This year we went back to Rio de Janeiro to document the beautiful chaos of the world’s most marvelous city.
This series, Carnival: The Heartbeat of Rio, covers the alternative side of Carnival, featuring exclusive access to the Sambódromo and include interviews with dancers, journalist and the people who make carnival happen.
Introduction
Pedra do Sal and Porto Maravilha – Episode 1
In this episode we visit the cultural and historical monument of Pedra do Sal to enjoy the free samba and good vibes. Then we explore how the area around it is changing due to the massive Porto Maravilha revitalization project.
Raquel’s Story – Episode 2
For Raquel, Carnival is about transforming pain into joy and washing Rio with love and consciousness. Follow her as she prepares and performs at Boitatá.
Orqestra Voadora – Episode 3
Witness the the vibrant and trippy side of Rio’s Carnival at Bloco Orquestra Voadora.
I spent three weeks filming and conducting interviews for our upcoming documentary series on Carnaval. We worked with Mayor Eduardo Paes’ international communications team in the Palácio da Cidade covering all aspects of Carnival, while focusing on what goes on behind the scenes. Here is a selection of my favorite shots.
In recent years there’s been lots of negative press concerning Rio and the upcoming olympics. The goal of this project is to document all the hard work and organization to show a side of Carnival that tourists and international press often overlook.
Ipanema beach at sunset, looking out towards Dois Irmãos.
Eduardo Paes, the mayor of Rio, starting the week of Carnival celebrations at the City Hall. The mayor began Carnival by handing off the key to the city to the King Momo, the official King of Carnival, joking that the King will now inherit all of the cities problems. Eduardo Paes has been busy hosting the World Cup last summer and the Olympic Games in 2016. Despite the stress, Paes is a pragmatic and energetic man who loves Carnival and Samba as much as any Carioca. Paes once said, “I don’t want to compare my city to Zurich, thank God we’re not that boring.”
Raquel getting ready to dance like a Baiana (a woman from Bahia, Brazil) at the Cordão do Boitatá.
Cordão do Boitatá in the histrotic old city of Rio.
Taking a break before Cordão do Boitatá begins at Praça XV.
Raquel preparing another costume.
The people you find in the back alleys of Rio during Carnival.
The Sambódromo around 2:30am, with many hours of parades to go
Lady from Vila Isabel, waiting in the rain for hours before entering the Sambódromo.
Orquestra Voadora.
Rio is eager to clean up its image before the 2016 Olympic Games. Much of the cities waterfront was once an area with elevated freeways, homeless, crime and trash. Last year the city tore down the freeway, is converting the new spaces into parks and plazas, and planting new trees and plants with the intention of radically changing the area. The area is known as the Porto Maravilha (the Marvelous Port), and it is one of the largest urban renewal projects in Latin America.
Inside the Porto Maravilha area the new Museu do Arte do Rio examines Rio’s past and present. I’ve never seen a museum that portrayes histroy, race, economics and gentrification so honestly. The exhibition Do Valongo à Favela (from Valonga to the Favela) traces Rio’s histroy from the slave port to the contemporary favelas.
Exhibitions also examine gentrification, fighting for public space.
Praia Vermelha and Pão de Açúcar.
View from the top of Pão de Açúcar.
A few blocks from the Museu de Arte do Rio is the wonderful Pedra da Sal. This area was once where the slaves from Africa were bought and sold, and it is rumored to be where samba was born. Today it atracts people from many walks of life who come from the samba, the spicy food, the art and the good times.
Samba in Pedra da Sal.
The old and the new in Porto Maravilha.
I spent the last few days in Rio exploring Zona Norte. This is the Complexo do Alemão, one of the largest favelas in Rio, which now has a gondola which facilitates transport to the rest of the city.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Walker then majored in International Relations and Chinese at the New School University in NYC. He began traveling during a high school exchange to Argentina, and hasn’t stopped since. Walker has always sought out the more unusual and off the beaten path locations and is combining his love for photography and travel to kickstart a career as a journalist, striving to redefine the profession in rapidly changing world.
I traveled for three days on a section of the Interoceanic Highway from the Pacific Coast of Peru to the Brazilian Amazon. The highway continues to São Paulo, Brazil, over 3,900 miles away. The highway spans three time zones, and is the first to cross the entire continent of South America. Many have called it one of the greatest construction projects in Latin America since the Panama Canal. Since its completion, the Interoceanic has raised Peru’s GDP by 1.5% a year. However, the highway has had many detrimental impacts on the local people and environments. The remote Peruvian Amazon was once five to seven days from Cusco Peru by truck. But now the trip takes less than 9 hours. Illegal gold mining and logging has increased exponentially in the last 5 years and residents of Puerto Maldonado, a dusty, frontier boom town, have expressed their concern about the benefits the highway promised to bring.
