It had been nearly six years since I'd been to Recife, where I visited on my first trip to Brazil. At the time, everything was so new and exciting that I was fascinated by every single place I went, so after living and traveling in Brazil and going back, I was curious to see how'd I feel about the city. I didn't have very much time, but I think I actually liked it even more.
The mixture of the stunning coastline, the incredibly rich history, the beautiful colonial architecture, the food, and the urban center all together gives the city a feel that is somehow distinct from Rio or other historic coastal cities in Brazil. It actually reminded me much more of the Caribbean this time; wandering through the outdoor markets in Centro, I felt I could have been in Santo Domingo. On the other hand, other parts of the city feel more like Miami, with rows and rows of high rises. It's a weird mix, but it works.
I also think that while Rio has had a renaissance in the last few years, you can feel Brazil's growth and development much more acutely in Recife. Not only is the sense of optimism strong, but the signs of construction, new businesses, and the growing middle class are nearly everywhere you look. That's not to say there's no longer poverty; you can see the favelas as you fly in, and there are still people living on the streets. But based on what I've read, this trend of exploding development is all over the northeast. So for those looking to see change and development in Brazil, it's a good idea to head north.
That said, the cult of Lula is strong here, since he is originally from Pernambuco. Dona Lindu Park, named after the former president's mother, was built on the waterfront a few years ago, and now has a theater and leisure area. There park also has this statue of Dona Lindu and all of her children.
The other thing I noticed this time was the Pernambuco accent. It used to sound strange to my ears, even to the point of being a little irritating, but this time for some reason, I got used to it, and even grew fond of it.
Recife doesn't seem to be an obvious destination for American tourists; many of the foreign tourists I saw were European. But beyond Rio and Salvador, for example, Recife is the perfect mix of beaches, culture, and history, with plenty to explore outside the city and along the coast. There's so much to see.
But one of the problems is getting there. I had to fly through São Paulo, three hours in the wrong direction when flying from the U.S. There are direct flights from Miami, but I did quite a few searches using different dates, and only came across them occasionally. Now, tourism officials are in talks to establish a direct flight from Recife to New York, which would be pretty great.
So I guess what I'm saying is that if you've already seen Rio and São Paulo, it's time to head north. It's well worth it.
Last week, the Brazilian government finally took the step of starting the privatization process for the country's airports, starting with São Paulo's Guarulhos, Campinas, and Brasília. Rio will likely come next, as well as Belo Horizonte and Manaus. Because of the growing economy and burgeoning middle class, airports across Brazil are bursting at the seams: demand for air travel grew 194 percent in the last decade and 16 percent last year, with over 107 million passengers in Brazilian airports in 2011. Guarulhos and Galeão, two of the largest airports in the country, are among the worst, and the government hopes to improve airports across Brazil before the World Cup and Olympics. But the reality is that the airports need to be upgraded right away to handle the skyrocketing number of Brazilian travelers, as well as an influx of foreign business travelers and tourists.
São Paulo is a case in point. Brazil's biggest city has an international airport that was rated the worst airport in Latin America for business travelers, given "long lines and inefficiencies." A Brazilian grad student at the University of Manchester dedicated his dissertation to a case study on Guarulhos, examining its problems and possible solutions. In it, he identifies seven big issues: "existing safety and security procedures; lack of political will from the airport administrator to implement the solutions; inefficiencies in different elements of the process; existing physical infrastructure and lack of flexibility; necessity of stakeholders cultural change; conflicting stakeholders interest; and existing procurement legislation." I would soon experience most of these.
Photo: David Gacs
The first thing I noticed when I flew in to São Paulo last week was that we had to disembark right onto the tarmac and take a bus to the terminal. I've flown in to Guarulhos before from abroad and from within Brazil to make connections and don't remember this happening. But this time, it happened for every flight, both domestic and international flights. I wasn't sure why they couldn't just get a jetway, especially for the larger international flights. The buses were ok, but they slowed things down, especially when we were running late for a connection on the way back to New York. I figured it would be okay though, since we didn't have to check in. I was wrong.
When we got to the international departures entrance, my heart nearly stopped. There were hundreds of people in line, which snaked around four times before stretching back down the hallway.
