Rio De Janeiro - March 19th

As we have done as much as we want to do in Rio, we have a fairly easy day today.  In fact all we do is go out for a walk around Ipanema.  We even got a lunch from the supermarket and ate it back in the apartment.  In the evening we went out for dinner, again to a local Ipanema restaurant, which was very good, but also quite expensive.

Because we didn’t do much today I can write a bit about Rio, which hasn’t been the great place I imagined it to be.  The main reason we didn’t go out much today is because it is an exhausting place.  Why is it exhausting, because at every stage of the day when you are out and about you really have to be on your guard.  It just feels dangerous, and it is, as our pickpocketing incident showed.  It is not a pleasant place, especially in the evening.  You can’t go into parks because there seems to be dodgy people hanging around them.  I know this happens in many cities, but it just feels worse here.

Why is it like this?  The only reasons I can see are because the poor people in the flavelas are even closer to the rich areas of town than they would be in other places.  They are built up in the hills behind Copacabana, Ipanema and all the other suburbs.  I’m sure when the city was expanding in the 30s they felt they were doing a great thing leaving the mountains undeveloped, but it just meant there was free space for the poor to move into in the 60s.  The other reason is because there are so many tourists here, they can feed on them.  In other parts of the country there aren’t enough tourists to have people focus on them.  And they do focus on them, the guy who did his pickpocketing routine has probably done it 100s of times on others.  He was hanging out at a place where everyone is a tourist.  It just makes the city unpleasant, it is beautiful in some places, but it is run down in others, and the people just don’t seem to be as happy living here as in other places.

And it is dear.  I won’t say it is as expensive as London, but it is not too far off.  We are eating dinners for over £50 because this is the price.  Coffee, coke and a cake can be over £10, and a beer can be over £3.  And our accommodation was expensive.  Yes we had an apartment in a good location (which required heavy duty security) but that was only because it was no dearer than the hostels.  But as a value for money proposition it was not as good as the one in Buenos Aires.  It was smaller, the cable TV didn’t offer any English channels, and the internet was missing for the whole weekend.

So what is my overall view on Rio.  I have to say I wouldn’t recommend it to people travelling independently.  Go on an organised trip.  And then you still have to worry when you go to the main sights.  If Ireland qualify for the World Cup in 2014 I don’t think I would recommend going to anyone, and as for the Olympics in 2016, forget it.  I’ve seen where some of the venues are, and they are not safe.  I’m sure there will be police all around the venues in 2016, but then the rest of the city will be even more vulnerable.  Just stay safe and watch it at home.