I asked Malena, a women who worked at the Tarapoto Hostel how the Interoceanic has changed the town. “It hasn’t brought more jobs, it’s actually taken them away,” she replied. “Miners and other people like that just come here, take everything away, and destroy the nature we have here,” Malena added. “The highway has also brought in a lot more delinquency and crime.”
The impact of the highway is being felt especially hard in the remote regions of the Amazon where 15 tribes have been displaced. The Interoceanic now runs through the heart of their homeland, bringing diseases, disrupting wildlife habitat, and ruining their sustainable lifestyle. The Amazon, one of the worlds great ecosystems, is still rich and plentiful, but for how much longer will it remain?
An hour outside of Cusco, the Interoceanic Highways begins its climb over the Andes.
The highway passes through indigenous villages where over 90% of the population still speaks Quechua.
At 15,500 ft above sea level, the pass between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado, deep in the Peruvian Amazon, is one of the highest paved roads in the worlds.
The Highway takes a dramatic turn after reaching the pass, suddenly plunging over 13,000 feet in the span of a few hours.
Brasiléia, located on the border with Bolivia, was in the midst of an intense Dengue and Chikungunya outbreak. City officials handed out pamphlets on the highway through town.
Brasiléia has also been a major transit route for Haitian refugees after the earthquake there in 2010. 20,000 Haitians have already passed through the town, with many more arriving every day. Most leave Haiti for Colombia or Ecuador, passing through the Amazon, Brasiléia, and on to São Paulo, the economic capital of Latin America. A thousand Haitians still reside in a building built for 200 in Brasiléia.
Many parts of Acre, a large Amazonian state in far northwestern Brazil, has been affected greatly by logging interests.
Since 1978 over 289,000 square miles of Amazonian rainforest have been cut down. Since the year 2000, 75% of that has been for cattle ranching. Cattle ranching and soy represent the largest threats today to the Amazon.
Between Brasiléia and Rio Branco, we stopped for gas in Xapuri. This was the birthplace of Chico Mendes, the famous rubber tapper and environmental activist who was murdered by ranchers in 1988. Chico Mendes once said, “At first I thought I was fighting to save rubber trees, then I thought I was fighting to save the Amazon rainforest. Now I realise I am fighting for humanity.”
Dusk on the Acre River, in Rio Branco, a sleepy city in the heart of the rich Amazonian rainforest. Rio Branco sprang up out of the jungle less than a hundred years ago as a rubber tapping outpost.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Walker then majored in International Relations and Chinese at the New School University in NYC. He began traveling during a high school exchange to Argentina, and hasn’t stopped since. Walker has always sought out the more unusual and off the beaten path locations and is combining his love for photography and travel to kickstart a career as a journalist, striving to redefine the profession in rapidly changing world.
While in no way a comprehensive list of the continent (Venezuela, Ecuador and the Guayanas are missing), these are our favorite off the beaten path destinations for 2015. Most of these destinations are a bit rough to say the least, but whoever is willing to forgo some basic comforts will be rewarded with a lifetime of great memories.
#5 La Rinconada, Peru
Tin shacks cover La Rinconada.
La Rinconada is the highest inhabited place on planet earth. At a staggering 18,000 feet above sea level, this gold mining town shows how far people are willing to go in pursuit of money and the allure of wealth. The city of 60,000 sits perched on the edge of a cliff, with glacier covered peaks at a touching distance. You can walk with incredibly friendly locals, who will be more than happy to show you the gold they’ve extracted that day, and they may even invite you to their house to meet their family and have a cup of tea.
La Rinconada should come with a word of warning; this is rough travel. 18,000 feet above sea level is no joke and the piles of trash lining most streets will turn many people away. If you are willing to look beyond the trash and brave the extreme heights, La Rinconada may be one of the least visited and most fascinating places of this planet.
#4 Goiás, Brazil
An old farmer in Ouro Verde de Goias.
This is cowboy country, Brazilian style. Goiás is a giant state in the interior of the country and it is marked by an arid savanna like landscape, great colonial towns, incredible traditional Brazilian food, and quite possibly the friendliest locals in South America. Many travelers make it to Brasilia (which the state of Goiás surrounds), but those looking for another side of Brazil, one far from the hoards of tourists in Rio, should go to Goiás and get lost in this amazing land of red earth and cowboys.
#3 El Alto, Bolivia
A Shaman closes shop in El Alto.
El Alto, located high above the city of La Paz, is the largest indigenous city in the Western Hemesphere, as well as the highest city in the world (13,600 feet above sea level) with over a million people. The city is a chaotic place where massive open air markets flood into the already crowded streets, where one is met with curious stares and friendly smiles. You should come to El Alto if you are interested in indigenous South American culture; this is the modern day epicenter of it all. With the indigenous Evo Morales government, Aymara natives are rapidly beginning to embrace their indigenous roots which were for so many centuries suppressed by the Spanish and Mestizo elite. This cultural renaissance has transformed El Alto into a modern, 21st century indigenous metropolis.
