Living in Rio Part 2

Riding Orangina in Urca

Jeff and I have been living in Rio for almost three weeks now.  We’ve joined a gym; taken the Metro (safe, easy and clean); eaten at our neighborhood restaurants; enjoyed the live music in sidewalk cafés; watched beach soccer (futebol) games where the skill levels of the barefoot players are mind boggling; been very impressed with the large number of small, elegantly coiffed neighborhood dogs we meet on the street; had friends over for dinner and generally started to feel quite at home.  We are looking forward to a visit later this week from my sister and her husband.

Sunday was an important day in Brazil – it was Election Day and a critical one for the country with the presidential race in the forefront.  The candidates present very different views of the future.  The result?  We, along with every Brazilian, will have to wait – there will be a runoff election (second round) on October 26 between the top two vote getters, leftist incumbent Dilma Rousseff and the right centrist Aécio Neves.  Although we expected to see some late campaigning – or at least a few trucks cruising down Avenida Atlantica with loud speakers blaring and flags flying – it was a peaceful day in our neck of the woods.  To be fair, we saw more than the usual municipal police and some federal guards along the beaches and in the public places.  But they too seemed to be enjoying the warm sunny day, as they watched families and friends bike, skateboard, walk, run and play in the good weather.  In the morning, there was more activity along our street than on a regular Sunday as people went to and from their voting.  There is a small fine in Brazil if you don’t vote, so turnouts are high.  I wonder if such a system might improve the embarrassingly low turnouts in the USA.  But regardless, everyone we saw, and we were in many parts of the city throughout the day, appeared to be out and about enjoying the fine weather.  None of this is to assume contentment – the runoff election is on everyone’s mind.  It will be hotly contested over the next three weeks.  Although we are only visitors in Brazil, both my husband and I are very interested to see how it plays out. 

Pão de Açúcar cable car landing peeks over Urca

On a more trivial note, Jeff and I spent Election Day continuing our exploration of Rio by orange bike.  During our bike ride I named my rented “steed” Orangina.  I rode Orangina for more than three hours and it seemed appropriate to give the bike a name.  I use the word steed since these bikes are not the light carbon, custom fit road bikes that Jeff and I have the privilege of owning and riding in Seattle.  These bikes are workhorses, big steel clunkers with sturdy tires and robust frames that bump over curbs and potholes like storm troopers. On Sunday, our goal was to bike from Copacabana out to an older section of Rio, Flamengo, where more separated bike lanes border large open parks and smaller but equally beautiful beaches.  The bike lanes in Rio continue to impress me.  They are easy to find, all painted red and at many intersections, include bike specific traffic lights that cars and buses seem to heed.  We followed the trail under the tunnel that leads from Copacabana to the next neighborhood, Botafogo and turned off into Urca – the adjacent neighborhood, famous for the cable cars that take you up to the top of the giant rock Pão de Açúcar or Sugar Loaf.  Urca is a smaller residential neighborhood of mostly older houses and a series of small sandy coves full of brightly painted boats.  Bougainvillea and oleander bloom over the high walls and pretty gardens that line the streets.  There was a festive feel in the air – was this normal for Sunday or was it perhaps the relief of the election finally happening?  The sidewalks were full of people walking and talking.  A few fishermen were trying their luck, casting off the seawall that edges the bay.  Sailboats flew over the water and the iconic cable cars of Pão de Açúcar passed in the distance high overhead. 

Christo overlooks Rio

From the road where we cycled we could see Corcovado with the famous art deco statue of Christo, Christ the Redeemer, stretching his arms out over the city.  I am not in the slightest bit religious but the sight of Christo overlooking the city is wonderful – perhaps because it is a surprise in so many parts of the city to look up and catch a glimpse of this enduring symbol – sort of like suddenly catching sight of the Eiffel Tower in Paris or even the top of the Space Needle in my own home city of Seattle.  Somehow these sightings are both comforting and compelling.  Oh yes I think to myself, I am in Rio, or Paris, or Seattle.  It makes me happy and I suspect such sightings are equally confirming to many people.  We continued our bike ride out to Flamengo, then reversed direction, going back under the tunnel and finally pedaled to the end of Leblon and back to Copacabana.  We were tired and returned Orangina and her pal to one of the Rio Bike stands.  A walk along the beach, jumping the waves at water’s edge took us home to our local bar.  Once seated, we listened to the guitarist, drank ice cold chopp (draft beer) and watched in awe as several young men jumped off the steep rock cliffs into the surf.