Photo: David Gacs
After waiting in line for twenty minutes or so, slightly feverish with anxiety, the clock ticked to the exact time our flight was supposed to start boarding. Finally, at the advice of a guy at the information desk, we got out of line and went to speak to the lady checking tickets in front of the immigration area. "No, no, you can't come in here. Sorry," she said, after we explained our flight was boarding. "Talk to that guy." She pointed to a TAM employee, who was studiously switching back and forth between a walkie-talkie and a cell phone. We hurried over. He acknowledged our presence, but refused to put down his two devices, and continued switching between them while occasionally holding up a finger in our direction to recognize that he realized we very much wanted to speak to him. This went on for a few minutes, at which point I was literally squirming with impatience. He shot me a half-annoyed, half-bemused look before putting down his phones.
"Do you speak Portuguese?" was his first question. English was a nonstarter, apparently - gringos be damned. He then proceeded to explain that a guy would take us and other passengers from our flight over to another terminal, which would theoretically be faster, and then we would go back to the other terminal to board our flight. He did not seem concerned that our flight was supposed to leave in less than an hour. Soon, other passengers began gathering, and a group of maybe twenty people began following the guy appointed to march us to the other terminal. On the way, I overheard him telling another employee that there were only five federal police working at the original terminal, which was part of the reason for the horrendous line. I didn't find out why this was, or what the real number of agents that should have been working. One time when I was leaving Rio, a strike caused some pretty bad lines going through immigration, but it was nothing in comparison to this one.
The pack leader walked pretty fast, with mostly Brazilians in tow. We snaked through a strange back corridor with only airline employees idling in the narrow doorways, some of whom I nearly crashed into as we swept through. It was a decent walk, and I couldn't tell if we lost people along the way. When we got to the terminal entrance, the guy checking tickets said, "Miss? You can't come in this way." I pointed to the leader. "He said we could!" I proclaimed, and off we went. As it turned out, we were in for more lines. The Brazilian line at immigration was long and very slow. The foreigner line was shorter, but also painfully slow; there only seemed to be one agent for the line. When I finally got through, I was a little overheated; there didn't seem to be functioning air conditioning in the room. The female agent also seemed to have noticed, and she had stripped down to a white tank top as she stamped passports. After feverishly rushing through security, we were home free! Or so I thought. The pack leader was idling at the security exit. "Yeah, just go back to the other terminal now," he told us. "Is everything going to be ok?" I asked, stupidly. He was unfazed. "Yup. Just head over there." This strange scheme did not seem to be out of the ordinary. I wondered how often they did this passenger relay game.
We then discovered just how far we were from the other terminal, and the fact that our flight was just about to leave, we started to run. By the time we got to the gate, I was huffing and puffing and covered in sweat. Though the flight should have been taking off, to our dismay, our gate was marked Buenos Aires. Where the hell was our gate? We asked around and determined that yes, that tiny area in the basement was in fact our gate, and mercifully, our flight was delayed. If it hadn't been, we likely would have missed it.
We hurried back downstairs and miraculously, our flight was now on the board and people were lined up to get on the bus. It turns out they had switched the gate at the last minute and made all of the passengers run (literally run, according to an older woman in line) to the new gate. At this point I was shiny with sweat, my hair was in disarray, and I'd discovered a large sunburned patch on my arm from wandering around in the sun earlier in the day. Needless to say, I was picked for the extra security check.
When we finally sat down in our seats, I was never so grateful to be in the uncomfortable sardine can that is the very back of coach for a ten hour flight. I wondered how many other Guarulhos passengers felt the same.
After living in Brazil relatively close to São Paulo, I'd been curious to visit but never really got around to it. I'd been more eager to see coastal cities, and figured I'd eventually have a good reason to go, since I have lots of Paulista friends and there are tons of events in the city. So last week, when I finally had an opportunity to visit, I jumped at the chance.
I tried not to let me expectations cloud my impressions, to try to go in with a blank slate. But there were so many things I'd heard about the city. Some say it's the New York of Brazil. Gringo friends who loved the city said part of the reason was because they like "complicated" cities. Other friends said they found the city overwhelming. Articles I'd read in travel publications made it seem incredibly cosmopolitan. Almost everyone I know who lives there has complained about how expensive it is. I wasn't quite sure what to expect.
