Macumba Beach

Icon would be the word to best describe Christ the Redeemer Statue. Only the Eiffel tower comes to mind as another man made monument that symbolically represents a city to this degree but the famous monument atop a mountain above Rio, of Jesus Christ with his arms outstretched, has come to represent an entire nation and instantly associated, by a majority of the population living on earth, to symbolize Rio de Janeiro. The city named after a river, named after a month of the year (ie. Janeiro = January) has an icon to represent her to humanity, it's Christ the Redeemer Statue.

Christ the Redeemer statue stands 39.6 metres (130 ft) tall, including its 9.5 metre (31 ft) pedestal, and 30 metres (98 ft) wide. It weighs 635 tons, and is located at the peak of the 700 metres (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain (Corcovado meaning "hunchback" in Portuguese) in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. It is one of the tallest statues of its kind in the world. The statue of Cristo la Concordia in Cochabamba, Bolivia, is slightly taller, standing at 40.44 metres (132.7 ft) tall with its 6.24 metres (20.5 ft) pedestal and 34.20 metres (112.2 ft) wide. A symbol of Catholicism, the statue has become an icon of Rio and Brazil. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone atop the peak of Corcovado, a big granite dome claimed to be the highest such formation in Brazil

"Champions are made of something they have deep inside of them.
A desire, a dream, a vision.
They must have last minute stamina.
They have to be fast.
They must have the skill and the will.
But the will must be stronger than the skill.
Ayrton Senna

Aryton Senna was the greatest brazilian driver of all time was born in Sao Paulo on March 21, 1960.

Today he would complete 50 years and certainly still participate actively in racing either on your own team or even running on events like the 24 Hours of LeMans. Senna was three times world champion of Formula 1 in the years 1988, 1990 and 1991 and also twice runner-up in 1989 (a championship very controversial given to his punishment at the final race) and 1993 (third year of Schumacher in the category)

Roberto Burle Marx is internationally known as one of the most important landscape architects of the 20th century. An artist of multiple facets, besides being a landscape designer he was also a remarkable painter, sculptor, singer, and jewelry designer, with a sensibility that is shown throughout his work. Born in São Paulo in August 4th, 1909, Roberto Burle Marx moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1913. During the years of 1928 and 1929 he studied painting in Berlin - Germany, where he was often seen at the Dahlem Botanic Garden's greenhouses. In this garden he noticed for the first time the beauty of the tropical plants and the Brazilian flora.

His first landscape project was a private garden for a house designed by the Architects Lucio Costa and Gregory Warchavchik in 1932. Since then, his landscape works improved as well as his painting and drawing.

In 1949, he bought a 365,000m2 estate in Barra de Guaratiba, in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, where he started to organize his big collection of plants.

The best Samba schools of Brazil compete in Rio de Janeiro during the Carnaval. There's so much more to this competition than what appears, on first glance, to be a big parade of people in costumes dancing in unison, with a floats interspersed. Dance schools in Rio have long traditions of organizing amazing performances and to these schools, or clubs, this competition is so much more than just a parade of dancers.

Each performance lasts 1 hour and synchronizes as many as 4,000 costumed dancers separated by as many as 8 huge floats, which can have 30 dancers on each. The schools have a theme and a newly written song to interpret their theme. The main component of the presentation is the big battery of drummers that retain the fast pace BPM (beats per minute) which is often measured on the TV coverage to provide statistics. The presentation is divided into Ala's, like scenes in a play, each has unique costume to illustrate another aspect of the theme, there may be 40 Ala's to the presentation all choreographed. Some of the costumes are very elaborate but made of light weight plastics and colorful cloth, along with the dancers there are coaches who help to keep the timing and organization because a school is penalized if they're 1 minute longer than an hour completing their parade of the SambaDrome.

The most important component of each Samba school's presentation is the beautiful dancing women. In front of each is the Porta Bandiera escorted by the best costumed man, as she carries the flag for the schools and wears a mask and the most elaborate gown or dress like a Princess, they twirl and spin, showing off the flag and introducing the dancers. Somewhere in the middle of the parade will be the main float atop of which will be the Queen of the Samba School, often a celebrity or famous model/dancer and always nearly naked and dancing Samba as fast and as well as it can be danced. It's a great honor of Brazil to be the Queen of the Samba School and the winner of the entire Carnival will become famous for lfe as a result.

The winner of the 2010 carnival in Rio de Janeiro  was recognized Unidos da Tijuca samba school which is one of the oldest schools of Belgium. Last time the honored title Unidos da Tijuca had taken in 1931. According to the witnesses, the samba school "Unidos da Tijuca" had totally fascinated the public which was applauding them from the very beginning and calling them the winners and "champions". The second place with a slight difference was taken by the "Academicos do Grande Rio" samba school and the third place was for Beija-Flor.

The food in Brazil is incredibly good and Rio offers some of the best restaurants in the country, with a selection of regional cuisines that encompasses the entire country, plus you can find every type of ethnic food imaginable and often times even Chinese food can taste as good as anywhere in the world due to the quality and freshness of the ingredients.

One of my favorite places to eat and drink is the Garota de Ipanema, sure it's a bit of a tourist trap because of the song "Girl from Ipanema" but seriously the restaurant is really excellent and it's super casual being just a couple of blocks from Ipanema beach. You can grab a good window seat near the corner if your timing is good and then watch all the Cariocas trudging home from the beach at the end of the day. The draft beer is cold and frothy however the caipirinhas might be as good as you'll find anywhere but the main attraction is the great food, especially the Picanha, which is thinly sliced beef rump that you grill yourself, right at your table, on a hotplate similar to a hibachi bar-b-que.

The Garota de Ipanema Restaurant is an authentic place of Rio since 1945. From the beginning, it was a place where the Bohemians of Rio de Janeiro used to get together during the golden years. The Garota de Ipanema became a tourist attraction in 1966 when the journalist Mário Peixoto published the first edition of the local newspaper Jornal de Ipanema. Its first editorial meeting took place at the Garota de Ipanema. The paper talked about everything, but mainly about poetry, in particular poetry from Ipanema. Today, the Garota de Ipanema still attracts local people as well as tourists from all over the world, who once heard the story about a beautiful girl that walked to the sea, swinging and swaying like a samba, as she was admired by a very special poet.

I'm an expat Canuck living in Brazil and loving it. One of my favorite places is Macumba Beach, the last public beach in the city of Rio de Janeiro. Over 11 years ago I first saw Macumba Beach and the first time noticed a mountain road going along the bottom of the rain forest, across the river inlet from the beach, it was the most romantic looking road because it rounds the corner on the side of a rock promontory and goes out of sight, for me the first time I saw it I wanted to go down that road to explore the fabled tropical beaches that lay beyond that last beach in Rio. It was about 5 years until I arrived back at Macumba Beach and this time I was ready to explore the region, and now 6 years later I'm still discovering cool things to see beyond Macumba Beach and in the marvelous city of Rio de Janeiro.

Please drop by often

Peace,

A