River of January ~3~

 

Having been out yesterday from 6am until just before midnight, we took our sweet time to start moving on Friday morning. Today’s only goal was an afternoon cruise, also booked via Airbnb. Just before 2pm, we hailed an Uber to bring us to Marina da Gloria. We arrived too early, again because I was unsure of traffic conditions, and our host had indeed warned us that travel times were significantly slowed as more and more Carnaval attendees descended on the city. We walked through an unexciting portside shopping mall and ultimately went into a restaurant, Corrientes 348, to cool down. I had one cappuccino and then another to justify taking up seats.

Then we headed to the pier to meet our hosts and the other guests. We were divided into two groups and led onto separate vessels. Ours was a small daysailer, possibly named Malaga, carrying the hostess Luiza, the skipper, who spoke no English, and around 10 guests: a group of 4 who seemed related and possibly French, a duo of very young blonde women, an American woman and her Spanish-speaking husband (I did ask where he was from but don’t remember), Sunny and me. Shoes were collected on the pier and dropped into a plastic bag. Cut fruit, pita bread and other snacks were laid out. Caipirinhas were served to order. As we motored out of the marina and into Guanabara Bay, we passed directly below airplanes as they took off from Aeroporto Santos Dumont. I had tried to get a flight to this airport instead of the main one because of its proximity to the city, but since only domestic flights use this airport, I’d have had to change planes at another airport within Brazil instead of flying direct from Dallas Fort Worth.

Guanabara Bay is Brazil’s second largest. It is surrounded by seven municipalities, four of which are large cities, one of which is Rio de Janeiro. The other cities are Niterói, São Gonçalo, and Duque de Caxias; the non-urban municipalities are Magé, Guapimirim, and Itaboraí. The bay’s name comes from the Tupi language, spoken by the indigenous Tupi people of Brazil who predated European settlers. It means “bay similar to sea”. The body of water was erroneously named Rio de Janeiro by Portuguese explorers: they had assumed the bay was a massive river (“Rio”), and arrived at the site on 1 January, 1502 (“de Janeiro”).

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These buildings on the eastern bank of the bay in the city of Niterói
reminded me of these in Hamburg, these in Bergen, and these
 in New Jersey on the bank of the Hudson River.

I enjoyed this cruise a lot. Luiza was personable and instructive. The breeze on the bay cooled me to a sweatless comfort. The view from the water of the city and mountains was spectacular. Other vessels carried other tourists, while energetic types played watersports. Among our fellow guests, though, I had the same difficulty striking up conversations as I had yesterday. I stayed in the same position throughout, portside at the stern, while others milled around the boat, and at one point, several went swimming. I had monosyllabic interactions, all instigated by me, with several of them, but each time, they dropped the ball. Surprisingly, it was the Gen Z girls from Germany/Ukraine who gave me the time of day. They had been sitting at the bow for most of the trip but came to the stern at some point. Initially I assumed they’d blow me off like the rest of them had and didn’t even try to strike up a conversation. When I relented and engaged, they responded and contributed. They were on holiday from Berlin, where they’d met. The Ukrainian had moved there at the start of Putin’s aggression. I enjoyed our interaction and berated myself for making assumptions. After this exchange, the American and her husband, returning to the stern, also started to chat with me. Much better.

Back on land, we returned to our accommodation around 7:20pm, and then immediately went out in search of a bloco that seemed to be happening nearby. We heard no noise, encountered no crowds, uncovered no clues. A lonely rando pestered us as we walked, and I thought it best to not appear to have no apparent goal. We stumbled upon a food truck, Bistrô Rio Oficial, where we bought delectable Brazilian street food. There was a sandwich of sorts, French fries, beef cubes and sliced sausage. We brought this sustenance back to our apartment and enjoyed the rest of the day in the air conditioning.

Tomorrow evening would see us at Sambadrome. Since that was an overnight event, starting after 9pm and continuing until 6am, we chose to prepare physically, by which I mean that we stayed up very late, going to sleep only in the wee hours of Saturday morning and staying in bed until (in my case) around midday. Sunny’s slumber began and ended several hours after mine.

And that was the third day.