It could have been that I was running on little sleep and struggling with jetlag, but the whole time I felt a little bit as if I was in a strange dream. The city feels like someone took a bunch of Brazilian cities and smushed them together to form this massive urban center. The city is a jumble of so many different forms of architecture, which can feel a bit jarring when seeing it for the first time: there are the gothic churches, the fancy luxury condos, the Niemeyer architecture, the modern skyscrapers, the gritty commercial underbelly, the contemporary mansions, peaking out from behind high walls, the brightly painted boutiques and restaurants, the car dealerships, the endless apartment complexes. I actually thought I might be hallucinating when I saw an enormous, undulating, shiny, very purple building rising over the smaller buildings of a leafy, upscale neighborhood. (I later found out it's a cultural center).
The city doesn't seem to end. Everywhere you look, the city keeps going and going. It's just incredibly dense; if there ever was a concrete jungle, this is it. If you think about it too much, it can start to get a little overwhelming.
The juxtaposition of endless buildings and tropical foliage is somehow surprising; it seems odd that so much green could flourish in such a dense urban space. But beautiful purple trees and flowers and palms pop up all over the city. And even though it has been Brazil's largest and most prosperous city for so long, signs of the country's boom are everywhere.
I didn't have enough time to go to all of the places I wanted to see--there's so many museums and cultural centers I'd love to visit. Also, though I only saw a tiny sliver of it, the nightlife looked great; the bars in hip Vila Madalena were an interesting contrast to Rio's Lapa neighborhood. I'd also go back for the food. It's true what they say about food in São Paulo. It's so good. Everywhere I looked, there was mouth-watering food.
But I think what I loved most about the city was the people. I feel really fortunate to have friends there, and it was much more fun to see the city with them as my guides. Plus, the city really is the rainbow of people that Brazilians love to tout as representative of Brazil's diversity, even more so than in Rio, given the large Asian population as well as Latin American and Middle Eastern immigrants. The city makes for great people watching, no matter where you go.
And like Cariocas, Paulistas are warm, welcoming, and eager to show off their city. In that respect, they're not so different after all.
Since I last wrote about visas in December, things are changing. On the U.S. side, the pro-tourism lobby had some success with pushing for changes to increase the number of Brazilian tourists. In Brazil, immigration changes are reportedly on the way, as the government seeks to increase professional immigrants, particularly from Europe, and cut down on the number of undocumented immigrants from Haiti and South Asia.
Last Thursday, President Obama announced a number of changes to U.S. tourist visa policy, specifically to benefit high-spending Brazilian and Chinese tourists. Here are the changes that pertain to Brazilians:
Increase non-immigrant visas in Brazil by 40% this year. That includes the plan already in place to add 50 consular employees in Brazil in 2012, and to emit 1.8 million tourist visas in 2013.
Speed up the amount of time visa applicants wait for an interview. In Brazil, the goal is to interview 80% of non-immigrant visa applicants within 3 weeks of their application.
In what is perhaps the biggest change for Brazilians, the State Department will implement a pilot program that will waive the required interview for "low-risk" non-immigrant visa applicants, including "younger or older first-time applicants," and those renewing expired visas. The program is expected to affect tens of thousands of Brazilians and to open up more spots for visa interviewees.
Consider nominating Brazil to participate in the Visa Waiver Program. This talk has been going on for quite awhile, but now it seems to be getting a little more traction. In order to be considered for the program, Brazil must have a visa rejection rate of 3 percent or less; it's currently 5 percent. Though this will be a lengthy process, the same tourist lobby is pushing hard for the government to really consider Brazil for the visa waiver program.
In Brazil, it is immigration visa policy that's come to the fore. After an increasing amount of Haitians arriving in the Amazon (and even immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia) and a spate of media coverage, the Brazilian government announced that it would close its borders to undocumented migrants. It had been giving out visas and work authorization to the several thousand Haitian migrants that arrived in Acre state. In doing so, it also announced a limited legal immigration program for Haitians, in which the Brazilian consulate in Port-au-Prince will issue 100 visas a month.
