imagination, I can only recall the ridiculous characters of Serafín Sinfín, Avelino Plumón, and Lalo Camacho.

The “truth” spoken by power, by the TV media, in this case, ridicules and scorns us. The image which they have created and authorized for us is one which invites and provokes derision, so that official heterosexism can legitimate its discourse. And scorn relegates us to the margins, since every thing which has to do with an other sexuality, is made into an affront to the social order.

Here in El Norte, in America, the media do what ever they can to ridicule us. Even in such a popular series as Will and Grace, Jack, the hysterical queen, is the one who keeps rating high for the network which produces the show. The public is looking for easy laughs at the homosexual’s expense. We still have a long way to go. In Hollywood, only Philadelphia can be counted as a serious film, thanks to the character acted masterfully by Tom Hanks. But once again, the character is dying of AIDS, and the connotation continues to be negative.

Every summer, during the gay parade which celebrates the Stonewall Revolt of 1969 - the point of departure for the Gay Liberation Movement in the U.S. - the media focus only on that which is over the top in our community, as if the heterosexual community did not have its own excesses. The difference is that the gay community does not keep its diversity in the closet. But the media doesn’t get it - and all that the yellow press sees is the SM and transvestite portions of the gay community. The rest of the gay world - gay fathers, lesbian mothers, the various religious and professional organization which march down Fifth Avenue in solidarity are invisible to the media and the public it reaches. And the struggle continues.
The discourse of power tries to erase us. Pat Robertson, one example among many, demonizes us and repudiates us. The Christian right (in its various denominations - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, and even the Society of Friends, or Quakers, of which I am a member) wants to dispose of us, throw us out with the trash. Fascism, which is growing in this post 9/11 country, has a Hitlerian agenda of exclusion and annihilation. Violence against us is growing, and we are far from possessing those rights which are ours in Spain, Belgium, Canada and the Netherlands, though the heroic state of Massachusetts is leading the entire nation.

It is precisely in places like New York and San Francisco where we are most attacked and murdered, because our presence is visible. The patriarchal orthodoxy falls when my voice is heard, when I have my say; and so the constituted power punishes me. The Republican discourse which tries to annihilate me is spoken with the force of a recalcitrant neo-nationlism. The order of the day in the U.S. is exclusión, and as Puerto Rican, socialist, Quaker, gay, I have various trenches from which i have to defend my voice.

In this confrontation we need strategies to attack the language of power. My gay Hispanic friends here in the U.S. call Christopher Street in the Village (the New York gay district) patolandia, another Puerto Ricanism which has force in the center of the world. Following in the foot steps of the English-speaking Queer Nation, we have appropriated the word to shift its meaning and make it our own. This is not the first time that a political movement is assaulting the language of power, capturing its codes for the benefit of the voice of the periphery. The pink triangle which the homosexuals wore in the Nazi concentration camps has been converted into our symbol of liberation. What exterminated us in Austria, Poland and Germany here gives us life and a feeling of community.

My former significant other is named Donald and, why not, my friends call him El Pato Donald. There’s no problem, and they are not parodying Walt Disney.This is not a magically colored world, and the word “gay” itself, which in English means “merry”, is self-contradictory for many of us. The statistics concerning adolescent gays who commit suicide, unable to deal with the hate and ostracism which they suffer, are alarming. It is a matter of survival; of assaulting the word and giving it another hue. Thuse we can celebrate our identity, and end the prejudice which is millennia old.

For the moment I will say that la nación pata (Queer Nation) is articulating its language ...en español. With the works of Manuel Ramos Otero and Carlos Rodríguez, to mention only two of the best-known examples. para tomar sólo dos ejemplos conocidos. Our literary discourse is already classical; it possesses an aesthetic dimension.

(This article, with some changes, was originally published in the "Tertulias de aquí" section of Diálogo, Puerto Rico).

more from Deborah's blog

By Train to Vila Inhomirim
by Deborah Freire
translated by Tom Moore

I suffer from an ailment common to a large number of cariocas: cultural ennui. This is what you get when you feel like there are no more interesting places to go. We have that feeling that “I’ve seen everything that there is to see”, “there’s nothing to do......”. And when there actually is something really interesting, we run into that problem common to almost all Brazilians: lack of funds.
But we can still turn up new and creative ways to amuse ourselves, not just cutting through that tedium, but broadening our awareness and our pleasure. All at very reasonable prices.
It’s a big help, in this case, to have a gringo boyfriend who is a little bit crazy. He will give that push necessary to take a look at your new options, will have a map of the whole state of Rio, will know all of the train lines, what the prices are, when the trains leave. (Please note: the gringo in question is taken: please find your own.)

