River of January ~5~

 

The atmosphere in Rio is electric at this time of year. People are out all over the city, and parties happen everywhere. Blocos take place in the morning (7/8am to 11/12 noon), in the afternoon (1/3pm to 5/6pm) and in the late afternoon (4/5pm to 8/10pm). Around 10pm, the party shifts into clubs or the Sambadrome, until 5/6am. The cycle starts again almost immediately. I should have come here 20 or 30 years ago. At that age, I would have done it all to the extreme; on the other hand, I might have overdone it, as I was prone to do in my impetuous youth.

The traffic is mad. It is also super hot and humid. I’m thrilled that I’d booked tours and events before arriving because there is a possibility that I might have avoided all outdoor activities and stayed within air conditioning for most of the visit. Although street parties abound, we had rather a difficult time finding one. The Instagram account the German-Ghanian had shown was in Portuguese. I tried unsuccessfully to piece the information together.

On our last day in the city, Sunday, we decided to visit Centro Cultural Justiça Federal and got an Uber there. Spilling out of the vehicle, we found the building closed, despite it showing as open on Google Maps. Reading about it now as I type, it turns out that, like Teatro Municipal, this attraction generally closes during Carnaval. Fortuitously, we caught a drift of blaring music and spotted throngs of scantily clad revelers in a series of parks that (I didn’t know at the time) hug Marina da Gloria. We had stumbled upon a bloco by sheer luck! As we waded into the masses, medics carried a man away on a stretcher.

Since we’d not expected to find ourselves in such a setting, I had my camera around my neck. A man followed us, pestering me as I moved. I started to feel uneasy. When we stopped in the shade of a tree, a woman spoke to me. At first, I thought she was forbidding me from taking a picture of her boobs, but soon realized she was, in fact, a Good Samaritan, suggesting I put my camera away. I took her advice and was pestered no more. Truth be told, I knew better. Two nights ago, when we’d gone looking for a bloco, we had brought only our phones and a little money in our pockets.

I preferred staying on the periphery – I suffer a little from claustrophobia; being shoulder to shoulder in a dense crowd isn’t a situation I handle well. ~ Back home in Taiwan, I seldom visit night markets or attend large public events like the Lantern Festival. ~ Fortunately, the festivities were spread wide. We ambled to Praça Edson Cortes, where a large flea market sold drinks, snacks, souvenirs, vinyl, T-shirts, bags, locally brewed liquors, and many other oddities. Everything was cheap; some items found their way into my backpack. We dawdled on, coming upon Feira da Gloria, a Sunday street market. Here I got a beer and Sunny bought a meal, which we carried as we walked and which she shared with me. It was pork knuckle, if memory serves; at any rate, it was pork with crispy rind, and it was scrumptious. These Brazilians really know how to flavor meat dishes.

We made our way to one of the many little squares (in this case, a triangle) where we sat down on a low wall beside the sidewalk to snack on the pork. Across the road and up a hill, the bell tower of Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Glória do Outeiro winked at me. On the street, pedestrians and motorists betrayed a mutual disdain for one another; I wondered how many revelers end up in the hospital during blocos. One woman dropped her glass as she stepped into the road and just left it there. I watched as a steady stream of sandaled feet kicked, trampled and crushed it. Not a single foot got bloodied. Miraculous!

Now we retraced our steps. We returned to Centro Cultural Justiça Federal and wandered on, passing also Teatro Municipal. Our current goal was Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. Following is a verbatim quote from Google AI.

En Route to CCBB, we passed this shell, looking ready to be dressed.

The Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil (CCBB) in Rio de Janeiro is one of the most visited cultural institutions in the world and a cornerstone of the city's historic center. Opened in 1989, it is housed in a magnificent neoclassical building that dates back to 1906 and formerly served as the bank's headquarters. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Key Attractions

The center is a multidisciplinary space with five floors dedicated to various art forms: [1, 2, 3]

• Art Galleries: Hosts major temporary exhibitions featuring world-renowned artists like Picasso, Basquiat, and Tarsila do Amaral.
• Permanent Museum: Features the Museum of the Bank of Brazil, which includes an extensive collection of historical coins, bills, and the history of banking in Brazil.
• Performance Spaces: Contains three theaters, a cinema with 110 seats, and music rooms for concerts and recitals.
• Library: The fifth floor houses a vast library with over 250,000 items, including a dedicated art library.
• Dining: The ground floor features a branch of the historic Confeitaria Colombo, offering a classic Rio tea-room experience. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]

Architecture

The building is famous for its white marble foyer, grand columns, and a stunning glass-domed rotunda that floods the central hall with natural light. Elements of Art Nouveau and Art Déco are also integrated into its neoclassical design. [1, 2, 3]

Visitor Information

• Admission: Entry to the building and most exhibitions is free, though you must obtain a cost-free ticket via the Official Website or at the local kiosks. Cinema and theater events usually have a very low cost.
• Hours: Wednesday to Monday, 9:00 AM – 8:00 PM. It is closed on Tuesdays.
• Location: Located at Rua Primeiro de Março, 66, directly across from the Candelária Church and near the Museum of Tomorrow. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]

 Arriving, Sunny decided not to enter any of the exhibitions, and I made the same choice, in a way bookmarking the trip: I’d been uncharacteristically reticent to enter the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Asian Art Museum in the early part of this trip, and here again, near the end of it, I made a similarly atypical decision. We sat in the foyer, cooling in the air conditioning, and I drank a beverage. Sunny looked on her phone for nearby dinner options. We exited CCBB and discovered that her first choice was shut. Never mind. We happened upon the narrowest of alleys that was nevertheless thronged with revelers and were able to place a take-out order at Esquina do Teles within minutes of them shutting for the day. Sustenance in hand, we hailed an Uber and made our way back to Rio Wonder Mauá for our final sleep.

And that was the fifth day.

While departure was only late on Monday night for me and in the wee hours of Tuesday morning for Sunny, we chose to spend Monday resting. I’d booked the Airbnb for tonight also, even though we would not actually sleep here – I am no longer interested in fretting about luggage storage and remaining freshly showered when my flight is late in the day. Sunny did step out to find a post office with no success. I started to return to my normal routine, watching YouTube videos about engineering by The B1M, geopolitics by (among others) TLDR, muscle men by so many creators, analyses of operatic singing techniques by Scores Unstitched and of harmony in modern songs by Charles Cornell, etymology by Words Unravelled, and other random stuff.

Later at the airport, a tiny piece of Carnaval bade us farewell. I remained landside for a while since Sunny had several hours more than I did. Parting roughly 90 minutes before take-off, I was gob smacked to find myself in an excruciatingly slow queue through immigration and security. The process took over an hour, much like my arrival at Heathrow had in 2023. I got to the gate after boarding had started.

And that was the sixth day.