The other big news is about proposed changes for skilled professionals looking to move to Brazil. The federal government is putting together a commission to study new visa policies that would benefit foreign professionals, particularly Spaniards and Portuguese, who represent the highest number of skilled professionals moving to Brazil. With the crisis in Europe and Brazil's economy still humming along, the government increased the number of work authorizations by at least 32 percent last year, from January to September, issuing nearly 51,400 work visas. The commission will explore ways to simplify and speed up the visa process, in a bid not only to fill the gap of skilled professionals in the Brazilian workforce, but also, according to Globo, attempt a "new cycle of European immigration to Brazil." Not only is the current process difficult and bureaucratic, but it's also very slow, so often immigrants or temporary workers will simply enter on a tourist visa while they await their papers. As Greg Michener points out, for some there are even more hurdles after getting work papers: validating college degrees, or in his case, his Ph.D, are very painful processes. In short, the changes to help facilitate immigration for skilled professionals have yet to come, but the topic is now on the government's agenda.
Recently, the Rio de Janeiro government announced its desire to make the city a gay tourist mecca and to compete with other gay-friendly destinations like Buenos Aires and Mexico City for travelers. The city's mayor, Eduardo Paes, declared that Rio is "a city without prejudice," and a newly appointed "diversity secretary hopes Rio's allure and gay events will attract more travelers. While the initiative is a worthy one, it's just part of the city's plan to attract more tourists leading up to the World Cup and Olympics. In 2010, the city received 1.61 million foreign tourists, pouring US$2 billion into the city. It was an increase from 1.49 million in 2009, and marked the largest amount of foreign tourists visiting the city in the past five years.
But considering that Rio is such a stunning city with so much to offer, the numbers are much lower than they could be. Compare last year's 1.6 million foreign tourists to 2.6 million in Buenos Aires, 3.3 million in Sydney, 6 million in Miami, and 7 million in Barcelona, to name a few. There are now more flights than before from North America, Europe, and Latin America, and a range of accomodations for different budgets, so why aren't there more visitors?
One cause could be prices. With the real at an all-time high, as well as inflation, Rio has become extremely expensive. Between the exchange rate and bigger price tags, especially for hotels, it's possible visitors are turning to cheaper destinations. Attractions are more expensive, too: a report this week showed that entry to the Christ the Redeemer and the Sugarloaf are more expensive than a ticket to the Eiffel Tower or the Statue of Liberty. The other cause could be the economic crisis; with fewer traditional travelers taking vacations, there's fewer visitors to be had.
Another likely cause is fear. Sadly, many potential visitors have erroneous assumptions about the city, thinking that city is a war zone, and that the worst of the city's violence takes place everywhere, even the wealthy areas. There are real risks, though, mainly being the victim of theft or a mugging. There are even stranger risks, like falling off a streetcar, or getting hit by an exploding manhole.
But most people are concerned about violence, so when prospective visitors see stories like this one from earlier in the week, they panic.
"Armed robbers have invaded a luxury Rio de Janeiro hotel, robbing guests of money and phones, Brazilian police say. Four men scaled the wall to enter the Santa Teresa Hotel in central Rio early in the morning, officers said...The Santa Teresa hotel, located in the neighbourhood of the same name, offers "peace of mind and safety" to guests, according to its website." (Read the full article from the BBC)
Santa Teresa is not exactly known for safety, but the most common crime there is getting mugged while walking on empty streets or at night. But this wasn't just any robbery. It was planned by an ex-employee, who also participated in the crime, and the hotel was just 100 meters from a police station. Plus, the nearby favelas are occupied by a pacification force.
Though the UPPs have been lauded by the local press and international media, some have questioned their efficacy, noting that in some cases, traffickers have simply been driven to other favelas. There's other issues too: this week, the director of the Special Police was robbed in his own office when R$5,000 in cash were taken from his desk (what he was doing with all that cash, though, is an entirely different question). Also, the construction company responsible for building UPP buildings as well as government-run health clinics is under investigation for being a shell company, failing to begin construction they were already paid for, and tax evasion.
With more attention on Rio and with public security policy in the spotlight, it's hard to find a strategy to convince potential visitors that the city is a secure destination. One of the newest major international reports is a Vanguard documentary from Current TV called City of God, Guns and Gangs, that premiered tonight. It was really well done, but the overall message wasn't entirely encouraging. The whole episode should go online sometime soon, but for now, here are some excerpts:
In light of these issues to contend with, tourism officials can only hope that visitors will overlook crime and exercise caution, and that the city can limit bad press leading up to 2014. Meanwhile, Cariocas can only hope that the governor's security strategy will actually pay off for those who call the city home.
