Seen Through Black Eyes

Welcome to episode 9 of Seen Through Black Eyes. In this episode, I'm going to talk about my very first trip to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro in particular. Or as the Cariocas call it…l Rio de Janeiro.

I went in June of 1992, and the reason that I know this is because it was the year that the first Earth Summit was held and it was held in Rio in June and I was there.

There was a lot of fanfare, you had dignitaries from around the world that was visiting, and they were talking about a variety of different things. This was pre-climate change, but they were talking about doing different things to save the environment. Putting more focus on public transportation, recycling more efficiencies…

The internet was not what it is today, so working from home was not an option, but they were looking at staggered start times to try to alleviate some of the pressure on the infrastructure. Carpooling things of that nature and variety of other things that I did not know about, care about it was 30 years ago, well now, 30 and a half and that ain't the reason why I went down there.

So, growing up and making it through adolescence and being a young man and knowing and hearing about Brazil, Rio in particular. Copacabana, the ladies… that's why I was there.

Interestingly enough, to get back to the Earth Summit because of the fact that you had dignitaries coming from around the world to Rio they actually built an Expressway from the airport to expedite the move of individuals from the airport to downtown Rio, and Beach areas.

It was almost unimaginable that prior to that there was no expressway you had to take like city streets for 20 miles before you got to an expressway. Which boggles the mind… for me.

Anyway so when I went to the first time I had the opportunity to ride on this newly minted, I mean it just finished it or the Earth Summit so they probably finished it several months, couple of months prior to June so what…April Maybe? March maybe something like that…

So I took some sort of a taxi into the city to my hotel, and for what I was looking for, the reason that I went there I was a bit disappointed. And for a long time I couldn't understand why. I've been to Brazil many, many times and I've had wonderful experiences, but that very first one left a lot to be desired.

And another person might not have gone back, because the first time was so uneventful for what I was looking for.

And it took me a while to figure out what exactly had happened, when I said while I'm talking about long after my first trip, and what happened was all of the nightclubs, strip clubs were ushered away from the areas where these dignitaries from around the world were coming in.

The Brazilian government also constructed what you would consider internment camps for the street kids, because they didn't want to see they didn't want to have three kids all over the place when these dignitaries significant others, because they were female dignitaries and maybe they brought their husbands or maybe they brought their children along they didn't want the Brazilian government did not want these Street kids out there begging for money annoying these dignitaries.

So they were all swept up - the nightclubs and strip clubs were all closed down, and it gave me the opportunity to focus a lot of my time and attention on a lot of the touristy things. So I did go to Copacabana, Sugarloaf, the National Gardens, I went to Cathedrals. I did have Copacabana and Ipanema damn near to myself.

So that was my first experience. I had to do quite a bit of research and digging to try to find some nightlife that appealed to me. What I did find interesting there was going to the churrascaria and it's like a Brazilian, but not like it is a Brazilian barbecue restaurant chain type of thing.

Churrascaria actually translates into something equivalent to a barbecue, and going there and having all the different varieties of different foods and everything in that particular style people who know what churrascaria will know what I'm talking about.

If not, look it up. That was very interesting. Going to Sugarloaf, you can see the other airport, the main airport Galeão is quite a ways away. The International Airport but there is a smaller Regional Airport… I cannot…Is it Santos Dumont?

I can't remember if that's the one there or if that's the second airport in Sao Paulo, but you can see the planes landing there… that was quite nice.

Guanabara…actually win the region was quote on quote discovered, they thought that it was a river, and that's where the name Rio de Janeiro, which is “River of January” comes from, but it was actually Guanabara Bay or a bay, which was made later named Guanabara, so that was nice.

The botanical gardens… so as far as getting into the sheer debauchery that I wanted to get into I was not able to do that, because everything was pretty much limited.

Interestingly enough, I thought about it later on: These dignitaries that the Brazilian government wanted to hide all of this from, probably had ladies of the night brought to their room or private parties and things of that nature. So it would be quite ironic that they didn't want it in public, but I'm sure that stuff went on in private.

I flew out of JFK. I flew on this airline that is a shell of itself now, called Varig and Varig was the national airline. They had the longest history, and they had the most routes both international and domestic.

Another airline, a Brazilian airline that I am familiar with that is no longer at all not even a shell, is VASP, V-A-S-P, I remember them. I’ve flown on them. Very good much much later I flew on GOL.

And interestingly, the individual that started JetBlue ended up selling JetBlue to whom I don't know… he was actually Brazilian. And went back to Brazil and started an airline called Azul, and Azul in Portuguese is “blue” so he started JetBlue in the US sold it, when back to Brazil and then started Azul, which means blue… so that's interesting

As I said, I've been to Brazil quite a few times both for business and pleasure, and I will have to separate them out I don't know how I will do that individually or groups, but I had to separate them out because I would swallow up quite a few of my trips if I just put a Brazil all together.

So yeah, so this as I said was in June of 1992, and I know that because of the Earth Summit and I actually looked it up before I started this podcast, and it was from June 3rd to June 14th.

I don't know the days that I was there, I believe I was there at the very beginning and knowing that had probably two weeks of vacation and would not have used 2 weeks at one time, because I wanted to spread it out that I was probably there for a week or less so somewhere in the very beginning June 3rd or so maybe till about the 10th or so somewhere around there.

But that was the time frame but it did wet my whistle once again I had mentioned it before word about my whistle getting wet traveling somewhere international and when I went to Dekar, and even though I didn't get into “good trouble”, like I wanted to… it still felt like I said “No no no of that I could definitely come back”.

And I'm glad that I did decide to go back. I can't remember if it was when I went in June, probably not the same year I don't know but I did go back again and again and again.

So…let's see. the Earth Summit traveling and going and seeing a variety of the touristy sites, eating Brazilian food at the churrascaria and let’s see, that's about it.

I do not recall if there was anything really traumatic on the flight and it was long because it was from JFK. I think it was JFK to Rio because I do not recall there being any transfer or anything like that on VARIG.

Yep, so not a terribly exciting trip, but just to chronicle that this is what I had done in the early 90s and this was a prelude, because as I said, I went several times to Brazil. Let me just set it all up for later.

I have been to Rio De Janeiro, obviously I've been there several times. I've been to Sao Paulo; I've been in the north, Fortaleza.

I visited Recife, I spent some time in Maceió and oh Salvador de Bahia. So those are the cities in Brazil that I've been to and I'll go into a little bit of detail on each one of those at a later in a later episode.

So that's about it for now. Thank you for sticking around, and know that the next time I talk about a Brazil trip, there will be debauchery discussed.

END.