On Monday morning my neighborhood hosted a small farmers market in the nearby praça.  The stands were full of colorful fruits and vegetables, artisanal cheese, fresh farm eggs and many other delicious wares.  Two stands were selling an amazing selection of fresh seafood and another was full of local organic chicken.  The diversity and quality of the goods was impressive.  I filled my shopping bag with many tasty looking items.  I am excited that this street market or feira as it is called, comes to my neighborhood every Monday.  For sure I’ll be back next week.  Rio continues to charm us – it is a wonderful place to visit and living here for a few weeks makes our experience all that much better.

The best radicchio ever...

Bikes and Beaches – Exercise in Rio de Janeiro

The beach along Copacabana is an inspiration to anyone who wants to get into shape – and no, I am NOT talking about tiny bikinis.  

My husband Jeff and I came to live in Rio for a few weeks while he works at a university in town.  We rented an apartment along Copacabana, went grocery shopping and settled in.  Rio is one of the world’s great cities and there are many aspects to commend it.  However one aspect of the city that I am really impressed with is the easy availability of different ways to exercise and the extent to which the city supports and encourages everyone of every age to exercise. There is no reason not to exercise and,  especially as we age, so many reasons to keep or get in shape.  The city of Rio makes it easy!

Last Saturday we downloaded the Rio Bike rental app onto our smartphones, registered to become members and walked to the closest Rio Bike station.  The app includes a map of the many numbered stations in the city.  Each station is a bike stand that holds about twelve or more bright orange bikes, each secured to the rack with an anchor post that fits into a corresponding numbered receptor on the bike stand.  The smart phone app is brilliant.  Once registered and at a station, you log into your account, punch in the station number, enter the number of the bike you want and soon the green light that releases the bike lights up.  A sharp pull of the bike away from the rack and it is yours – free for an hour or less or just five reais (about 2 US dollars) if you bike more than an hour.  It was our first time at a bike station and we were a little hesitant.  A pretty young Carioca (people from Rio are called Cariocas) asked if we needed help.  She showed us the specific sequence needed to release the bike.  She wished us luck and rode off on her orange bike.  Jeff and I adjusted our saddle heights, checked the brakes and wheeled our bikes across the street.  There is a separated 2-way bike lane that parallels the beach all along Copacabana, Ipanema, and Leblon.  We took off and rode to the end of Leblon – a distance of about 6 miles.  The bikes are great – each has a built in basket, hand brakes and three gears.  We cruised happily along the path, passing some slower bikers and being passed by faster bikers.  Here and there we passed a runner or a skateboarder. 

It was Saturday afternoon and the beaches were full of sunbathers and footvolley players.  Footvolley is a crazy game invented in Rio that combines aspects of beach volleyball and football (soccer to North Americans).  Players follow the rules of beach volleyball but cannot use their hands and a soccer (football) ball replaces the volleyball.  It is fun to watch and the expert skill levels along the beach result in long volleys and excitement for the spectators.  The food kiosks were full of people enjoying themselves, eating, drinking, listening to music and watching the scene go by.  The bike path parallels a busy street in the transition between Copacabana and Ipanema but the low wall that separates the bikers from the traffic gives a feeling of safety.  I marveled at how Rio, which has a reputation for chaos and danger, can have such a safe and universally accessible bike path and rental system when in my USA home city of Seattle, Washington, which has a reputation for being bike-friendly, a woman was just killed while she was riding on a designated bike lane along a downtown street.  To be fair to Seattle that street now has a separated bike lane and that lane had been planned before the tragic death.  Unfortunately the plan didn’t happen in time to save the life of an innocent woman.  None of this is to say there are not dangers in Rio.  Of course there are but on Saturday afternoon, biking along on my orange bike, I was happy and grateful for the chance to rent a bike so easily and bike safely in my newly adopted city.  I would love to see a similar system in Seattle.  Perhaps one day it will happen.

