Paradox24

MayDay: 1) It was actually kinda chilly that day. The temperature was in the mid-50s during daytime (much chillier than the mid-70s daytime average temperature I that enjoyed in Rio). Incidentally a week earlier, São Paulo experienced the coldest temperatures they've had in over 20 years -with nighttime lows dipping into the 30's. Several homeless people actually froze to death outside in the cold that week. 2) It is an abandoned skyscraper. But not if you count the squatters I saw moving in the windows when I was taking the pictures. 8-) Here is a view of the entrance (taken with my phone camera): CMH_Downtown: In a way, I understand your reaction. Arriving into the city, I felt not only a rush of energy, but in Centro (Downtown), I initially felt a "sinister" vibe (due partly to the cloudy weather, partly due to the amount of graffiti and abandonment I saw on the shuttle bus ride from the airport, and partly due to the chaotic amount of foot traffic and energy I witnessed as soon as we stepped on the street), I also felt extra paranoid about taking photos (not to mention flashing an expensive camera and phone). While waiting for the bus (to take me from the hotel into the city), a nice lady looked over and saw my camera and told me to "take care" and "be careful" with my camera. This was *after* another lady on the shuttle bus into town, was chatting it up with me about among other things, how much *more* unsafe she feels in Sao Paulo than Rio after living in SP for 15 years. The sinister vibe lifted after about an hour or so, and I became to settle in with the "energy" of the city. Even after feeling comfortable walking around the city - even at night, there is an "edge" to the place that I can't quite put my finger on, that is both enticing and unnerving.

Thank you all so much for the incredible feedback. I really do appreciate each and every comment. It makes the effort I put into these posts totally worth it! mrnyc: Yeah, I can’t stand having strangers constantly come up and try to harass you with schemes and solicitations... To that point, I’ll be honest and say that my brown complexion and “mixed race” appearance probably worked out in my favor in Brazil, because I was able to blend into the population (and perhaps move around more freely in certain places without getting bothered) because I didn’t draw attention to myself as a American tourist with disposable income. Quite a few people did initiate conversation with me in Portuguese before realizing that my language skills were pretty infantile. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of Ipanema during the day, because of how quickly time got sucked away from me in other areas during the day (and because it’s winter currently there, the sunset had already set by 5:30pm). Strangely, the constant presence of local and military police officers with semi-automatic weapons in crowded locations didn’t really faze me that much (I’m probably jaded from observing them in U.S. airports and random places in large east coast cities like NYC and Washington over the past 15 years). I did notice that while the Brazilian officers’ body language and expressions while looking at passersby were often “chill,” a number of them were resting with their fingers on the triggers of their weapons…which kinda gave me a different type of “chill.” “Funny” first impression: 10 minutes after I left in the airport in a taxi headed across town for Copacabana, where my hotel was (this was around 1:30am), all the lanes of traffic on the highway were merged into one single checkpoint lane, in which every car that passed through was inspected with a quick look over by two heavily armed policeman standing outside their vehicle… BigDipper 80: Much appreciated! But I’m not worthy! :-( I do know I need to show up, shake off my online social anxiety and participate more often…but I’m working on it! ;) JYP: Thanks for reminding me…I have a pretty long to-do list! Lol. I’m more than half way done with editing the Japan pictures (I deleted the wrong folder on my hard drive last month and lost about half of them :P)…I got about a quarter of the way through editing the West Coast pictures from last year, but then I suddenly got overwhelmed and sidetracked…I need to come back to them soon. And Montreal/Boston ’13…I’ve barely even touched. I know. I suck. dwhershberger: I took those shots from the Rio Othon Palace. That was the “consolation location” that I came up with on the spot when I realized there was no way for me to get to Sugarloaf mountain in time for sunset (from Centro) like I originally planned. I actually stayed closer to Fort Duque de Caxias at the Mirasol Copacabana Hotel, a block away from the famous Copacabana Palace and 5 blocks away from the Olympic Beach Volleyball venue (seen in one of my photos, under construction on Friday, June 17 in picture #44).