Here is part one of two posts on the violence in Rio last week. This post will cover my perspective from the ground, and the second one later this week will be a more comprehensive analysis that will cover more of the facts and media coverage.
When I first touched down in Rio after being away for over a year, I was initially stuck by the fact that I couldn't find Igreja da Penha, the gorgeous church that sits on a lumpy hill visible from the international airport. It's a beacon I look for every time I fly into the city, a kind of welcome I look forward to every time. Since I'd flown a different airline that arrived at a different terminal, I figured I wouldn't be able to see it this time. Little did I know that Penha and the surrounding favelas would become Ground Zero of one of the most violent weeks in recent Carioca history.
The next day, the reports started to trickle in, and a distinct nervousness began to percolate through the city. Drug traffickers were setting fire to buses and cars, including in the Zona Oeste where we were staying. Others had attacked a military police station. The evening news reported that imprisoned Rio traffickers that had been transferred to a maximum security jail in Parana had sent out the order by cell phone, allegedly to protest the presence police pacification units in several Rio favelas. It reminded me of the rash of violence in Sao Paulo that happened in a similar manner, a terrifying period that later inspired the movie Salve Geral.
By the second day, the newspapers were embossed with photos of blazing buses, and people in the streets were glued to the TVs in juice bars and cafes to watch the news. RJTV, the local Globo station, began running extra coverage, calling in experts to analyze the recent events. The police began a full scale operation to combat traffickers in the favelas, which Globo would later proclaim was the largest operation ever in the city. People seemed to be getting more and more nervous, but I wasn't terribly worried. We hadn't seen anything happening that we'd seen on the news, and the city seemed to be business as usual. But stories of terror throughout the city passed from friend to friend in furtive bar chatter, from relatives on anxious cell phone calls, and on Twitter, and it wasn't always clear what was true.
On Wednesday, I was running errands with my brother-in-law, his fiance, and my sister-in-law (who had stayed home from school for fear of the violence). We were in Zona Oeste, doing typical pre-wedding things like picking up suits and getting party favors. We made a quick stop at a grocery store when the bride to be got a call from her father, who we'd just run into on the street. There was a shootout taking place just a few blocks away, in a place we'd been just minutes before. She went into panic mode, urging us to leave NOW. We reasoned with her, pointing out it was probably safer to stay inside. We didn't come across anything on our way home though, and we all breathed a sigh of relief to get back safely.
Then the attacks began to escalate, and on Thursday, we were at a bar waiting for a friend and noticed everyone glued to the TVs. The news was showing images of heavily armed bandidos fleeing a recently invaded favela on foot and by truck and motorcycle. The video was unnerving, bringing the question to mind: how had Globo managed to capture the escape, but the police had seemingly done nothing? Cariocas watched the scenes played over and over in shock and disbelief.
That night, we were hoping to wander around Ipanema a bit, but we noticed that stores were shutting down early and while in line at a drugstore, the check out lady got a call, apparently from her boss, telling her to shut the store down in an hour. When we walked outside, everything was literally shutting down, and there were few people on the street for the early evening - it was eerie. So we hustled home.
By Friday, the city was in a state of panic, and I was starting to worry. Cariocas deal with violence on a regular basis, and seeing them get more and more anxious was almost scaring me more than the actual attacks and warfare. At the hair salon, I watched the news out of the corner of my eye, noticing that Globo had outfitted its reporters with bright blue bullet proof vests, complete with a Globo logo. I found a newspaper to flip through as I waited for my sister-in-law. Globo had issued a special edition, with a huge headline declaring it was D Day for the war on drug trafficking, with a political cartoon showing Cristo wearing a police cap and vest. There was an article about how the army had been called in to work with the military police, and later in the day I'd find out that Eli's cousin's husband, who was staying with us, in town from a neighboring state, had been put on call to be deployed if necessary (fortunately, he wasn't). People began calling to say they wouldn't be able to make it to the wedding because they were afraid to leave their homes. My sister-in-law had invited a bunch of her school friends and only one came - because she lives near Vila Cruzeiro, where one of the police operations was taking place, and her mom reasoned it would actually be safer for her to spend the night across town.
