Macumba Beach

Christ the Redeemer Statue

2010-03-28T18:28:22Z

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

Ayrton Senna

2010-03-21T17:20:50Z

"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)

]]> He made his debut in Formula 1 racing in 1984 for the former Toleman-Hart team and this year has reached a respectable result with his first podium and second place in the Monaco GP.

This was the first great achievement of Senna, and the race was interrupted by rain, when the Brazilian was leading, but due to the rules applied, the final positions would be those on the lap before the black flag appears when Senna was second and Prost was in the lead.

Anyway was a nice sample of what this rookie would be able to do, not only in the rain but in Monaco´s circuit as well.

In 1985, Senna moved to Team Lotus where he won his first race in Estoril GP in Portugal in his very first year on this new team. During the 3 years of Lotus the brazilian took the highest place on the podium 6 times and that, besides the first victory in Portugal, also happened in the Belgian Grand Prix circuit in Spa-Francorchamps in 1985, twice the U.S. Grand Prix in Detroit, in the years 1986/1987, the Spanish GP in Jerez de la Frontera in 1986 and in the Monaco GP in 1987, a circuit where he took the first place on another 5 opportunities (89/90/91/92/93).

He has starred great moments like the first lap of the GP of Donington Park in 1993, a circuit considered impossible for overtaking, after starting at 4th and dropped to 5th place in the very start, during the first lap took the lead after performing 4 overtakes against 4 opponents.

Also in 1993, due to a miscommunication between the team and driver, Senna stayed on the track, driving fast during qualifying, when he had just little fuel and ended up getting the pole position for the Grand Prix from Adelaide in Australia.

In his 11 seasons in Formula 1 Senna won 41 races, got 65 pole positions and reached 614 points in 161 Grands Prix.

Among those victories and results, the most exciting winning race, even for Ayrton was in 1991, the GP of Brazil in Interlagos - São Paulo, when he finished in the first position, for the first time in his country(and hometown also) after a gearbox trouble which left him only with the 1st and 6th gears.

Two years later he would win again in Brazil, in the same season in which he made the most beautiful lap at Donington Park and also when he won the pole position "accidentally" in Adelaide in Australia.

After moving to Williams in 1994 and the tragic accident, his last team paid him a beautiful tribute that remains today, maintaining its signature on the front of their cars, so that the champ always crosses the line in first place, even before the current driver.

Last year, in December, Senna was elected the best driver of all times in the poll organized by Autosport magazine, attended by 217 drivers who have raced the Formula 1 and the majority of them voted for Ayrton.

A fair position to him who had declared his passion for the winning and his distaste for any position else, when he once stated:

"Being second is the same as being the first of the losers."

So today, his birthday, is the best moment to celebrate his life and preserve the best image of this true champion in our memories!

Congratulations Senna!

Burle Marx

2010-03-07T04:43:56Z

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.

]]> Sítio Roberto Burle Marx
One of the most beautiful places I've ever visited in Brazil is the Roberto Burle Marx home and gardens outside Rio. Burle Marx bought the Santo Antonio da Bica sítio in 1949 to store his plant collection. The sítio has a marvelous house and a small chapel that dates back to the 16th century. Both buildings were lovingly restored and Burle Marx lived there from 1973 until his death in 1994. The chapel is available for weddings, ladies and gentlemen!! In 1985, the property was donated to the Brazilian government in trust for posterity and became a National Monument. It is now called Sítio Roberto Burle Marx.

In an area of approximately 100 acres, visitors can see more than 3,500 species of plants, an extraordinary collection of religious images and pottery from the River Jequitinhonha Valley, and, of course, Burle Marx's own paintings. If you wish to be amazed and enjoy a couple of hours walking and gawking at a remarkable collection of bromeliads, heliconias and tens of dozens of plant species with long Latin names, it's awe inspiring! There are two daily tours by appointment (9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.) and you'll need someone to drive you there or you can take a bus that will drop you off nearby; call (021) 2410-1412 / 2410-1171 for appointments and information.

In 1955, Burle Marx founded a landscape company, called Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. (Burle Marx & Company), where he started to develop landscape design, along with the implementation and maintenance of his residential and public gardens. In 1968, Haruyoshi Ono, a landscape architect, became his partner.

Burle Marx & Cia. Ltda. landscape studio, created by Roberto Burle Marx in 1955. The office develops landscape projects, and implements, maintains, and restores gardens. It is also requested as a consulting board, giving supervision and orientation in landscape and environmental issues. In addition, it owns a small nursery that produces and sells plants.

In 1985, Burle Marx donated this estate to a federal government cultural organization, Pró-Memória National Foundation, which is nowadays called National Institute for Cultural Heritage - IPHAN.

Roberto Burle Marx died in Rio de Janeiro in 1994, at the age of 84.

Waves of Burle Marx

If you asked most people in Rio what Burle Marx is famous for and 9 times out of ten their going to tell you it's the abstract wave design in the side walks of Copacabana Beach and other beaches of Rio. In many ways this cool wave concept in landscape design concept was conceived by Roberto Burle Marx, of his inspired concepts, the wave concept may have become his landscape design signature, you see it everywhere you go in Rio de Janeiro and it's magnificent.

Links of interest

- Wikipedia
- Encyclopedia Britannica
- Sitio Roberto Burle Marx (contains pictures)
- Roberto Burle Marx (LandLiving.com)
- via Brazil Gov't - Secretaria de Estado da Fazenda do Espírito Santo

- via Brazil Gov't - Secretaria de Estado da Fazenda do Espírito Santo

Carnaval Rio de Janeiro

2010-02-21T18:38:57Z

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.

Restaurants of Rio

2010-01-06T19:10:28Z

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.

Beaches of Rio

2009-12-13T14:33:11Z

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,