Thank you all for taking the time to respond... I def. appreciate the kind words and interesting comments! clvlndr: The funny thing is that when I look back upon these pictures, I don’t think they truly capture either the intensity of foot traffic, or the sheer amount of graffiti that covered the areas of the central city that I happened to visit. It’s also interesting that you mention the graffiti as hideous (I agree by the way!)… I say "interesting" because the angular, sharp-edged pointed tags (not the murals, but the tags) you often see around São Paulo (notably seen in #8, #12, and #38 in the thread) are actually INTENDED by the “artists” to be UGLY and abrasive. This a particular style of graffiti tagging called “pichação” or “pixação,” and started to gain popularity in the mid-1980s. The style of graffiti has become synonymous with a way to protest social and economic inequity in society and there is often competition among groups of “Pixo” artists to tag their names on the most “sacred” sites or highest-hard-to-reach floors of a building before anyone else. edale: I agree with you about the Berlin vibes! Also, generally speaking, the 20-year period between mid-1950s to the mid-1970s generally shaped the high-rise landscape of São Paulo (as well as many other Brazilian cities) as we know it today. However, I have read that there was a *deliberate* effort among São Paulo government leaders in the 1940s and 1950s to use New York as a planning model to transform their city into and concrete metropolis. It’s kind of tragic to look at old photos of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro and take note of what was lost. Sherman Cahall & E Rocc: You’re absolutely right. The Brazilian people have unfortunately been failed by the destructive policies, corruption, and incompetence of their government for generations. Such a wonderful country with so much squandered potential.

De nada! :mrgreen:

I was hoping to see a South Florida thread out of you...This was certainly worth the wait! The Pompano beach views from your hotel are postcard perfect...I was glad you had a chance to make it down to Wynwood. That area has exploded in size since I've last seen it in 2009. It is probably the largest concentration of street murals that I've ever seen. I was also impressed by the amount of people I saw riding the Metromover (on a Sunday in November, no less).

This is an amazing travelogue that you have put together, mrnyc...Like others have said, I can't say I ever seen as much of Uzbekistan before you shared these nice pictures with us...And I'm afraid that this will probably be as close as I will ever get :-P

...continued because the BB Code ate the rest of my post... 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 ///////// As promised, here’s the director’s cut of my edited “introduction”: Over the years, I have accumulated a small handful of countries in my head that I vowed that I would make an effort to visit if a good opportunity happened to come along. While I’ve been lucky enough to cross a few countries off that list over time, good opportunities that aligned with exceptional airfare deals always seemed elusive for a few destinations. Because of my enduring fascination with Brazilian culture, music, history, city life, and bio-diversity, I would randomly check prices every now and then for round trip airfares from Brazil to the US – and without exception, prices were almost always over $1,000. So this past spring, when I spotted an airfare deal from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro for $550 with flexible travel dates into late June, I knew I had to snatch it up. Sweetening the deal even further was the fact that I didn’t have to deal with the tedious $160 visa application process that I would normally have to fork over as a US citizen (since all tourism travel to Brazil is temporarily visa exempt for US travelers from June 1 to September 18 – covering the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games). In addition to the three days I spent in Rio, I also traveled to São Paulo for a day (however, it really only added up to an afternoon of sightseeing –after you take away all the travel time to and from airports), which was far too short to truly appreciate and tour. I had an idea of what to expect in São Paulo, but it was totally overwhelming to experience in person. Even more vibrant and colorful (even on a cool, cloudy day) than I anticipated…more about SP on another thread... As for Rio, I had an amazing time. The people were warm, friendly, and generous. The beaches and the landscape lived up to their postcard expectations. Downtown was larger, louder, and more visually intriguing than I anticipated. The favelas that I visited (especially Rocinha) were perhaps the most welcoming, most vibrant, yet relaxed areas of all. And so on. My biggest complaint would be that in three days, I didn’t even have time to see and do about half as much as I wanted. Of course I had some initial hesitation about the trip, after absorbing the stories I’ve heard about the rampant crime over the past decade or two, along with recent news about the Zika virus. However, I don’t tend to be the type to give into fear and hysteria, and thankfully I was richly rewarded with an unforgettable experience. I am not only anxious to visit Brazil again (and travel to more locations, and make deeper connections), but my interest in traveling more throughout Central & South America has been piqued even further. Hopefully you enjoyed these photos… P.S. - I have some “rejected” photos that didn’t quite make the first cut, that I’ll probably post sometime this weekend.

