HOW HIGH IS THAT MAN?

Alan claims to be six feet tall. I don’t know about that. But I can say with certainty that he is comfortably taller than the beach umbrellas for hire on Ipanema Beach. Late on Saturday afternoon a few minor adjustments made to combat the receding arc of the setting sun caused the umbrella to subside and eventually topple. Reluctant to get out of his deeply reclined yellow beach chair, Hooky opted to stay seated and hold the umbrella in place like a king grasping a royal sceptre. Soon enough though, his arm grew tired and the inconvenience of bracing the umbrella became greater than the effort required to set it back in the sand. He rose to his feet. Screwing the umbrella down proved unsuccessful. The wiggle technique failed. Greater force was required. He dusted the sand from inside the umbrella post and lifted it high above his head. With a mad look in his eye he brought the umbrella down as if he were trying to part the Red Sea.

The sands did part and the umbrella stucketh fast.

That Alan managed to brain himself with the canopy and break off one of the spokes in the process is neither here nor there. Success speaks for itself and the shade cast by that umbrella was all the more welcome for having imparted an important lesson; for future reference, when trying to insert an unfurled beach umbrella into the sand, don’t do it while standing inside the umbrella.

Speaking of Alan’s claims to be six foot he got chatting with an Irish girl on Friday night at the street party in Lapa. She asked him how tall he is.

“I’m six foot”, he said.

She looked him over for a second, paused, and without blinking fired back;
“Does that include your hair?”

Zing.

The Lapa street party is like any other street party in the world except with better dancing and a higher risk of coming home without your wallet. Pickpockets are everywhere and the hostel staff are at pains to tell you where in the area is and isn’t safe to visit. Horror stories of robbings, beatings and rape are rife, though no doubt garnished with considerable exaggeration, the backpacker telegraph being what it is.

In order to combat the pickpockets it is common practice for holiday-makers at the Lapa party to hide enough cash for a cab-fare home somewhere on their person; usually their underpants. Given the number of pissed up westerners enjoying the party it’s a fair chance that a sizable proportion of Rio’s large denomination folding money has, at some stage, seen some time in the undercrackers of a sweaty gringo. I raised the practice with Alan the next night.

“The muggers must know about it by now”, he said.

I agreed. Alan took a sip of his coke.

“But I guess going up to someone and saying ‘empty your pockets and drop your pants’ might lower compliance rates a bit.”

Indeed.

I’d employed the jock-locker myself with mixed success on the two previous nights. By Lapa I’d managed to get my stashing technique down pat. Not so the night before when, to the great surprise of the assembled football fans on the way back from the Maracana Stadium, a 50 Real note dropped from the right leg of my shorts and onto the floor of the Metro carriage. Epic fail.

Also along the lines of the epic fail was Mr Hook’s first foray into the Portuguese language. Having invested in a guide book, Alan put in a rudimentary examination of the vocabulary section and came away with the firmly held impression that ‘sim’ is Portuguese for no. He wasted no time in applying this knowledge in practical settings and on then opening morning could be seen proudly walking Copacabana Beach, greeting each solicitous stall-holder with a firm but polite ‘sim’, before walking on, leaving a trail of hopeful yet confused vendors in his wake.

Turns out ‘sim’ means yes.

Failures in language are unfortunately an inevitable part of travel if, like Alan and I, you haven’t invested considerable time in learning to parlay in the native tongue. Fortunately, if all else fails you can always fall back on international travel pictionary. My rendering of Sugarloaf on Friday proved a particular triumph and we made the cable car just in time to meet our climbing guide, Duche, who took us for a four-hour rock-climb up the face.

He’s a good guy, that Duche, and we got chatting after repelling back to flat ground and safety at the end of the climb. He told us that he heads down to Patagonia every year to climb and, last time he was there, he met his current Argentine girlfriend.

“She’s great”, he said, “but you know, I miss Brazilian women. Having an Argentine girlfriend in Brazil is like going to a BBQ and bringing your own hamburger.”

Of course failures in language can be overcome if you have an impressive non-verbal skill to compensate, as was aptly demonstrated by an Argentine lad at the Lapa street party. The man salsa’d like a pro and that’s pretty much kryptonite to any western girl who’s been subjected to years of rhythm less drunken shuffling on the club dance floors of London and Sydney. He was good. I’d go so far as to say he gave meaning to the phrase ‘sweeping them off their feet’. As I incompetently made my way around the dance floor it occurred to me that dance is just another language I can’t speak.

One of the first things I noticed about the Brazilians is that they have an unhealthy relationship with cheese. You cannot find a savoury snack in this country that isn’t filled with, encased in or made of cheese. It’s unbelievable. One of the snacks on offer to the revellers at the Lapa street party was a lightly grilled, six-inch block of cheese, loving presented on a stick.

I found this only slightly bemusing until I went to dinner and ordered the margarita pizza. Look, can I just take this opportunity to simply say the following; cheese is a TOPPING! Under no circumstances is it permitted for cheese to form the base of the pizza. What you presented to me on Saturday night was a plate of warm cheese and it did a massive disservice to your wonderful country. From now on in Brazil I’m sticking with rice, beans and BBQ meats.

Just down the road from the restaurant that night a lively party was kicking off with people spilling out of the bars and into the streets of Ipanema. It looked like a pretty good time and Alan and I headed down to grab a beer and join in. As we grew closer we started to notice that quite a few young men were in various degrees of close embrace. Taking this for Latin gregariousness we moved on. It soon became apparent that this form of gregariousness might not be exclusively Latin and after passing a couple of gentlemen engaged in what can only be described as an erotic cuddle, Alan and I shared a look of trepidation.

“I’m not sure this is where we want to be.” I said.

Alan nodded. “I’m all for trying new things,” he said as we looked around Rio’s gay scene in full flamboyant flight. “But there are limits.”

We went back to the hostel where he spooned me until I fell asleep.

Kidding.

That is all,

Dale Atkinson