Well, in this spirit of adveture, we embarked on a delicious trek. Destination:
Vila Inhomirim. We planned our journey with a brief visit to the web site of Supervia, the company responsible for rejuvenating the suburban trains in Rio de Janeiro. We picked line 5, departing from Central Station (Central do Brasil), located on Avenida Presidente Vargas in downtown Rio.

We weighed anchor in Botafogo in late morning, heading to the station by subway. We waited there for about 20 minutes and caught the train, which on its journey passes through Bonsucesso, Olaria, Ramos, Penha, etc., not to mention Vigário Geral, Duque de Caxias, Gramacho e Campos Elíseos. I confess that I felt a certain trepidation at the itinerary, since in my imagination, filled with phantoms of what I had heard and read in the news, I could visualize a real-life shoot-em-up in the open air. Readers, please, forgive my prejudices and preconceived notions, but I had notions of bandits, nasty-looking characters, dark and dangerous- looking places. Not at all! The train was full of working-class folks, people going home, many going to visit friends and family. We were certainly the only tourists on the train, but that didn’t seem to be a problem.
If you are not used to train travel, the trip is worth it all by itself. The train is lively, with people conversing, complaining, telling stories, an infinite number of vendors walking from car to car, so that you can buy practically anything: yogurt jujubes (very tasty!), paçoquinhas (peanut candy, R$ 0,10 each!), filled chocolates, batteries, coffee filters, envelopes, nail files, sweet popcorn (the sort that comes in a pink package, Pipocas Come Come, R$ 0,50 a bag!!), water, beer, popsicles, ten lollipops for a real... not a dull moment on the long trip.
The train makes its way through places where you see people crossing the tracks, children flying kites, riding bicycles, playing ball, clothes hung out to dry, horses grazing in the tall grass by the train line. They are places that are quite poor, by and large, but they radiate a liveliness, an apparent cheerfulness and tranquillity, that makes us rethink our notions about life.
The electric train from Central Station only goes as far as Saracuruna. There you changes trains, moving to a smaller one with a diesel locomotive, giving you the sensation that you are leaving modern civilization behind little by little. The stretch between Saracuruna - Vila Inhomirim - Saracuruna is free, even if you didn’t pay to come from Rio. The stations beyond Saracuruna are all open, and anyone can get on without paying a cent.
As we moved closer to our final destination, we noticed a significant change in the scenery and climate. We were approaching the mountains of the Serra (we had left the city of Rio far behind), houses were starting to be few, we were in the country side, and the temperature had dropped quite a bit. As you take in the mountain scenery you are likely to see waterfalls cascading down the rocks in the distance. You can also see people flying by parachute, and landing in the fields by the train line.
What you see when you get to Vila Inhomirim, about two hours after leaving Central Station, is surprising. Vila Inhomirim is surrounded by moutains (it was formerly known as Raiz da Serra (Root of the Mountains), for obvious reasons, since it sits at the bottom of the mountain where Petropolis is at the top). One can see a typical back-country church (Nossa Senhora da Imaculada Conceição), a colorful little bridge over a babbling brook with a stony bed, and a wall from the old railroad station. And you are only 17 km from Petrópolis. You can get all this way from the center of Rio for only R$ 1,65, the cost of your ticket!
Before we explored any further, we chatted with the engineer and conductor of the train, so we would be certain to get back for the last train, which, it turned out, was leaving at 5:20, which gave us about three hours for wandering.
By this time our stomachs were making their desires known, asking for something healthy and palatable. We did a brief reconnoitre, which didn’t take long, since the town is quite small, with only one main street and a few secondary ones. We went by a few botecos but were intrigued by the sign directing us to the Pensão da Vovó Dui. Five minutes was enough to bring us to this simple but honest-looking establishment, with impeccably white walls, and extremely reasonable prices (R$ 3,50 per prato feito), with various items on the menu, such as roast beef with mashed potatoes, chicken strogonoff, macaroni, etc. We opted for the comida mineira and were treated to two plates with enormous helpigs of rice, black beans, sausage with onions, a boiled egg, couve à mineira (collard greens minas style), torresmo (pork cracklings), and fried bananas! To wash it all down we asked for lime soda (Convenção brand). Total for the check: R$ 7,50! Amazingly little! And 600 ml of soda for only 50 cents!

