Rio, With Eyes Open

Written By Unknown on Sabtu, 16 Februari 2013 | 17.35

Lianne Milton for The New York Times

Watching the sunset at Arpoador Beach. More Photos »

If you want to know why people come to Rio de Janeiro, and came even during its years of bloody, decadent decline, stand on the Arpoador Beach promenade at day's end. Before you lies an orchestral finale of a sunset: iridescent water, pastel-streaked skies and hazy silhouettes of cliffs to the west. Behind you are swarms of Cariocas, as Rio natives are known: men with phones tucked into the fronts of their bathing suits, swimmers shaking off droplets of water before ordering caipirinhas at an outdoor bar. At the moment when the neon-pink sun slips below the horizon, everyone stops, stands and claps: a nightly salute to city, beach and sky.

This was part of why my 7-year-old daughter and I traveled to Rio in December, to experience urban beauty so intense that even the locals pause to applaud it. Rio may be the most voluptuous city in the world, with soft beaches, dramatic mountains, waterfalls, a rain forest, lagoon and orchids — planted by residents — peeking out of lush old trees lining the streets. Papayas and jackfruit drop from branches all over town, symbols of the city's overabundant sweetness. The place makes Miami look like Cleveland.

I had another reason as well: I wanted to test out the new, supposedly safer Rio. Until recently, it had been considered a laughably inappropriate destination for a mother-daughter trip, with a highway from the airport that closed sometimes because of drug-related shootouts and warnings to tourists that began with phrases like "to minimize the chance of kidnapping ... " But in the past several years, a strong national economy combined with the double honor of hosting the World Cup (throughout Brazil in 2014) and the Olympics (in Rio in 2016) has prompted the city of six million to remake itself. Brazilian authorities have boasted that Rio's murder rate has plunged to the lowest point in decades; supposedly below those of American cities like Baltimore and St. Louis. Drug gangs have been chased from their former strongholds in the coastal neighborhoods favored by tourists. Travel magazines describe Rio as a place to be, and for children it seemed as if it could be paradaisical, with bird-size monkeys, sorbets made of mysterious Amazonian fruits and only a few hours of time difference from the East Coast. I booked two tickets.

But once I started reaching out to friends and travel agents who really knew the city, I stiffened with apprehension, worried that Rio's rehabilitation was more public relations coup than reality. The bad Rio stories are really quite bad; many involve tourists, and some are uncomfortably recent. You would never know from looking at the alluring Web site of the Santa Teresa Hotel, one of the loveliest and priciest establishments in the city, for example, that its guests were robbed at gunpoint in 2011. The year before that a drug gang took 30 people hostage at the InterContinental Hotel. I also started to hear anecdotal tales of muggings and pickpocketing from friends, along with warnings about Rio's still-weak emergency services — i.e., good luck getting an ambulance.

So we flew off with a question: Would it be possible to experience Rio with maximum pleasure and minimal risk?

A FEW HOURS AFTER WE LANDED, we were sitting on the beach in the calm, upscale neighborhood of Leblon being schooled by Brazilian-American friends in the art of Rio beachgoing. Americans take a minivan's worth of gear to the beach; Cariocas take almost nothing, just flip-flops, sunglasses, phone and a soft little wrap called a canga. Vendors rent out chairs and umbrellas and sell everything else you could possibly need, from cheese grilled on portable hot coals to bikini tops, which they twirl from umbrella-topped rods like tropical maypoles.

As the buffet of options passed by we did everything our friends Christina and Sundeep told us to do: try this fresh litchi, have some coconut water served in a green shell, look at that 70-year-old guy jogging in the 90-degree heat. Leblon is at the western edge of the city's famous double crescent of beaches, quieter and with pricier real estate than Ipanema and Copacabana to the east. Each stretch of beach is a small world unto itself and our hosts pointed to spots for stoners, gay men and other crowds.

JODI KANTOR is a New York Times correspondent.


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