Unfortunately, I only had several hours of daylight to spend in São Paulo, so my "tour" was quite limited. However, I experienced enough of the city to say that with confidence that Sampa (as some locals refer to it) is a remarkable cosmopolitan metropolis that defies comparison to any single city I’ve been to. The closest analogue I can come up with would be an amalgamation of several cities…and to be honest, I still haven’t quite figured out exactly what those cities would be. Despite the loads of research (and reconnaissance on Google Maps) I did in the weeks leading up to the trip, I was honestly surprised the level of energy, the amount of street art, and foot traffic throughout the city in the various neighborhoods that I visited. While São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro are only barely 4 and a half hours driving distance apart (not counting inner-city traffic), the two cities seem almost a world away in terms of the way they both look and feel. I’ll shut up and let the pictures speak for themselves. I’ll be happy to elaborate with some additional context to the photos in the comments if anyone has any questions about them. I'll probably post a few more photos that didn't make the "first cut" at some point later this week... (All photos in this post were taken on Monday, June 20, 2016) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

TL;DR VERSION: I went to Rio recently and took some pictures. (Look for a longer description at the bottom of this post) All photos taken from June 17, 2016 - June 19, 2016 Enjoy. ///////////// 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 ENHANCE!! 18 ENHANCE!!! 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 ? 89 90 91 92 93 ....

Wonderful set! Lol @ the TGI O’Chilibees comment. I’m envious of your eye, particularly in DT & La Jolla. You certainly caught some angles that I either missed, or failed to do as much justice with my camera as you did with yours. And the drone video was incredible – even despite the unhappy ending. You clearly put a lot of work into it and those efforts really paid off. I loved the commentary from “the peanut gallery.” But I swear my heart still skips a beat every time I whenever I watch the landing mishap begin at (1:45), knowing full well the sudden “fly-away” disaster that would follow 10 seconds later…

Fantastic photos (and video!)… as expected. Container Park was a unique an expected surprise. And despite the occasional clouds, we probably received some of the best weather we could have possibly anticipated --for the desert, over those two days. Wish we could say the same for the next leg on the trip lol.

Nice work, Travis! I’ve been sorta curious about Reno for a couple years now, but I never knew that the Riverwalk district was so nice. That I-80 Walgreens, however is something…else. Lol. Zabriskie Point in Death Valley looks pretty cool, but as Mr. Obvious would say, the color pallete of the geological landscape in DV does look rather subdued compared to what we saw in the Valley of Fire a few days later…but still breathtaking. Pretty nifty hyperlapse video as well!

You should just toss your DSLR in the lake, since you clearly do very well without it ;) I almost don't even recognize the place without the all the heavenly dandruff all over the street. Also too, where are the "springtime" Eately pics?!

Goddam you and your sneaky paparazzi shutter fingers!!! I see what you did there.

@natininja: Thanks for the kind words!!! I will slowly crawl out of my cave and try to be less of a recluse. @JYP: If there was a “San Diego” section of Cincinnati, that’s where I would have been posted up for the past 6 or 7 months of winter that we’ve been enjoying in the “Cincinnati” section of Cincinnati…ugh... @C-Dawg: You’re right. In short, as traditional news operations have become a more profit-driven commodity desperate to remain relevant in a fast-evolving media landscape, there has been an increasing demand for more production out of fewer and fewer resources. These efforts have often directly led to a reduction of quality control and editorial oversight across the board. IMHO, of course. @Quimbob: Ha! I wouldn’t doubt it. @WCPO: Wow. Totally did not expect to see you here. Cheers to you for publically recognizing the error and moving so quickly to rectify it.