Tag Archives: backpacking

Road to Zion, Brazil (Video)

Camping on Ilha Grande, Brazil


 

By Nick Neumann

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Upon arriving in by ferry in Vila Abrão – the largest settlement on the island packed with cool hostels and backpackers – we decided to hike 2.5 hours to Lopes Mendes.  It has been voted one of the best beaches in the world and it certainly did not disappoint, even though the hike was brutal with our packs.  

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Our plan was to camp on Lopes Mendes, but a life guard warned us that it was illegal and not safe because of the corrupt guards. The southern part of the island is patrolled by the military because it is national park territory.

IMG_9715We took the lifeguards advice, walked to the closest beach, which was just outside the national park, waited for all the boats to leave and the sun to set before setting up camp.  The setting was simply spectacular.

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There were no lights, so we could see the milky way by 7.30 pm.  We ate our remaining bananas, oranges and cookies while kicking it on a beach.  The sound of the ocean was quickly drowned out by the jungle.  A night of natural solitude was exactly what we needed after a month in Rio.  Walker was the only one with a sleeping bag and a mat, so the rest of us barely slept because of the cold, damp conditions.

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We were ‘woken up’ at dawn by a troop of howler monkeys, hiked back to Lopes Mendes and passed out on the beach for hours.  We had amazing time, but the next day we were filthy and starving so we took a boat back and spend the following night in hostel.

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Filmed and edited by: Nick Neumann
Music: Damian Marley – Road to Zion (EFIX & XKAEM Cover)
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World Cup Update: Day 16

Its hard to believe that my time in Rio has reached the half way point.  I’ve been so preoccupied with the World Cup that I have yet to visit any of the classic tourist sites in Rio, which I’m totally okay with. Instead we’ve been catching the bus to Copacabana.  Our first stop is usually a cafe two blocks from the beach.

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A delicious fresh fruit smoothie, coffee with milk, and tasty ham and cheese pastry is my go to breakfast.  The açaí and chocolate chip smoothie is my favorite, but you really can’t go wrong with any juice you choose.

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Only in Brazil do the have protein powder prominently displayed at the local cafe.

Next we join throngs of fans from around the world headed to the beach to watch the games and soak up the warm winter sun.  The Argentinians are the most obnoxious and the Chileans are the loudest. Chanting chi chi chi le le le, viva Chile!, non stop.  Everyone, including myself has been really impressed by the number of USA fans in Rio.  Aside from the aforementioned teams, we have been the  loudest and biggest fan base, which makes watching USA games really exciting.  One of the coolest and most unique aspects of the World Cup is that it brings together people from all over the world.  Where else can you meet a bunch of Bosnians, Algerians, Colombians,  and Nigerians in a matter of minutes?

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Copacabana Beach.

There is a giant walled Fifa Fan Fest at the start of Copacabana beach sporting  a giant screen, between game concerts and host of dumb activities to waste your money  on.  Fifa doesn’t allow soccer balls inside and the beer is way more expensive.  So the best option is to avoid going inside and walk around to the beach side.  There is nothing better than buying a Caipirinha from a makeshift rasta bar on the beach, and taking a dip in the warm Atlantic, all while watching soccer.

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Fifa Fan Fest in the distance.

Quick Travel Tip: We found our awesome place on AirBnb and could not be happier.  Many other people we talked to did the same and also highly recommend it.  If you are coming to Brazil definitely check AirBnb for your accommodation.

I’m not sure what the reporting has been like back in the States, but there have been very few protests here in Rio.  The majority of Brazilians appear to be really enjoying the cup so far.  Everyone is rocking Brazil jerseys, lots of Brazilians from all over the state of Rio show up at the Fan Fest cheering on other teams and party, restaurants are packed with people watching the games and there are Brazil flags everywhere.  However, there are plans to stage a protest at Maracana this Sunday to prepare for the big one on the day of the final, which takes place at Maracana.

That being said, the World Cup has done little to quell the brutality of the police.  It has simply directed attention elsewhere. The other day a little boy was shot in a favela near us.  He didn’t die, but Patrick fears that he will disappear tonight.   The same cops that shot him are working again and he thinks that they will attempt to get rid of the evidence.  While the pacification of Rio’s favelas has made a few safer, ultimately it has just pushed the violence to the once quiet and peaceful suburbs of Rio as the drug dealers flee the city.

Rio is so crazy because there are people living in Barra de Tijuca, suburban sprawl on Rio’s west side that is nicer than Miami, completely oblivious to brutality and unaccountability of the police on the north side.  Its as if you are traveling internationally between to vastly different countries when you take a bus from Barra to Maracana.  Never before have I experienced such stark contrasts,  astonishing inequality and immeasurable beauty.