As the week continues I am exploring more than Rio Bike.  The city is full of positive energy.  Rio is world famous so what was I expecting?  Copacabana beach is a perfect crescent moon of white sand and surf.  Along the beach stretches the Avenida Atlantica path, an iconic black and white mosaic sidewalk wide enough to hold at least ten people abreast.  The path is home to a continuous stream of people, retired couples walking arm in arm; young mothers pushing strollers; lovers of all ages sometimes kissing, sometimes strolling, sometimes watching the surf; runners; walkers; bikers; young kids chasing each other; surfers riding or coming in from the waves; just plain folks walking and people watching.   Most people are Cariocas but here and there a foreigner, a tourist like me, is part of the mix. 

My favorite time to walk along the beach is in the late afternoon.  That is when you realize that Cariocas really are mad about exercise.  Yesterday I left my apartment about 5 pm and went to a little park close by.  The park sports a veritable gymnasium of exercise equipment all provided by the Rio municipality.  There are elliptical trainers, lat pull and rowing machines, parallel bars, leg extension machines, and goodness knows what else.  It looks like a reduced, outdoors version of the weight room at my YMCA back home in Seattle.  The whole “gym” is just a few feet from the beach.  I chose an elliptical trainer and started to work out.  The machine was at least as good as ones I’ve used in gyms but the view was a whole lot better!  I looked out onto the beach and watched the surfers rise and fall with the waves.  Occasionally a surfer would catch a big wave and ride casually into the shallows.  There is something inspirational about watching a surfer ride a big wave.  It looks so effortless!  I know it isn’t but that is the charm and the compulsion of surfing.  When it works, it is perfect.  I worked out in parallel with another woman and a man…the elliptical machines are in stacks of three.  Around us I could see other people my age working out on the various machines.  I had to smile.  Here we all were, no one less than fifty years old and most of us well over sixty and we are all pushing and pulling on the machines, limbering up and strengthening our bodies.  After my set time on the elliptical I moved onto a set of upper body exercises on another machine.  The air was fresh; the temperature perfect.  A slight breeze blew off the ocean.  At one of the elliptical racks a woman from the Rio municipality explained correct technique to the three ladies working out.  Wow I thought to myself.  How great is it that?  This city is focused on improving the physical condition of its citizens.  When I finished the upper body exercises, I stretched and joined the parade of people walking along the sidewalk.  I had in mind about a 45-minute fast walk.  It was late afternoon and the men who rent beach chairs and umbrellas were stacking them up and moving them into storage for the night.  The lights were beginning to come on as I walked.  Dusk is surprisingly short in the tropics – so different from northern temperate endless summer evenings.  I reached my halfway point and stopped at one of the many stainless steel stretching stations.  These stations are set at regular intervals along the beach.  Each station has a poster that shows in diagrammatic form stretches for upper and lower body.  The equipment is simple but allows one to accomplish all the stretches.  I read the poster and tried out several of the stretches.  I was grateful for the instructions since, despite years of exercising, it is easy to forget to stretch enough.  Even when I remember I usually shortchange some part of my body!  As we age, stretching is at least as important as any other form of exercise.  It is always surprising to me how easy it is to get stiff – and it only seems to get worse the older I get.  I finished my stretching and turned around for the last part of my workout.  Thanks Rio!  Thanks for supporting the health and well being of us middle aged folks.

