Rio de Janeiro: A city where I can live in

With the Copacabana song in the background and with flight attendants that look better than Jennifer Lopez I directly got a nice impression of what was waiting for me in Rio de Janeiro. The flight went effortless, now I only had to find my hostel in a city with 15 million inhabitants. After I had taken the bus, I took a cab to the hostel. Luckily a local guy that spoke English helped me telling the driver where to go. Just before I stepped in the cab he spoke the legendary sentence '' Welcome to hell! '. I was looking forward to my stay In Rio de Janeiro and sat comfortable in the cab. I reached the hostel without trouble and found the hell quite a pleasant place.

My first priority is to buy a motorbike, which I want to use to travel through South America. But where to start? I had not done any homework and had no clue how to buy a motorcycle in Brazil as a foreigner. One person said I could buy a motorcycle within a day for 500 euros, another person told me to buy a new motorbike and someone else said it was not possible. I did some research myself and visited Detran, a government agency that regulates everything concerning licenses. A friendly guy who spoke English, called Jaime, guided me around the whole building until we arrived at the department for foreigners. They told Jaime in Portuguese that I had to apply for a Brazilian driver's license. I received a form, entirely in Portuguese, which I had to fill in to apply for the license. I walked back to the foreigners department without Jaime and suddenly they spoke English. They checked my Dutch driver license and the same person told me now that I could legally drive a motorbike with this license, I did not need a Brazilian license. It took me half a day, but now I knew that I had the right documents to ride a motorcycle in Brazil.
 

Now I had to find a motorcycle and find a way to transfer the documents to my name. The next few days I visited a lot of motorbike shops with several local guys and noticed that the motors in Brazil are much more expensive than my 90cc scooter that I bought in Vietnam for 100 euros. Many 2nd hand bikes that I found on the internet were too far away from where I was or they did not have the proper documents. A new 125cc motorbike will cost at least 2500 euros. Eventually I found a good and affordable 2nd hand motorbike for 1500 euros and after 4 hours of testing and talking I was at the point of buying the bike. Until I discovered that it took me fifteen days to transfer the documents into my name, time that I did not have. A phone call the next day taught me that you must prove that you live in Brazil before you can transfer the documents to your name. In ten days I jumped fully into the bureaucracy of Brazil and I discovered that it is (almost) impossible for me to buy and ride legally a motorcycle here. With pain in my heart I had to let go my dream to drive a motor from the southern tip of South America to the northernmost point of North America. It seemed destined, because three days later I lost my driving license and I would not have been allowed to drive a motor at all. The only remaining option is that I have to get my motorcycle license somewhere in South America.

 

A good example of Brazilian logic is the following incident. I went with two Brazilian guys , a local guy and a guy who spoke Portuguese and English, to one of the poorest neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, called Mangera, to search for a motorbike. The people stared at me from the first moment and I felt that I was not welcome here People who do not live in this neighborhood mainly go here to get drugs. A group of policemen with frighteningly big guns stopped us, because they thought I was here to buy drugs. They checked if we had drugs with us and I had nothing with me to be worries about. My friend, however, had some weed on him, which is strictly forbidden in Brazil. I was shocked, because I had heard that there are severe penalties on preserving drugs. I felt anything very uncomfortable in this situation and expected the worst, but miraculously the police took the weed of my friend and let us go. After that we had to run to the taxi before the villagers would follow us.

A few days later I was waiting with a friend for the bus. I just had my coffee and stood with an empty plastic cup in my hand. My friend got off the bus and I quickly had to jump on the bus before it would drive away. Although there was a bin three meters away from where I stood I decided to put the plastic cup on the ground, thinking that besides all the rubbish in Rio de Janeiro my cup would not matter. I entered the bus and got pulled by my shirt. When I turned around I saw two policemen pointing to my plastic cup. They were going to give me a fine for putting down a plastic cup on the ground. They wrote down the size, color and shape of the cup in detail, the time and the place where it happened and they would review the situation a few weeks later to define the height of the fine. I rather get caught with weed on me …

 

Rio has the reputation that I can be a very unsafe place. From my own experiences I can tell you that people tell you to be careful in Rio for a reason. While I slept in the hostel with my wallet besides my pillow I woke up with an empty wallet, I attacked on the street at night by someone who wanted to have my cellphone, at the beach I saw in a glimpse that someone tried to drag our bag away with his foot before he could run away with the bag and on the street I had to walk into a store suddenly because there was a violent gang coming. In the developed parts of the city there is on every street corner a group of police men with big guns, but this does not prevent the thieves from doing their job. You must constantly be alert and even then you can lose all your stuff in a split second. In high pace, you will be transformed from a naive computer geek to a confident streetwise traveler by the street life or Rio, but you may pay your wallet, camera and laptop for it.