As we took a break at Pensão da Vovó Dui we had a chance to chat with Monica, the cook responsible for the ample and tasty meal, and with Reinaldo, the owner of the establishment, who gave us some valuable tips about local sights. He told us that we could catch a bus or a combi right at the corner and go up the mountain to Petrópolis in about 40 minutes. We also heard about the colonial highway, built by slaves, where the Emperor D. Pedro) would go up by carriage to his city (Petrópolis). The road is still there, intact, and can only be traversed on foot, since it is not paved with asphalt, and the paving stones are too irregular and slippery for automobiles), heading up the mountain through the Atlantic forest. Something which is on our agenda, an expedition not to be missed.
As there was time, and Petrópolis was right next door, we couldn’t resist, and caught a bus (R$ 3,00, or R$ 1,50 if you are only going as far as Meio da Serra, a hamlet literally in the middle of the mountain on the way to the city above), and we went up the narrow road, paved with paving-stones, with such tight curves that often cars had to stop to let the bus get by), and on the edge of drops with sights to take your breath away: huge rock walls, with exuberant vegetation, and a view down the valley past Vila Inhomirim to the Baixada Fluminense, ever more distant and open, giving an impressive notion of breadth. Our eyes were glued to the vistas. As we went upwards, the temperature dropped gradually. We were definitely in the mountains.
We reached the center of Petrópolis in approximately 45 minutos, and learned at the bus station that the return bus left every 20 minutes, which gave us relatively little time there, since we didn’t want to miss the last train. We took a quick stroll down the main drag, passing by the lovely Post Office, the Teatro Municipal Grande Otelo, various statues, horse-drawn carriages that recalled the imperial age, tree-lined streets, romantic bridges. It was a pity we didn’t have more time, since Petrópolis is a city to be enjoyed with leisure, getting to know its ins and outs, talking to people on the street. But we didn’t want to miss this unique way of getting up the mountain.
We caught the bus back and returned in about 25 minutes, with our descent much quicker the ascent, since as the saying goes "pra baixo todo santo ajuda e até o diabo empurra" (going downhill all the saints lend a hand, and even the devil gives a push). We had a few minutes before the train left, enough to manage to find the beginning of the colonial road for our next journey.
The trip back to Saracuruna was calm and sleepy, since we were tired, and the train was in no hurry. We paid for our train to Rio in Saracuruna, and hopped on the train back to Central Station. Our fellow travelers included a group of Supervia employees who had finished their shifts and were heading home. They were joking, chatting, talking in animated tones. A vendor, a figure of fun, and known to all, passing by, selling his wares at the top of his lungs, was welcomed by the group in chorus, imitating his spiel, something that happened every time he appeared (at least four times!), and always good for a laugh. According to my favorite gringo, something that would only happen in Brazil. People in the train smiling, laughing, talking with each other, the train full of life, warm, lively. Coisas de Brasil. Coisas de Rio de Janeiro. Ô, coisa boa!

Tips and comments
Leaving from Zona Sul in Rio you can buy the combined metro-train ticket (integração metrô-trem) paying only R$ 3,30 each way. The bus to Petrópolis leaving from Vila Inhomirim is only R$ 3,00 each way. The whole trek comes in at only R$ 12,60!
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To get to Petrópolis via Vila Inhomirim will take around 3 hours. If you are in a hurry it would be quicker to catch a bus at the Novo Rio bus station, and get there in about an hour or so. But you will pay three times as much, and won’t get to see the little-known landscape on this side of the mountains.
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You can find an enormous variety of clothing stores, with all sorts of items at unbeatable prices in Rua Teresa near the center of Petrópolis. A must!
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The lunch at the Pensão da Vovó Dui is honest and inexpensive. As I mentioned above, the portions are ample, and the prices is only R$ 3,50. Depending on the diners, you could certainly share it between two people. We were invited to visit the kitchen, which was simple, functional and quite clean, and got our stamp of approval. The soda (600 ml) is only fifty cents, and even comes in Tubaína flavor, which was out of stock when we visited, but is worth trying.
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Note the unusual names of some of the stops on the train line: Campos Elíseos (Elysian Fields), Manoel Belo (Handsome Manuel), Jardim Primavera (Spring Garden), Parada Angélica (Angelic Stop) ... aren’t they romantic?
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Be sure to try the yogurt jujubas sold by the vendors on the train. 4 for one real, and they really taste like yogurt!
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I was very interested to find out what "Inhomirim" meant, and came up with a theory which seemed quite coherent: inho was a corruption of senhor, sinhô, and mirim was the tupi-guarani for little, small. That is, inho-mirim was little master. Namely Emperor D. Pedro II, who was crowned while still a child. So upon our return I went to take a look at the morphology f the word, taking a look at indigenous suffixes and prefixes. I was disappointed to learn that my theory didn’t hold water, and that Inhomirim means “little field”. I liked my theory much beter.....it seemed so logical, and yet so romantic! The reader can choose whichever seems more fitting.