Late Summer on Lopez Island

Flowers at Horse Drawn Farm

I have been up on Lopez Island in the San Juans for much of the past month.  The island rhythm is seductive…slow mornings lingering over island roasted coffee with delicious breakfast pastries and fresh berries; bicycle rides over familiar roads lined with red rosehips and white snowberries; wandering the island to procure amazing late summer food and flowers; going to the bakery to buy one more loaf of fresh French bread; sitting in the garden reading in the golden afternoon light; taking friends out in our boat and setting the crab traps; late afternoon bike rides; and perhaps best of all, pulling the traps up and harvesting the big male Dungeness crabs.  My husband’s college roommate and his wife, Jim and Sue, visited us this past week.  They live just outside Chicago and had never been to the San Juans.  We picked them up at the morning ferry and went first to the oyster farm to buy a fresh Sockeye salmon and then to Horse Drawn Farm – a 24-hour self service farm stand in the middle of the island.  Our friends couldn’t believe the flower gardens or the quality of produce set out in the open air timber structure – green and yellow zucchini; shiny eggplant; red, yellow, purple and green peppers; basil; large lumpy heritage tomatoes; shallots; sweet onions; farm made sausages; the list goes on.

We returned home laden with goodies, enjoyed a quick picnic lunch and went down to our boat for a fishing expedition.  The sky was clear blue and the sun shone on the water, sending ripples of sparkling light across the bay.  We decided to start our afternoon with a brief tour around the nearby islands before we settled down to salmon fishing.  Despite the late August date, the returning salmon are barely running.  It has been an unusually dry and warm summer.  The annual fish runs are reported to be staying north in the cooler waters off the British Columbia coast. 

Crab Trap!

Of course fishing isn’t just about catching the big one; it’s equally about being out on the water and enjoying the whole experience.  While I trolled slowly around our favorite fishing spot, Jeff and Jim set up the downriggers.  Sue sat in the cockpit with me and we watched our GPS sounder carefully, tracking depth and the location of baitfish.  Running at about 120 feet, we could see dense clouds of baitfish swimming at 60 to 80 feet.  Jeff and Jim set the downriggers at 75 feet and I drove in big slow circles across the waves.  While we chatted, we watched sea lions diving and a flock of gulls floating on the waves.  Suddenly the gulls rose from the water in a single cloud, responding simultaneously to an unknown signal.  Sue and I watched them circle in the sky overhead and then disappear around the edge of the nearby island only to reappear minutes later and land in a crowd on the water.  As luck would have it this wasn’t the day we would catch that big one.  We trolled through the slack tide thinking the fish would surely come.  We tried our favorite childhood fishing calls but to no avail.  The fish weren’t biting or perhaps aren’t in our part of Puget Sound yet.  We pulled the rods back into the boat and drove across the open water to check our crab traps.  Jim and Sue thrilled at the sight of Mount Baker hovering above the horizon.  They loved seeing the huge green and white ferries plowing across the water.   My job was to give the ferries the right of way as we skimmed across the waves!  I approached the first crab trap slowly and carefully, bringing the boat alongside while Jim hooked the trap smoothly as if he had been doing it all his life.  We measured and secured the legal males in a bucket of salt water and threw the undersize and female crabs back, repeating the whole process with the next trap.  The rest of their visit was delightful.  We shared old memories, told family stories and laughed together.  As we said goodbye the next day we promised to “do this more than once every forty years”.

Sunset over Fisherman Bay

It is always a surprise to me how summer accelerates in the last days of August.  Just a few days ago it was my early August birthday and now there is a tiny chill in the morning and Labor Day weekend is almost over.  I’ve heard the ferries sending their foghorn calls at 5 am and watched the mist drift across the straits as the air starts to cool in the evening.  Last night I rode my bicycle home from the other end of the island after we hauled our final delicious crab catch out of the cold water.  It was Sunday evening and no one was on the roads.  I pedaled along alone, skimming the familiar roads easily after a summer of biking.  Biking is a wonderful middle age sport – not stressful to your joints but still a very good work out.  My summer has been full of incredible rides both on Lopez and elsewhere – the Portugal bike trip in May; training rides throughout Puget Sound in June; the 2-day, 204-mile Seattle to Portland ride with my husband and eight others, family members and close friends, in July; and almost daily rides in and around Seattle and Lopez in August sometimes with my husband and daughter; sometimes with friends or alone.  This amount of biking has been wonderful both for my mind and for my body.  My legs are noticeably stronger – I can pedal up steep hills without thinking I will die or worse, get off my bike.  My mind is calmer and happier, filled with memories of wonderful vistas – Puget Sound from the edge of Magnolia; barrier islands lit by the setting sun across Davis and Fisherman Bay; tree filled valleys and fields full of Queen Anne’s lace and round haystacks.  I've had time to think through new stories to write in Brazil and share rides with my grown daughter who joined us for the month while she finished writing her dissertation.  It is a privilege to live in a beautiful place and to have the health and opportunity to enjoy it with family and friends.

