Samba City

We can never write about Rio de Janeiro without tapping our feet, jiggling at our desks, samba-swaying around the office. Tam tam-tam . . . tam tam-tam. There in three words is Rio—a pulsing samba city with a hooded look and the screaming colors of a parrot.

We always try to fly in from Lima, Peru, straight up and over the craggy Andes (it's like flying over the moon, cold and dead), then across the tangled green jungle that hides some of the world's most primitive people. The natives still blast away at the weekly trains with poisoned darts. Circling in over the unbelievable bay. we spot Rio—nestled in the only certified genuine purple dusk we've ever seen. Everywhere there are mountains, rocky fingers rising sheer from the waters of each scalloped inlet and stretching around behind the lovely city.

It's best to arrive when the street lights are going on — like brilliant necklaces dipping along the shoreline. Once we hit it just right, as floodlights sprayed the huge white statue of the Christ, arms outstretched, atop Corcovado's 2366-foot peak. At the same moment. Sugar Loaf mountain burst into light out in the bay. Then, spreading inland, the lights flashed on in series, reaching back into the canyons between dark hills.

Night closes in fast in Rio. Grab a taxi at the airport and chase the pearls of light strung along palms beside the dark sea, and soon you're in the center of Rio's neon-lit smartness. Tam tam-tam . . . the samba beat eddies out at you from sidewalk terraces and across the plush lobby of the Copacabana Palace Hotel.

If you're not too bushed from your trip, stop at the hotel's Midnight (Meia-Noite) Room for a quick pick-me-up; also to hear the new French blues singer and admire the smooth, bronzed shoulders and low-cut Paris creations of young cafe society granfinos clustered around the bar. Most of the girls are French-educated Brazilian beauties who are both pert and personable, but remember, it is always best to approach these ladies with both tact and discretion.

Out in the city, the evening air is spice-tinged. Step across to the beach-side walk paved in a pattern of black mosaic waves. Keep pace with the smart strollers, chatting softly in a dozen different tongues, until the crowd thins out toward the bay's crescent tip. Now, away from the lights, you can hear the drum beats filtering down from the favelas, the little shanty towns up in the black hills. The favelas originally gave us the samba, a fetish dance of the West African slaves known as quizomba, but this sound is different. This drumming is macumba —the voodoo ritual of trance dancing and animal sacrifice to the ancient gods Xango and Ogun.

Morning in Rio is always special. We wait until the waiter goes out on our balcony to spread a breakfast of joltingly strong Brazilian coffee and tropical fruit—custard apple and mamao (papaya). The sun is already sizzling hot, the roar of the sea deafening. The night's tropical fragrance has been replaced by a sundrenched salt tang, mingled with the day scent of eucalyptus. Outside, there's a shock: a royal blue sea and white, white sand; cream-and-chrome buildings against dark green hills. On the beach are dots of brightness from swimsuits and beach umbrellas, colorful straw hats and (continued on page 71) Samba City (continued from page 57) deeply tanned bodies in the tumbling white surf. The yelping horns of bus and car on Avenida Atlantica along the beach can barely be heard against the roar of great waves leaping to twice a man's height before they crash against shore and draw back to sea in a sheet of living transparency. Swimming in such a surf as this is incomparable.

Rio's tourist attractions, for those who might be interested, include the National Museum in Quinta da Boa Vista, the former residence of two emperors and quite magnificent in terms of the life it once knew. Also the Botanical Gardens out Gávea way, sporting a hothouse of hungry meat-eating plants. Then to the São Bento monastery . . . but, nonsense, Rio is not a place of museums or monuments. It is a place of living, breathing beauty; like Paquetá, perhaps the most charming of the islands in the bay. (The only other possible contender is Ilha Santa Tereza, crowned by the posh vacation home of the fantastically rich Guinle family, who pass the languid days on an estate where flamingoes and ibis and peacocks wander freely. The Guinle wealth even awes the cariocans, which is saying a pocketful in a city that defines a poor man as anyone who has to wash his own Cadillac.) Or places like the sweeping mountain road out to Tijuca Forest; or Jurujuba, a quaint, almost unspoiled fishing village. Or a dizzying ride in a cable car to the rock-sheer heights of Sugar Loaf mountain. The panoramic vista from the top is in many ways more exciting than the one from Corcovado, 1000 feet higher. Stretching out at your feet is the sweeping bay; the Pipe Organ mountains behind you troop like rocky battalions into the blue distance; and [concluded on next page] between the two the city itself swarms across the narrow plain, through canyons and up the sides of green hills, covering a total area greater than Los Angeles. Or try a sail before dawn with a fisherman for Cabo Frio. About 100 miles from Rio, the settlement is one of the oldest in America, discovered by Americo Vespucci in 1503. The ruins of ancient forts and missions mingle with an Eighteenth Century quaintness that's almost as beguiling as the fabulous seafood they serve there.

