Oi gente!
Time for a new post - this one I have been looking forward to writing about for days! As mentioned in my previous post, my better half and I spent a day at the lovely beach of Barra da Tijuca, which was nice, but the day got really exciting when we went to our hostel for the night: The
Rocinha Guesthouse atop of Rio's biggest slum Rocinha. I would be lying, if I told you I was not scared at first, but once we talked to our lovely hosts every fear was blown away.
Well, let's start at the very beginning. We took the bus from Barra da Tijuca to the Pasarela to Rocinha around 3 pm and arrived at the bottom of the favela by about 4. It was very intimidating as Rocinha is HUGE. Being a small gringa looking at this massive area of little houses built on top of eachother, I felt rather fearful and worried about getting my iPod and my little bit of money stolen. Rocinha is like its own city, statistics say that there are about 100.000 people living there, but nobody knows an exact number. Here's what awaited us as we stepped off the bus:
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| The pasarela to get to Rocinha |
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| Amazing views of the favela. |
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| So colorful and full of life. |
There are no buses driving through the favela as the streets are very narrow. In fact there is only one main street called Estrada da Gavea, alongside this are tons of alleys that lead to people's homes. Instead of buses they have vans and motorcycle-taxis to get from A to B. We paid about 2 Reals each and took a van up to the entrance of Rua 1, in which our hostel was located. From there we knew we had to find house # 10, which is easier said than done! We had to ask someone for help to even find the entrance of the street, as it is not actually a street, but a really narrow alley. Luckily the guy we asked for directions was a cousin of the owner of the hostel and was able to lead us to the place. Once we entered Rua 1, we were surprised by so many things to take in: there's a guy cutting fish to the left, some folks having beers in a tiny bar just across, there's tiny grocery stores along the street, a guy selling chargers for phones, lots of people passing by and all of that in minimal space. To find house # 10, we had to go down these stairs:
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| Almost at our hostel! A mix of fear and excitement running through our heads ;) |
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| Apart from the garbage and the smell, the view is not so bad! |
Honestly I think we would have never found the entrance to the hostel by ourselves, but with a bit of help we made it. What awaited us at the hostel was a friendly young guy named Obi, his mum Dona Neusa and a stunning balcony with this view:
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| Million dollar view from Rocinha - WOW! |
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| Favela life! |
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| Just after sunset :) |
Well, not a bad view, eh? Rocinha is nestled between the two rather expensive neighborhoods of Gavea and Sao Conrado, where you get similar views but pay a lot more for your property.
Just after we got settled in our room we met Maka, who is the older brother of Obi. He invited us to have some beers with him and his wife Mars, so that's what we did. We found out that Mars is Australian and they met about 2.5 years ago in Rio, moved to Australia together, got married and founded their own jewellery business named Mars da Favela. Their first collections is called
Crystals not Pistols and is made of bullet cases filled with Brazilian crystals. A really cool idea! You should check out their stuff on the following website:
Mars da Favela.
So we spent the evening having a few beers and some freaking good pizza in the streets of Rocinha enjoying the panoramic views and good conversation. I have learned a lot about the life in the favela. Rocinha means "Little Farm" in Portuguese as just after World War 2 European farmers settled on the hillside that is now Rocinha. During the 1950s - 1970s more and more people came, the infrastructure got improved, so that Rocinha kept on growing.
I felt that people there have a strong sense of community. Everybody knows eachother, Maka's family and his closest friends live in a ratio of just about 20 meters away from his place. People are very connected to the favela and enjoy their lives there. In fact the way things are in Rocinha is that the slum may be owned by the biggest drug dealer of the favela, but he does take good care of his community as he has no choice but to live there to keep his business running. It is a system that works really well. Of course there are criminals in the neighborhood, but they will not steal the gringa's money in front of their uncle's restaurant or their mother's grocery store. Instead they will leave their neighborhood and rob people at Copacabana or Ipanema. They just can't stand it if gringos sniff around in back alleys, then you might get trouble. One German tourist actually got shot because of that.
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| Priceless view of Rio's finest: the Christ statue, Lagoa, Copacabana and Ipanema |
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| My love, me, Mars and Maka in lovely Rocinha :) |
After this lovely night talking with Maka and Mars, I felt really safe and wasn't even worried about someone stealing my iPod or anything. I think as long as you stay away from backalleys, you are safe as a gringa in the favela. The only thing that intimidated me where the police officers with their black uniforms, strict, harsh lines on their faces and the guns in their hands. If you have ever seen the movie Elite Squad (Tropa de Elite), you know what I am talking about.
So here are my impressions of this beautiful messy concrete jungle called Rocinha:
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| Lots of illegal electricity running through the favela |
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| It's a miracle that this mess is really working!! Brazilian engineering!! :D haha |
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| I love the mess of this place... |
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| ... and the mountains in the background. |
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| Ok, one really terrible thing is the garbage and the smell of urine in lots of places |
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| The German gringa in a Rocinha back alley :) |
One really fun thing about Rocinha is the motorcycle taxi I mentioned earlier. If you ever get the chance you should try it, it is awesome. It's about 2 Reals per ride anywhere in the neighborhood. We had walked down the hill to the Via Apia, which is the most lively area of Rocinha at the very bottom of the hill. But as Mars told us that we cannot leave Rocinha without taking a moto-taxi ride at least once, we decided to take the moto taxi back up to a lovely view point. Well, the ride was rather intimidating. I was squeezing my legs around the driver and my hands were tightly closed around the grip at the back of the motorcycle. Every curve we took was another shot of adrenaline, but well.. We made it and arrived safe and sound and man, it was a thrilling fun - sort of like a rollercoaster ride!! :))
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| Taking the mototaxi! How scary and fun at the same time! :D The driver hated me ;) haha Poor guy! |
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| Rocinha views!! On the left you can see the tiny Christ statue! :) |
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| Happy times with my love! :) :) |
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| And another shot of us! :) Aww, I love my Flamengista! :) |
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| Walking back down... a long way to go |
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| Can't get enough of those favela and mountain views - there is so much to take in! :) |
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| This corner is actually the entrance to Rua 1. Really hard to find, if you don't know ;) |
As our feet got really tired after a lot of walking along the steep hill, we decided to go back to our lovely guest house and soak in the marvelous views with a cold apple cider, that I brought from Germany! :)) So good! Here's some more pics of the breathtaking Rocinha view!
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| I just couldn't get enough of that view from our amazing Rocinha Guest House |
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| Happy gringos! =D Well, my better half actually looks like a local with his Flamengo shirt! :)) |
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| Love! :) |
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| Cheers!!! |
And then it was already time to say goodbye. Too bad, I really felt homey at the guest house - thanks to Maka and Mars. We have had an amazing experience and learned that a favela is not all that the media shows it is. Rocinha is a unique place that I surely want to revisit!
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| Last shot of the stairs leading to our hostel |
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| 15 mini coxinhas for 1 real!!! Best deal ever and soooo tasty! |
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| Coxinhas + my Brasileiro = Happiness! :) |
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| Heading back to non-favela Rio! |
Well, that is all I want to write about my Rocinha-experience. There is so much more to tell, but that is enough for today. I know that some of you will be really sceptical and may think that I am just a very naive gringa, who doesn't know the danger of a favela, but I know that the ones judging me have never stepped foot into any favela and just believe all the things you hear in the media. I just think that not every favela is just like the other and Rocinha as I have seen it, is a very colorful, lively place and I loved being there.
Um beijo,
Dani