see the pix at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomazmoore/page3/
and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomazmoore/page4/

translated from Deborah's blog....

Trip to Madureira
by Deborah Freire

translated by Tom Moore

It had been quite some time since I passed through Madureira - more than a year or so, in fact, with neither professional nor personal reasons taking me in that direction. But on Saturday, when I asked my boyfriend what we were doing that I day, I heard “Let’s go to Madureira!”

We went, of course. He caught the subway in Botafogo, went to the Central do Brasil (the terminal featured in “Central Station”, starring Fernanda Montenegro), and hopped a train heading for Deodoro, while I, starting from Jacarepaguá (a sort of no-man’s-land between Barra, Recreio and Vargem Pequena) took a super-combi (informal van) for the Madureira train station.

We met at the bus station across from the train, serenaded first by the hot sounds of forró, and then by the swaying sounds of hip hop.

If you have been there, but not recently (like me, who studied in Madureira), or if you have never been there, it is not to be missed. The station is nicer, with a ramp decorated by colored tiles, making access to both sides of the station much easier than the old, worn and slippery staircases.

“”That side” is definitely the interesting one. I am talking about the side with the “Popular Market of Madureira" or, in other words, the side with the camelódromo, a sort of souk of street merchants. Walking along the street there are an immense number of shops, hawkers, passersby, people announcing their wares with sound systems, absolutely everything on sale, universal remotes, batteries, jeans, shoes, umbrellas, magic potions, herbal diets, erotic costumes...a feast for the eyes, and for my easily aroused consumer instincts.

If you have been doing your shopping in malls and shops with designer labels, you may be in for a big shock. The prices are absurdly low and enticing. The fashions are not the same as you will find in Zona sul, of course, but that’s why you will be “exclusive”. You can buy jeans for a tenth of the price, with a total street cred and urban style. With prices like this, bring on the new look!

The shops with lingerie, house wear, domestic goods, sheets, towels, jeans are outstanding both in the variety of products and the number shop. It is good to remember, however, that a good dose of patience and a sense of adventure may be necessary if you decide to try on and buy something. The incredible line of women waiting to get to try on their choices might awake that grumpy, spoiled, unbearable ogre sleeping uneasily deep inside your soul. If you sense the ogre stirring, breath in, before something dire happens, and say to yourself “I am not in a hurry! I have all the time in the world!” , and you will be amply rewarded when you get to the cash register.

After your dive into the commercial end of the neighborhood, don’t miss the headquarters of the Portela samba school, a short walk away on R. Clara Nunes. Even though it was closed, we managed to use the infallible argument that my boyfriend is a gringo, had never been there, had come just to see Portela....and we were invited in to photograph the hallowed grounds. We left enchanted! I, enchanted once again, he, newly captivated, and Portela since he was a child....

Then our natural next stop was the Mercadão de Madureira, an indoor market, but resembling an outdoor feira, where you can find a poultry shop (one where live chickens and rabbits are sold, to be killed while you wait), a shop with Chinese knickknack, a restaurant specializing in food from Minas, with delicious aromas, a shop with everything - absolutely everything for parties, with the biggest shop selling religious articles that I have ever seen right beside it. The original Mercadão had a major fire sometime ago, so there was a significant improvment in the facilities, with air conditioning, escalators, and a generally more tidy appearance. Of course this meant that it has lost a certain amount of its charm. My boyfriend, however, made it clear: the Mercadão is a must-see for gringos visiting the Cidade Maravilhosa.