The wedding went perfectly and we all had a great time, but around eighty people out of 240 guests didn't come. I had to avoid looking at the empty tables because they broke my heart. When Eli's cousins drove back to Zona Sul at around 2AM on Avenida Brasil, one of the major highways connecting downtown Rio to the suburbs, they told us they were one of just a handful of cars on the road.
Over the weekend, o bicho pegou, so to speak. The military and police scaled up their operations, invading Complexo do Alemao, one of the most dangerous favelas in the city. Arrests were made and contraband was recovered, and by Sunday afternoon, the armed forces had declared victory. On live TV, soldiers erected a Brazilian and Rio state flag from one of the highest buildings in the favela in an attempt to reassure the populace that the government was finally in control and that the violence would stop. At the time, I was eating lunch with my in-laws, and people warily watched the so-called victory over bites of fish and French fries. The scene reminded me of George Bush's "Mission Accomplished" extravaganza; people did seem a little more calm, but it was hardly the end of Rio's violence woes. Fortunately, though, the vehicle attacks petered out by the next day, and the city was almost back to normal by Monday.
On the way back to my in-laws later on Sunday, we were driving through Zona Oeste, and I was chatting with my sister-in-law in the back seat. All of the sudden, we heard a loud pop-pop-pop sound coming from the side of the road. My sister-in-law went silent and turned white, and I suddenly stopped breathing and my heart missed a few beats, before we realized it was just fireworks. But that one moment of terror finally made the week's hellish violence real to me.
What struck me the most about the Rio events was how it was made into a spectacle, a kind of Carnival of violence, with everything broadcast live on TV - scenes of gunfire, fires blazing, tanks rolling through the streets, reporters ducking behind barricades, and traffickers being arrested. The mind-boggling thing is that what took place in terms of police action in Alemao could have happened at any time, months or even years ago, but didn't, due to a lack of political will and an unfortunate dose of corruption and cooperation with traffickers. Finally, when the public pressure became too much, finally the politicians were forced to bring in the big guns and launch a full scale invasion to bring the favela under government control - at least for now.
As our flight to New York taxied on the runway, I finally caught a glimpse of Igreja da Penha, and watched it until the plane rounded the corner. TAM shows commercials before takeoff, for some reason, and I absently watched one for Bovespa and then a commercial from the Brazil Tourism Bureau:
And as the slightly cheesy commercial came to an end, I inexplicably burst into tears. It killed me to leave a place I love so much, that no amount of violence or fear can keep me away from.
Last week, I returned to Rio for the first time since I moved back to the States in May 2009, after getting married and finding a job and trying to carve out a new life in New York. It wasn't that we wanted to wait so long to go back, but between saving up money and getting jobs and then getting vacation time, it took longer than expected, and with an invitation to my brother-in-law's wedding, we ended up waiting a year and a half to go back.
I had really mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, it would mean recognizing that I missed Brazil terribly and was very upset about leaving, something that I had to deal with in order to get on track back in the US. I was also really nervous about getting mugged, much more so than when I was living there, a result of not having to deal with the daily reality of the city. But I was incredibly excited to matar saudades and see people and places I'd really missed, and to see some of the positive changes going on in the city. While I prepared for the trip, my biggest concerns were bringing enough gifts, getting clothes for the wedding, and leaving valuables at home.
Little did I know I was actually going to a war zone. But more on that tomorrow.
The oddest thing about being back was that it felt like I'd never left. Everything felt so normal; it was like putting on a pair of well worn shoes molded to your feet. Feeling so at home made leaving all the more difficult, and made me ache to move back someday, or at least be able to visit more often. I wish I'd had more time to go exploring, to go back and visit all of my favorite places, but I did have enough time to wander around Botafogo, Ipanema, and the Zona Oeste. Going back made me realize how I hadn't appreciated my time there enough, and hadn't made the best use of my time, and wished I could start over. It really helped put things into perspective.
Coming up this week and next: my take on the recent events in Rio from the ground and from an outside perspective, the changing face of the city, a Tropa de Elite 2 review, the do's and don'ts of being in a Brazilian wedding, and more.