#2 Paraguay
Getting wild after an incredible afternoon in the Chaco. Guns, beer, and nature.
Paraguay is lost in a bygone era. It’s a flat, hot, landlocked country in the middle of South America, whose charms come less from cobblestoned streets and old churches, but more from its people and their hospitality. There may not be many sights to check off, but that doesn’t matter when you are warmly invited to a restaurant opening complete with a fantastic blues band, taken to photography exhibitions or hosted by a family for four days for free. Most travelers skip Paraguay completely, but that’s their loss. Let them have the hordes of tourists and high prices, I’ll take my Paraguay the way it is.
#1 São Paulo, Brazil
Check out an exhibition by the world famous São Paulo graffiti duo, Os Gemeos.
São Paulo is in the midst of a renaissance. Forget Rio de Janeiro or Buenos Aires, this is where you need to come if you want to see a true South American metropolis. With 32 million people in the metro area, there is no denying that São Paulo is somewhat intimidating. Yes, its expensive, the public transportation is crowded, and it doesn’t win many points in the architecture department, but get beyond the initial shock, and you surely will begin to fall for its dynamic energy.
São Paulo is about diversity; it has the largest concentration of Japanese people outside of Japan, there are millions of Arabs and Italians inhabitants, as well as neighborhoods where orthodox Jews rub shoulders with recent Korean and Bolivian immigrants. São Paulo’s diversity is best experienced through the gastronomic boom that is currently happening in the city. Burritos, shawarmas, curries and sushi can all be found within 5 minutes of each other.
São Paulo also has an incredibly vibrant underground culture and some of the best nightlife in all of South America. Brazilians play Mexican mariachi, jazz, blues, reggae and rock, the alternative art scene pops up everywhere across the city, old alleyways are transformed into canvases for artists, old factories are becoming galleries, and museums are constantly highlighting local Paulista artists. After a day of feasting on delicious food from around the planet and enjoying alternative art, you can finish off the night in an underground bar, where people perform improv theater, a faint scent of weed lingers in the air, and locals sip on dark Brazilian microbrews. São Paulo is hot, and you’d be crazy to miss it.
Downtown Blumenau, a southern Brazilian city with a distinctly German feel.
Rua XV de Novembro, the main street of downtown Blumenau. Blumenau has one of the highest standards of living in Brazil, on par with North America or Europe in terms of literacy rate, life expectancy and income.
Pomerode, a small village outside of Blumenau. is known as the most German city in Brazil. 97% of the residents still speak German today
Pomerode was settled by Germans from the Pomerianian part of Prussia in 1861. Even after years of suppression by the Brazilian government, the community of Pomerode has been able to preserve a unique dialect of German called Pomeranian (Pommersch). Klaus Granzow was a German writer who wrote extensivly about Pomeranian culture and histroy, his books can be found throught Pomerode.
Most of the books in the public library in Pomerode are in German, not Portuguese.
Gisele Bündchen, the Brazilian supermodel, may be the most famous face of German immigration to Brazil. Over 12 million people claim German ancestry in Brazil, making them one of the largest ethnic groups in the country. The vast majority of Germans settled in Southern Brazil, specifically in the states of Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina, where the standard of living today is drastically higher than that of the rest of the country. Illiteracy in Santa Catarina is 3.8%, while in many places in the northeast of Brazil, that rate is well over 22%.
After Brazil gained independence from Portugal in 1822, the new Brazilian government encouraged settlement to remote regions of the south in order to create a buffer between Brazil and the newly independent former Spanish colonies of Argentina and Paraguay. A second wave of Germans settled in southern Brazil in search of peace, land and religious freedom after a series of failed revolutions in Europe in 1848. Continued instability in Germany during the end of the 19th century and during both World Wars fueled further immigration.
Although the German language has made a comeback in recent decades, it was heavily suppressed during both World Wars in an attempt to integrate the isolated German colonies into the rest of of the county and squash any pro Nazi sentiments. Today German is still spoken in some communities in the south, but many are becoming increasingly Brazilian in culture, leaving behind their German roots. Some people living in the south have complained that the Germans harbor racist sentiments towards Brazilians, thinking of themselves as a superior race. Given that German immigration to Brazil has nearly come to a standstill, will German-Brazilians be able to hold on to their language and culture.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Walker then majored in International Relations and Chinese at the New School University in NYC. He began traveling during a high school exchange to Argentina, and hasn’t stopped since. Walker has always sought out the more unusual and off the beaten path locations and is combining his love for photography and travel to kickstart a career as a journalist, striving to redefine the profession in rapidly changing world.
Born and raised in San Francisco, Walker then majored in International Relations and Chinese at the New School University in NYC. He began traveling during a high school exchange to Argentina, and hasn’t stopped since. Walker has always sought out the more unusual and off the beaten path locations and is combining his love for photography and travel to kickstart a career as a journalist, striving to redefine the profession in rapidly changing world.
