Get ready for Carnival

by Jerry Guo on

The Mangueira shantytown, which you’ll see looking up the steep slopes below the Christ the Redeemer statue, isn’t a place you want to be caught walking through. Drug dealers swinging automatic guns are a common sight, for one.

But travelers are already flooding the district, which is in the middle of preparations for Carnival (Feb 3-4). The streets of these slums have been turned pink and green (the colors of Mangueira, one of the most well-known samba groups in town). It seems work has been going on for six months already, and $1 million has been poured into this year’s celebration.

At first glance, you might be thinking, “These people are crazy! They live in shanties, for God’s sake. A million dollars can feed a lot of people!’ But it seems the $1 million also goes to keeping a lot of people employed as construction workers and dancers for the floats. And it does keep drugs off the street.

So you do the math.

Rio: Women Outnumber Men on the Beaches of String Bikinis

by Anna Brones on

I recently moved back to Portland, and when I met one of my neighbors last weekend we got to talking about traveling, politics, etc. When he mentioned that he had a subscription to the Economist my face lit up in a nerdy way and we talked about sharing it. He pulled through, and on Friday afternoon he brought over last week’s edition which had a great little, not so nerdy, tidbit in it: the female to male ratio in Brazil.

If there ever was a place for single males to visit it’s the Brazilian beaches of Rio: for every 100 ladies in the city there are a mere 86.4 males. Strangely enough, the average ratio for other major Brazilian cities is 95 males to 100 females. So, why the big difference on the flashy beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana?

Three factors have turned the city into hottie heaven: a decrease in birthrate (many women have chosen sterilization as their preferred method of birth control), women moving away from rural areas and into urban ones where job opportunities are more abundant, and lastly, deadly violence which in Rio affects a mostly male population.

In plain English, the beaches of Rio are running wild with women. So if you are in search for a skin-baring Spring Break option on a top-notch stretch of sand, I think you’ve found it. If you are a woman however, be prepared to fight for your vacation fling. Unless, as the Economist points out, many of those women are really your grandmother’s age. Better check it out to make sure.

And for those not lucky enough to have a neighbor as nice as mine, you can access the article online without a subscription.

The Onion explains Our Dumb World

by Aaron Hotfelder on

To correspond with the release of their book Our Dumb World, the Onion has set up an online atlas to “reveal mind-expanding factoids about the lesser, conquerable nations of the Earth.” The atlas is loads of fun, just like most everything related to the Onion, and it is updated with new content every week. It’s somewhat reminiscent of the “Conan O’Brien Hates My Homeland” series, though the Onion’s atlas seems slightly (only slightly) less offensive.

On China: “With over 700 billion citizens manufactured since 1892, China is the world’s largest mass producer of Chinese.”

On Brazil: “Boasting some of the sexiest people ever to be stabbed repeatedly at night, Brazil is home to perhaps the most attractive victims of carjacking, robbery, and violent assault in the world.”

On Jordan: “From many years of regional conflicts to a recent shortage of natural resources, Jordan has had a long and troubled history. On the bright side, however, King Abdullah II made a very wise choice when he married Queen Rania.

So, so true.

Ethics of studying Amazonians

by Jerry Guo on

This week I was on the phone with a world-renown linguist, Pierre Pica, who works with an Amazonian indigenous tribe. He and his collaborators have already found some great stuff–that these people can only count to roughly four or five though they understand basic geometry about as well as the average Westerner.

What I’ve been pondering, however, is the impact of this kind of research. Keep in mind that many of these indigenous tribes have little contact with modern civilization. Some have never seen a modern human being. So I would say that ecotourism and the such probably are out, even for tribes that are near cities. Sure, they’ll get nice amenities like electricity and money from the gawking visitors, but just look at what conditions American Indians are in right now. They have high rates of alcoholism and fall behind on educational opportunities.

The trickier issue is the ethics of anthropologists. Do they benefit Western society? Sure, their research is valuable in understanding not only these tribes and gives us a better sense of our own origins and culture. But does the research necessarily help the natives? Theories aren’t going to help them hunt for food. Hmm. But maybe it’s ok if the guy’s Pierre–he tries not to stick with one tribe for too long (a couple days) before sailing down the river. And he sounded like a good guy on the phone.

Sights Unseen

by Kara Sirmans on

Don’t you just love when you seem to have hit the zeitgeist moment for a trip? We had been planning a trip that would take us through Rio when U.S. News & World Report ran its cover story on Sacred Places in the World with the Christ the Redeemer statue on the cover. Brazil trades as heavily (arguably, more so) on this iconic statue that literally lords over Rio’s beachfront as it does on ‘The Girl from Ipanema.’ Named as one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, the sheer scale of the 125-feet tall Christ statue is a siren call to travelers who want to add a major landmark to their ‘been there, done that’ lists.

But Rio had its own plans on the day we arrived. We landed in the morning to a bright haze at Antonio Carlos Jobim Airport. Not serious cover but the clouds stuck like dryer lint to the surrounding mountains, most notably Corcovado, the one the statue rests on. We figured we could see it the next day before we left, but no such luck. While the sun broke through and turned Copacabana Beach into a sizzling white strip, a cove-curve away, Ipanema Beach remained covered, including the mountains above it.
This isn’t my first run-in with a legendary landmark going shy. A highlight of a cross-country drive in 2001, was to be my first visit to the Grand Canyon. We arrived the week before Christmas and as we drove the last miles up to the South Rim it started to snow. And snow. And snow. We reached El Tovar lodge on the canyon edge, in blizzard mode. Standing against the rock wall at the very canyon edge, I looked out to see … white. Not canyons shrouded in white, not valleys covered in snow. Just … white. We joked that the Canyon had stayed home on account of snow but it was with disappointment that we left without seeing it.

I couldn’t help but think of that day as our taxi careened through the Brazilian traffic, back to the airport for the next leg of our trip. We could see Corcovado, even the suggestion of a straight line like a statue’s base. I waited five more years before I finally saw the Grand Canyon and really, it was worth the second trip. What about you? Have you ever been thwarted — thanks to the weather or fate? — from seeing a landmark in your travels?