Beach Rock Cairn

Early this morning we said goodbye to the last of our summertime visitors - close friends from Seattle.  Today we’ve been doing end of summertime chores.  It is almost time to put the boat up into storage and move the outdoor furniture inside for the winter.  I can hear my husband’s chainsaw cutting the overgrown junipers back before the autumn rains set in.  We’ll be returning to Brazil soon – saying goodbye to the Pacific Northwest for a few months and saying hello to our adopted home in the southern hemisphere.  It has been a summer full of memorable visits with friends and family; cooking and sharing wonderful meals; walks on the beach and in the lovely cedar woods; watching the sun set across the water, lighting everything in a molten glow.  I have many new rocks and shells to add to my collections.  We’ve used some of the lovely smooth beach rocks to build small cairns around our house – not because we need directions from the porch to the front door but because the small piles of stones mark a place we love.  I like the idea that the stones will be waiting to greet me.  I know I’ll be ready to greet them.

Sixty-fifth Birthday Lopez Island Style

An island birthday breakfast

Last week I celebrated my sixty-fifth birthday on Lopez Island with my husband and our daughter.  It was as wonderful a birthday as I can imagine.  When I woke up I saw that the weather was perfect – a brilliant blue sky; clear sparkling water; and green cedar trees swaying in a gentle breeze.  After a delicious home-cooked breakfast of island sausages and eggs, cinnamon buns and scones from the local bakery, we packed a picnic lunch and filled our water bottles.  We went down to the nearby bay and rented three kayaks.  After a brief waterfront orientation, we stowed our picnic and gear in the waterproof hatches, launched the boats and set out across Fisherman’s Bay.  We paddled out of the bay and along the northeast coast of the island, admiring the steep bluffs and tall fir trees that clung precariously above the water.  Our paddles made soft splashing sounds as we dipped them rhythmically into the water.  We saw two fat seals, sunning themselves on a rocky promontory several hundred feet offshore.  They greeted us sleepily – raising their tails and heads simultaneously to see who was paddling by.  When they saw it was just us, the two friends settled happily back onto their small rock.  We chose to cross the straits to Shaw Island at the narrowest point between the two islands.  We waited for a few minutes, bobbing gently in the shallows until the big green and white ferries passed before venturing across the open passage. 

Picnic Point

Paddling a kayak is a great workout.  You 

have to use your whole upper body, not just your arms to avoid tiring too quickly.  I found it easy to get into the rhythm, dipping my paddle first left then right then left again.  Our three tiny boats crossed the passage together – although smaller boats have the right of way we wanted to make sure the large fast powerboats could see us.  Once across the channel we floated quietly along the shore of a small barrier island, watching tiny silver fish jump above the water’s surface.  The sun shone like gold on the water, catching the light of the jumping fish.  We paddled together, each at our own pace, simultaneously enjoying the camaraderie and the solitude of our own small boat.  Our destination was appropriately named Picnic Point – a small gravel beach rimmed with Madronas and driftwood logs.  We beached the boats and set our life jackets on the logs to dry.  The beach was covered with tiny pea gravel mixed with small shells of every kind, limpets, mussels, broken crab claws, tiny remnants of abalone and clamshells.  Here and there a bit of beach glass glinted in the mix.  We pulled out our sandwiches, Lopez Island sausages and dill pickles on homemade sourdough bread.  Dessert was a mixture of apples slices, apricots and cherries.  We lolled like the seals in the sunshine, drying our shorts in the August sunshine.