Rio’s Police Have the Good Shit

We made it! Safe,  exhausted and excited, we are no longer floating thousands of miles in the sky, waiting for the captain to land. We are now living within the creature they call, the Cidade Maravilhosa (Marvelous city). It’s hard to say what makes the city so marvelous. It is an incredible combination of the people, the geography, the climate, the architecture, the festivals, the list can go on forever. At the top of this list would be something I will never forget; the first impression that our host, Patrick Granja, made upon us when we first arrived on his doorstep. Patrick is a remarkable person who’s deeply involved with fighting corruption and documenting the brutal tactics that the police force have been using on the poorest people here in Rio. His passion, it would seem is to give a voice to those who are beaten down into silence, to put a name with the unidentified bodies that are left in the streets after police “pacify” a favela.  He found the time in his busy schedule to give us a ride to Copacabana, and I am so glad he did. It turned to be a ride I will always remember.

We started out in his hatchback from Maracana Stadium and drove through the district of Lapa.  Outside of Maracana Stadium, Patrick told us of his memories going to the old stadium, before it was remodeled for the World Cup. How the seats were packed with the local people, and the tickets were affordable enough, even for the poorest of families. Where they sat didn’t matter, it was the love of the game that brought everyone together. I found it strange then, that most of the graffiti in Rio didn’t depict a love of the upcoming World Cup, rather, they expressed a clear discontent about the event. When I brought it up to Patrick, he wasn’t surprised, instead he was in agreement. The resentment to the World Cup had nothing to do with soccer, or any lack of love for the sport. This is a country that worships its players, they put people like Pele next to god in their hearts.

It was the elite police forces that had been assembled from all over Brazil, and were going around Rio to stomp out criminal activity that was making the locals give up on their love for soccer. In a massive effort to make the city safer for the huge influx of tourists who will be making their to Rio in less than a week, the Government has started to “pacify” the most dangerous parts of the city by sending in their most highly trained squads of riot police to root out the criminals they believe will harm the image of the city. This makes things tough for the people who live in those neighborhoods and aren’t participating in any criminal activity.

The people have started protesting intensely, and the police have responded with brute force, firing live rounds into protests, beating anyone who doesn’t stand down, and violently punishing anyone who publishes material that incriminates them.  Patrick and his crew are literally on the front line, laying down their lives to try and get attention to the subject. In spite of the danger he lives in, he still had a sense of humor. There is a joke, according to Patrick, regarding the tools that this new police force uses. Before the riot police began turning protests into warzones, the local police force was using expired tear gas to disperse the crowds. Tear gas becomes very dangerous once it passes it’s expiration date, and the effects of it can cause far worse symptoms than it usually would, in some cases, it can kill.  According to Patrick, when the new Federal police force came in with their tear gas, he noticed that they weren’t affected by it. He joked with his friends that only the local police had “the good shit” or the expired and lethal tear gas that they had grown accustomed to. He did say that one perk of the newer gas was that while protesting, he and his friends noticed feeling a little high, a welcome relief in the midst of flash bangs and bullets raining over them. It must have been the effects of the new tear gas that inspired him, but while we were sitting in traffic, surrounded by cars, motorcycles and people all weaving in and around one another,

Patrick decided to share his stock of Paraguayan Ganja. I sat next to him in the passenger seat, a bit nervous about smoking it because of a police car that was right in front of us. This, he told us, was no problem. The police don’t care about marijuana in Rio, because they don’t make any money off it anymore.  New legislation requires police who catch you with it to bring you into the station, confiscate your Lambsbread and have you sign a form that states that you will no longer use the substance. Prior to this law, the Police would take your sweet, sweet, cheba, throw it away, then threaten you with jail time, or worse, if you didn’t grease the wheels for them with some cash.  Now, they have nothing to blackmail people with, and no means of making money, so why bother with arresting anyone? Corruption in this city sometimes works out in our favor.

Patrick was in the middle of telling us stories of injuries he suffered over years of filming protests when he noticed that the traffic on the way to Copacabana was intensifying, a sign he took to mean that the tunnel that would take us there had been shut down due to a protest put on by the local teachers. He dropped us off nearby and hurried over to film what he could of the protest. Suddenly it was real. We were in the city, surrounded by the sounds of Rio dancing around us, like an orchestra composed of Rio’s urban musicians, from cars honking indiscriminately to, engines struggling to propel their cargo another mile, coughing and hacking their way through winding streets, all with the unique musical sound of Brazilian Portuguese flowing in the background.  This is an enchanted land, as old as it is beautiful, as lovely as the people who live and work on it’s wonderful landscape.

