City Park

Friday afternoon I visited Rio's City Park (Parque da Cidade), which is only ten minutes by foot from where I'm living in Gávea. I had heard that there was a park "at the end of the road" in Gávea, so I just followed the road and there was the park! (I had seen it before, but from a distance, it looks like private property, so I didn't venture in.) 

The park turned out to be a typical Brazilian park: lush, green vegetation with lots of bamboo. There is also a stream that divides the front of the park into two halves. Occasionally, I found some wildlife. The butterfly below let me get close enough to it to get a picture, but the monkeys, which were swinging from tree limb to tree limb, had no such intention. I'll just have to return soon to get a good picture of them.

As I was walking down the hill from the park, I had a chance to see the city from a new perspsective. In the picture below, you can see some brightly painted houses, protected by a stone wall, and in the background one of Rio's favelas, which is the conglomeration of makeshift houses all stacked on top of one another. Many favelas have no running water, no electricity, and have open sewer systems, if they have any at all. The water is even more contaminated than typical Rio city water, and where there is electricty, the wires hang in tangled bundles that can easily catch on fire. Rio's favelas used to be run entirely by druglords. Now that the police have entered all of the favelas and set up security stations, the favelas are safer than they used to be, but they are still far from safe. Today, Brazil is working on various government plans to improve the state of the favelas. It is a long, arduous process, but the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics, both to be hosted in Rio, give the government incentive to work as quickly and efficiently as possible.

To end on a lighter note: as I was walking back down the hill, there was a woman sitting inside the doorway to one of these houses, selling what looked like baked goods. As I approached, I saw exactly what she was selling: chocolate-covered brigadeiros! Of course I bought one. I need to find the recipe for these little balls of deliciousness before I leave Brazil.