As we crossed back to the barrier island we realized a wind had come up, blowing from the southwest – exactly the direction we were headed.  Once the channel was clear of boats we paddled hard across it, dipping our paddles purposefully into the waves.  We followed the shoreline going south back towards Fisherman’s Bay, clinging as close to the beach as possible, hoping that the strong breeze might be reduced in the lee of the land.  I was happy that all the weight-training exercises I’ve done in the gym these last few years give me the strength to paddle against a strong wind.  I don’t know that I could have managed as well when I was younger – a funny thought since I am stronger at 65 than I was at 55.  One advantage of being retired is having the time to get and stay in shape!

At first the entrance to the bay seemed so far away I wondered if I could paddle that far but of course I did.  High above us on the bluffs, I spied a bald eagle sitting on top of one of the tallest firs.  I called to my family.  We watched as her mate flew out of the woods, hovered above the tree, and landed gracefully beside her.  We could hear the two eagles chattering to each other…wild lovebirds?  Perhaps.  Their brilliant white hoods shone in the sunshine.  We passed our friendly seals who seemed to remember us and barely lifted their heads as we passed by.  Our tired muscles were forgotten as we entered the bay, beached our kayaks and left our jackets and paddles to dry.

A feast of crabs

Our next adventure involved food procurement – we drove across the island to our boat, fired it up and went to check the crab traps we had baited and dropped the night before.  Catching Dungeness crab is one of the privileges of living in the Pacific Northwest.  While I drove, my daughter and husband pulled first one and then two traps – finding several legal sized males for dinner.  My husband emptied the bait boxes – tossing left over bait to the waiting gulls.  We laughed as the gulls swooped in, missing the bits of meat in the air and diving into the water hungrily.  There was enough for everyone. 

Next stop was for a Mac and Jack on the deck of the Islander.  We had earned this cold treat!  We sat together sipping the cold amber ale and watching the boats bob in the bay.  The sun was still high in the sky but we needed to get home to boil the crabs.  While the crabs boiled, we made a salad with local arugula and a black bean salad with feta cheese, fresh corn, lime juice and red peppers.  That is the kind of meal that summer is made of.

Later that evening, as we ate chocolate cake and ice cream (a birthday treat from my friend Alice), my daughter asked me what my three best memories of the past year were and what three things I am looking forward to in the next year.  It was a hard set of questions.  I had to stop and think.  If you have followed my blog you know this year has been full of some amazing adventures – trips to exotic places; visits with family, old and new friends.  But even as a retiree, life is not just one big vacation - I feel I am still establishing a new rhythm in my life – separate from the rhythm of working five days a week and living in one place.  My new rhythm includes a regular schedule for writing, for exercising and, when we are in Brazil, time for studying Portuguese.  This year also included time to take care of many house maintenance jobs that I had postponed while I was working full time.  I have found the transition to retirement challenging at times and at other times wonderful.  While I greatly enjoyed my working life, I don’t miss its pressures, the daily problems to solve and busy schedule that my work as a water engineer was filled with.  

I sat at the table and thought about the three things I enjoyed the most during the past 12 months.  One was easy – skiing in Park City (see Blog March 2014).  This choice reflected my life long love of skiing – an activity I began when I was six years old but for a variety of circumstances had not done for more than seven years.  But it was hard for me to choose favorites among the many other experiences I have had this year.  I am privileged to be healthy and able to travel and share my life with good friends and family.  I finally decided on two highlights: watching my husband Jeff catch his first king salmon in more than fifteen years late last summer and celebrating my daughter’s PhD graduation ceremony with my son, daughter-in-law, my sister-in-law and my husband this past June.

As to the three things I am looking forward to in the next year?  Well that will just have to wait for another day or blog as the case maybe.

P.S. Thank you to all the people who wrote to me regarding the experience of depression I wrote about in July’s blog.  I feel I am one of the lucky ones with friends, family and resources that have helped me recover from intermittent periods of depression during my life time.  Hopefully I won’t experience this difficult condition again, but if I do, I am confident that I know how to manage and recover.  Unfortunately that is not true for everyone.  How sad I was to read about Robin Williams’ death this week, a talented person who, for many complex reasons, did not feel able to continue his life.  His death is a reminder to all of us to reach out to family and friends for help when we need it and to avoid substance abuse.