This is All Amazing Brazilian Culture!
Our journey to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil starts at Iguazú in Argentina where we have stayed a few days to experience the world-famous waterfalls.
To cross the border to get to the airport on the Brazilian side, we need a taxi. We have made an appointment with the same taxi driver who took us to Iguazú National Park on arrival.
He arrives as expected and approaches us with a smile and a handshake! Even if we have gone with him only once before, it is nearly like an old friend coming to pick us up.
I sit in front, chatting with him and trying to get the border procedure right. I ask him at least three times in three different ways how the border crossing is supposed to happen in a taxi and how to ensure that we get stamped into Brazil.
The case is that the Argentinian officers don’t bother to check any passports at the border or stamp anyone out of Argentina. According to what we have heard, the Brazilian border control does not really care. People cross all day back and forth between the Brazilian side of the waterfalls and the Argentinian side, and it is generally accepted that you cross without changing immigration status. That is part of both Argentinian and Brazilian agreements and culture. According to our driver, the Argentinian authorities are the strictest – and the Brazilian infrastructure the most organised?!? Anyway, most cars just drive right through without any checks.
Awe-inspiring falls at Iguazú | Photo: Travel In Culture
The problem arises when you don’t return to Argentina but plan to leave Brazil from another location – for instance, if flying out of Rio de Janeiro or São Paulo. The airport border control is rigorous, and if you, upon arrival, have not been correctly stamped into Brazil, you are technically illegally in Brazil! In that case, the fine is sky-high when you go through the airport checkpoint at the end of your trip. In our case, that would be a sky-high fine times five – extremely sky-high!
We don’t want to risk that, and I ensure that our kind driver understands that we must stop at the Brazilian border to get the required stamps on our passports. He seems to know what I am referring to and assures me that it will happen. However, we cannot help being somewhat surprised when he, all of a sudden, asks us to pass our passports over to him. He will then take care of everything for us – and hands me some papers to fill in.
Well, we actually have heard that this is common practice, so we decide to trust him – against our usual common sense!
In this way, he leaves with our most valuable possessions, our passports, in his hand – and we just remain in the taxi, relaxing as much as we can, until he finally returns. Brazilian people are amazing! Everything is in order. We verify that we have all got our stamps – and seconds later we are in Brazil! No one even saw our faces!
Photo: Travel In Culture
When we board the plane to Rio de Janeiro, the infrastructure seems all other than organised. We are at gate 4. Passengers waiting at gate 4 and gate 5 are now called and board simultaneously. We then discover that the two lines most surprisingly merge on the other side of the gates! It is now a matter of using our intuition and paying close attention to which aircraft we are supposed to board. No one checks that we get onto the right plane!
Itinerary in Rio de Janeiro
Road safety Brazil/your country
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Crime rate Brazil/your country
In Rio de Janeiro, we have chosen the only Copacabana hotel with a free airport shuttle (at least at the time we booked)! The Galeão International Airport is not that close to either central Rio or Copacabana, so the usual shuttle fee times five would be considerable! After searching a bit around online, the Windsor Plaza Hotel, at the moment offering a free shuttle service to and from the airport (only if confirmed by the hotel, though!), has come up. We can even arrange a convenient pick-up time weeks in advance! In that way our Rio hotel becomes even very reasonable in price – a real bargain!
There is no wait at the airport. Our shuttle works like a charm, and shortly, we are on the Rio highway towards Copacabana.
Photo: Pat Scrap / Pixabay
What we did not foresee is the highly aggressive traffic. That is part of the lively Brazilian culture and the hustle and bustle of Rio. The driving back to the hotel significantly differs from what we are used to (also in South America). Even if we, by coming to Rio, have accepted a different road safety risk here than back home, the Brazilian driving culture is overwhelming! With our seat belts fastened, we try to convince ourselves that the driver is experienced and has taken thousands of hotel guests safely to Windsor Plaza before!
Later, when walking in the streets of Rio, we again need to exercise caution here. There is everywhere unpredictable traffic where you, at some moment or another, cannot help fearing for your safety!
Photo: Travel In Culture
In stark contrast to the standard of living of the upper and middle classes in Rio, the city is also home to a giant number of tremendously poor Brazilian people. They live in a considerable number of favelas scattered across the city. Many of the people living here are of mixed ethnic ancestry. Brazil is probably one of the countries with the biggest gap between the rich and the poor.
We can hardly believe our ears when we learn that there are about 900 favelas with 2 million people in Rio. The biggest one is Rocinha, an entire society with shops, banks and everything else required. The inhabitants needn’t go anywhere else in the city. The people of the favelas typically form communities and develop various social organisations to obtain services like running water and electricity.
Photo: Anja Schindler / Pixabay
The favelas generally date back to the late 1800s. Due to the migration from the countryside in Brazil to Rio de Janeiro, cheap urban housing was needed. Moreover, with the housing crisis in the 1940s, a vast number of shantytowns arose in the suburbs, and the favelas expanded even further. Various attempts were made to get rid of the favelas and provide better housing facilities in the years to come. However, they failed or led to still more favelas in new places.
At some point in time, drug traffickers or other criminal groups began to control the favelas. Nevertheless, today, many of the favelas are ruled by the so-called Pacifying Police Units and are again out of the drug problems. However, there are still favelas in some Rio zones where problems, such as the cocaine trade, persist.
We pass one of the numerous favelas on the way to our hotel. From the highway, we get a glimpse of the stacked houses being home to thousands of Brazilian people. It is getting dark outside, and we would expect light in the houses. However, there is no electric light visible from the highway.
Photo: Poswiecie / Pixabay
Due to poverty, there is a certain level of crime risk in the streets during the daytime – and particularly after sunset. You have to be alert in Rio since the crime level is considerable. We stay close together when walking around in Copacabana. Taking appropriate travel safety measures, it feels pretty safe, through. The locals sit on chairs on the pavement and play cards, the ambience is friendly, and we are about to forget about the risks. Right until it gets dark.
When we enter the supermarket, everything still seems all right in the street. We take our time there and are patient when the staff check if our banknotes are genuine by holding them up against the light. This is also part of Brazilian culture!
When we come out barely 15 minutes later, it already has started getting dark, and, shockingly, the street appears changed. Suddenly, we notice the people hanging out on the street corners and even sitting on the ground. By instinct, we know that it could turn dangerous and that we should now head straight for our hotel, just 2 minutes away. Staying close together as a group, we are probably not at much risk, but still, it is a relief when we seconds later pass the security staff guarding the doorway and slip inside the hotel.
Photo: Paulo Duarte / Pixabay
At the end of the day, we stand at the hotel rooftop terrace and view the streets of Copacabana from this angle. Not all rooftops are pretty from up here. Most are, with their random cables, broken roof parts and general messy look, as opposed to our neat hotel rooftop terrace. Rio is, in all respects, full of noticeable contradictions.
Green parrots circle above our heads and fly across the roofs to the mountain opposite. Looking down, we see the street full of yellow cabs and other cars. It is rush hour, and apparently, the road has been blocked at the tunnel. People are impatient and sound the car horns. Even here, we easily sense the frustration on the road and in the cars. It is yet another side of Rio de Janeiro, one of the most multifaceted metropolises in the world.
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‘This is all amazing Brazilian culture’
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