Your own home town features steak, French fries, apple pie with a slice of American cheese, so when in Rio, try the local fare. The Alba-Mar is an excellent restaurant for lunch, and be sure to ask for a check-clothed table near a window from which you can view the magnificent bay. If you're up to it, order a shot of pinga, a local rum with more kick than a conga, then the flaky empadinhas de camarões, patties packed with shrimp, olives and hearts of palm. For your main feast you'll want vatapá (one of the great dishes from Bahia in northern Brazil), a fish casserole that's remarkably tasty when you stop to consider that, besides fish, it contains coconut milk, peanuts and thick palm oil! Staying away from the chi-chi restaurants (which you can find listed in any guide book) you might try the Reis on the Avenida Almirante Barroso, where you'll choose your evening meal by lifting lids out in the kitchen. A native feijoada should prove memorable: it's made of black beans and rice with spiced sausages, and sprinkled with roast manioc flour. Another worthy spot is the Furna da Onca, on Rua do Ouvidor, specializing in oxtails, kidneys, sweetbreads and other anatomical edibles in a delicious mixed grill. Brazilian food is about the tastiest in all Latin America, so long as you're careful not to inquire what goes into each dish and how it's prepared.

Shopping in Rio produces a glittering selection. An especially favorable market exists in amethysts and aquamarines, alligator bags and antique silver, trays of inlaid hardwoods, and coasters decorated with the purple, black and blue wings of giant jungle butterflies. Many of the narrow, shady side streets of Rio Branco are kept entirely free of traffic just for shoppers. At the end of Rua do Ouvidor is an open-sided wrought-iron shed that serves as the Flower Market, ablaze with vivid green orchids slashed with amber markings. A stall near the Municipal Market peddles macumba charms: a clenched-fist figa of vegetable ivory for luck in love (this has proven quite effective) and a dried sea horse to ward off the evil eye, should you be unfortunate enough to encounter it.

For something different and unusual you might enjoy a visit to the Royal Pigalle cabaret in the tough Lapa district, one of the many spots in the area where the fun gets pretty rough. But the Lapa is not the toughest spot in Rio. That's way over the other way—out by the Canal do Mangue, where the police patrol not in twos but threes.

And there—unless it's been since razed in a new spurt of slum clearance—is one of the last of the old fashioned red light quarters. It's quite a sight. The girls are lodged in sort of horse stalls, each with a double, Dutch-barn-type door. To display their wares, they may only open one half of the door at a time. By municipal order, the top and bottom of the door may be opened together only to admit or release a customer.

The picture there is like a Daumier painting come to life. Take any of the quarter's steaming alleys. There is a street light only at each end; the darkness between is lit sporadically by informal flashes of red and orange light from inside the girls' stalls as they open the doors to lure in clients. The light glares on naked breasts and thighs of every conceivable color, shape and size. Shrilling their pleas in a score of languages, the girls lean far out into the street, reaching for some man's hat as a surer way of luring him in to questionable delights priced at the equivalent of one U.S. quarter. The girls' calls seem to hang in the air long after you've drawn away from this grotesque scene, this dark pit of flashing lights, weaving nakedness and fantastic squeals. For contrast, the clean, chromed brightness of Rio is very near at hand.

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For further information on your trip to Rio, write Pan American World Airways. 135 East 42nd St., New York 17; Moore-McCormack Lines, 5 Broadway, New York 4, or the Brazilian Tourist Bureau, 551 Fifth Avenue, New York. The fare from New York to Rio is $828 round-trip by air first class, or $525 one way by ship first class.