We finally sat on the beach of Copacabana, our heads filled with stories of corruption and brutality, our eyes lost on the perfect white sands and warm waters of Rio de Janheiro;  a paradise surrounded with colossal mountains that break the clouds. My eyes were transfixed upon Cristo Redentor, as he stands atop the highest peak overlooking the city. The ruler of a utopia, and the witness to a purgatory all at once, his arms outstretched as the winds drive painful memories into the past, and bring with them hope that this land can forever remain what it was meant to be: Paradise.

Kicking it in Zona Norte

THE HOUSE

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After only 24 hours of living in our new pad in Rio’s Zona Norte it was already abundantly clear that we had picked the perfect place to spend the next six weeks.  The house where we are staying is located in a gated hillside community less than a 10 minute walk from Maracanã Stadium far removed from the tourist hotspots of Copacabana and Lapa.

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Our room is on the second floor of a two story flat overlooking a middle class neighborhood and a favela nestled in the hillside across IMG_0883from us.  Patrick Granja, our host, lives with his girlfriend on the first floor.  The second floor is essentially a mini hostel, with Danny, another Brazilian filmmaker, in one room, two Swedish English teachers in across the hall and us three in the biggest room.  The final resident is an inquisitive little cat named Maasai.

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The living room is decked out with surf boards and guitars, and a breakfast of bread, ham, cheese, fresh pineapple and very strong coffee awaits us every morning if we get up in time.

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 OUR HOST, PATRICK GRANJA

The primary reason we decided to stay with Patrick was because he was a local filmmaker.  We thought he would be a great connection to have in South America and living with him, as opposed to in a hostel, would offer us a unique opportunity to see the city from the perspective of a local human rights advocate.

He grew up across the street from Maracanã stadium in a “rundown penthouse”.  His mom still lives there, but right now she is renting it out to CNN so that it can be used as their command center overlooking the stadium during the World Cup.  She also received five tickets to the World Cup final, which she intends to sell for thousands of dollars each and use the money to remodel the penthouse.

Patrick watched his favorite team, Fluminense, play over a thousand times growing up, but hasn’t attended a game since it was renovated for the World Cup.  The pitch was rotated so he can no longer remember where he was when the most important goals were scored.  He is not excited about the World Cup at all because of the problems that came with it, like the pacification of the favelas, the ensuing violence, and the rising cost of living in Rio.

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Patrick’s interest and involvement in Rio’s inequality epidemic didn’t start with the World Cup. He has been editing and contributing to the weekly Maoist journal A Nova Democracia for the last 12 years. He is also a enthusiastic videographer, filming all the major protest over the last decade with the best cameras, as well as the most prominent archiver of locally produced films and footage.

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His dedication to being in the midst of the action and getting the best shots has come at a cost to his health and safety.  He lost a chunk of his leg when a flash bang grenade exploded at his feet, has inhaled lots of expired tear gas and got shot at recently while in the front lines of a protest in a nearby favela, because the cops unexpectedly opened fire with real 9mm bullets.

This passion and proclivity to filming protest has been noticed by news agencies around the world.  He has sold his footage to Al Jazeera and most recently to Vice for their upcoming documentary on the World Cup in Rio.  I’m stoked to be living with him.  Hopefully we can all learn from him and start selling the footage we get in South America to keep funding our travels.

Check back soon to read all about our adventures with Patrick in Rio.

Peace

What to Expect

WHAT IS BREAKING BORDERS?

Breaking Borders is website and webtv series chronicling the adventures of three San Franciscans as we embark on an epic journey around the South America and beyond.  The trip will begin with a bang in Rio de Janeiro, where we will spend over a month taking in the beautiful sites and sounds of the Marvelous City during the World Cup.  We will be staying with Patrick Granja, a documentary filmmaker, only 10 minutes from Maracana Stadium (the site of the Final!).  Check back here during the World Cup for updates, pictures and videos of the protests, hooliganism and parties, as we will be in the midst of all the action.  After a champion is crowned in mid July we will head south to visit friends and live like Porteños in Buenos Aires and gauchos in Las Pampas.  We aren’t sure exactly where they will head to after, but they know that we would like to explore Patagonia, track down Moreno’s relatives in Chile, bike the road of death in Bolivia, and continue adventuring up the west coast of South America and beyond.

THE TEAM

The Breaking Borders crew is Moreno, the writer and travel noob, Walker, the photographer and travel guru, and Neumann, the filmmaker and travel vet. We will work together to produce entertaining blog posts, photo essays and galleries, and a series of travel videos. Yet, it won’t just be fun and games, as we will keeping a keen eye out for interesting people, social issues and environmental problems to investigate and document. Our goal is to not only produce entertaining documentaries, but also expose injustices and raise awareness about underreported stories and events.