Despite these dark side of Rio de Janeiro I like the city. When people look at me I can see the fire and passion in the eyes, when I see the girls dance their hips speak an universal, attractive language and if they are happy they light up the whole environment. Brazilians speak and act from the heart and give you unlimited warmness, a feature that make the dark side fade away.

Nobody thinks it's a problem if a Brazilian girl working at the supermarket looks bored. A frustrated driver who is honking loud for no reason is okay. And a security guard who has fallen asleep and wakes up gets an understanding nod from the passing people. In Brazil it is accepted to show that you are tired, bored or cranky, which creates space on the other side for genuine, positive emotions. If someone starts dancing it works contagious and in no time the entire square dances and smiles from ear to ear. If someone is telling a funny story a whole group of random people starts laughing. And if someone needs help many people will offer a helping hand. Brazilians are great, genuine people that seem to understand how to have fun in life.

 

One of my best experiences was my meeting with Ariele and a visit at her home in Vista Alegre, a suburb of Rio de Janeiro. I was warmly welcomed by Ariele's parents and sister, and together we went to the church where Ariele directs a choir. I did not speak the language, but could feel the emotion with which the people spoke and sang. The priest screamed as if it was his last speech, the choir sang as if it was their last song and the people prayed as if it were their last prayer. The church shook to its foundations but was fortunately strong enough to survive. After the service, everyone was acting normal and talking to each calmly, like they walked the dog. As quick as their emotions raise, as quick it is gone as well. Despite the fact that only a few people spoke English and that I was in a poor, unknown neighborhood, I really felt at ease with Ariele's family and friends as they dealt with me as a good friend without knowing me well.

 

After I explored Rio for two weeks by myself my friend Frank came over from Holland. We've known each other for ten years, often go out together on weekends and every summer we go on holiday with a group of friends. A holiday that is becoming more adventurous every year and that reunited Frank and me after 1.5 years in Rio de Janeiro. Frank knows how to give a funny twist to any situation, has imaginative thoughts that are fun to listen to and can play characters so real that he must have been it in his previous life. If he were not a Marine, Frank would have become a comedian who knows how to touch the feelings of every woman in the room. I look forward to travel for three weeks through Brazil with this charmer in an impulsive, straightforward way.

At six o'clock in the morning I woke up out of my daze because a leaping, wagging Frank jumped into my bed. Everyone in the dormitory woke up, but it did not matter because Frank had arrived. The next day we walked to the Cristo Redentor, the big statue of Christ where Rio de Janeiro is famous for. An important place where you must kick down the tourists to make a good photo.

On the way to the top, I drank a bottle with tap water, something I regretted the coming days. That night I got abdominal pain, the whole night I spent on the toilet and the next morning I had such bad stomach cramps that I decided to go to the hospital. After four different registration procedures I talked to a doctor who told me all about the past relationships between the Netherlands and Brazil. After a 45-minute speech someone knocked on the door to tell the doctor he had to hurry up, but so far he had not even asked why I was in the hospital. In two minutes, he wrote some medications down and the doctor had done its job. I was hung on a drip, so I would not become dehydrated. I saw a giant needle coming that was going into my arms. I went totally crazy in my mind and my fear for needles was bigger than ever. I wanted to run from the hospital, but I could not. The thought of the needle in my arm made me scared, but there was no sister that took my childish behavior seriously. That had more serious things to care about. The nurse walked was cleaning arm so I was ready to get the injection, when I got very dizzy. I laid back and a few seconds later everything turned black. The next thing I remember is that I am lying on the drip and that the nurse is laughing at me for my oversensitive reaction on needles.

The next few days I still feel bad and I regularly get abdominal cramps that feel like six knives are stabbed into my stomach. At one time the cramps were so bad that I had to lay down on the street to ease the pain. The residents probably thought that I still looked very catered for a homeless person. After five days I still have diarrhea and moments of abdominal cramps, so I go for the second time to the hospital. When I hear that they want to give me an injection again I run out of the hospital. The next day I decide to go to the pharmacy and get pills to stop the diarrhea. A good decision, because after taking the pills I finally have the food poisoning under control. I learned from my sickness that I can’t drink tap water in Brazil, that I am not afraid in the poorest neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro but that needles make me crazy and you can skip your history classes and visit the doctor instead.

After three weeks in Rio de Janeiro, it is time to leave this versatile, vibrant, joyful city and to set a course south where Frank has to fly out of Buenos Aires in three weeks. I feel that I am finally back on a totally unknown territory, an area where my desires calm down and where I get an alertness that I like. The obstacles that appear if you want to buy a motorbike, the language barrier, the bureaucracy and the insecurity on the streets sharpens my senses and strengthens my emotions. I intensely enjoy watching people dance, talk and laugh. Thanks to this chaotic city with their beautiful people I feel very alive and even think that this would be a great place for me to live in my twenties.