We stepped out on to Avenida Edgar Romero from the Mercadão, and looked up a cross-street leading uphill to an enormous set of steps, with a church (S. Jose) at the end, at the top of the morro. It was enticing, but since to get to the steps you had to walk through some dangerous-looking territory, I said: forget it! My boyfriend thought we should at least ask the friendly bicheiro if it was safe. Our answer: don’t go to that church...you never know when there might be a gunfight. Better to go to S. Bras, it’s around the corner to the right.
Better safe than sorry, so we took the bicheiro’s advice, and only went a few more timid steps up the street, but far enough to discover another shop specializing in (“Tudo para umbanda e candomblé”, R. Alves 18, Madureira). Lots of fascinating things, saints, drawings, mats, life-size entities. We drank a cafezinho wth the owner of the shop, and after a nice chat, bought statues of a Nossa Senhora da Conceição and Iemanjá, both about 70 cm tall, and at inredibly low prices.

Saints in our arms, we caught a bus to the Iraja Metro to head back to Zona Sul, with sense that we wanted more. More Portela. More low prices. More warm and welcoming people. More conversation while waiting to try on skirts and jeans. More of a different facet of Rio de Janeiro, kind of schizophrenic, poetic, a little crazy. Totally captivating.

Some basic tips

Think of the possibilities when you can buy panties for 60 centavos each! you could wear a new one every single day, for an entire month, throw them out, disposables, for the trivial sum of 18 reais! is that a dream or what? check it out!

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If you go from Zona sul, you can catch the metro to Central, and then the train to Deodoro, or alternatively, the metro to Iraja, with a five-minute bus ride to Madureira. From Barra there are direct buses, all stopping at Barrashopping.

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You can find açaí with granola, pão de queijo, and a variety of sucos at low prices, and in attractive surrounding at the corner of R. Dagmar da Fonseca and Est. do Portela.

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A micro-mini skirt in denim (you will be the sexiest chick in the the neighborhood), can be had for only 18 reais. This will lift anyone’s spirits...Top marks!
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Portela begins rehearsing in September for Carnaval 2006. On Sept. 3 (first Saturday of the month), there will be a feijoada at the headquarters, with the Velha Guarda and the bateria. Don’t miss it!

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To go from Est. do Portela to the Mercadão de Madureira, you have to walk across the train tracks.That’s right! this is an adventure in itself, but to get there you walk by a fascinating open-air market. The highlight are artists who spray paint t-shirts while you wait. Designs, messages of your choice. Ready-made shirts are R$10,00. While you wait, to your specifications, R$15,00.

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You may not take unauthorized photos inside the Mercadão.

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You shouldn’t walk up Morro de São José if you value your life.

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You can Iemanjá and Nossa Senhora da Conceição (approximately 70 cm tall), in your house, protecting you, for only R$18,00 each.

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You risk having a passing teen tell you, as you are trying to take a photo, “TAKE MY PICTURE! I AM MUCH CUTER THAN THAT!!!!!”

Star Trek......

Whatever happened to Star Trek? or was it me? no, I think it was Star Trek. It is getting on close to 40 years of Star Trek now...my earliest memory of ST was playing with John Kohr, the kid across the street at Ledyard Road, who, even though a year younger than i was (that would have made him 10 in 1967), was allowed to stay up late enough to watch the series. So we played at beaming up, phasering each other, etc., even though i had no clue what he was talking about (Batman, at least, i got to watch now and then). Some place back in the seventies I had the pleasure (before the VCR and before cable) of summering in Woods Hole, between the two TV markets of Providence RI and Boston Mass, which meant that we kids could watch ST at 5 PM from Providence, dine from 6 to 7, and watch another, different, episode, from 7 to 8 from Boston. Then the first film finally arrived, and ST: TNG, which i shared with my wife and infant child in a little apt. in Somerville (two-year old Emma, when faced with scary aliens on screen would comment "Emma not yike it!!"). Many wonderful stories - perhaps most memorable being Picard and the metaphoric alien, Picard in the "Inner Light", and Worf shifting from one parallel reality to the next. Then there was DS 9 (perhaps my favorite), viewed from the sofa in Lawrenceville, with a character i yearned to see killed off (Dax, finally eliminated, too late, to be replaced by a much better actress...), and so many great performances, particularly that of the Cardassian "tailor" - a reference to John Le Carre? and finally Voyager, which ended in my apt. in Princeton....
to my mind it says something about America and its weak-willed, mean-spirited cowardice in the early 21st century that the most recent ST series moved backwards in time, rather than forward, not following up the many open story threads that remained to be explored....will there be another incarnation of ST? or will the present series see ST limp feebly into senility?
or to put another way, is there any more dreaming in America, or are we doomed to half-assed, falling-apart orbital vehicles? if we can't even put a shuttle in space, how can we think of going to Mars?