…I see Rio de Janeiro” *
In my Punta del Este post I said that rather than being the first off the ship, I liked to sleep in a little. Rio is different. I was up at 5:40 to watch the sail in. I was sitting on my balcony with Suzi, and I brought up the song Samba do Avião by Tom Jobim. It’s about flying into the “City of love and mystery.” We were sailing in rather than flying but it seemed appropriate.
I started a love affair with Rio a half century before I actually saw Rio de Janeiro. My first winter in Minnesota was ‘64/’65. It was a hard winter. In March we had a LOT of snow. In April came the floods. As a young and healthy St. Olaf College student I was recruited to sandbag along the rivers. April also brought thunderstorms and tornados. Through all of this craziness was sitting in a dorm room in Northfield Minnesota listening to Herb Schoenbaum on KQRS in the Twin Cities and his show “Jazz in the Night.” He went to Rio for Carnival in 1965 and brought back some great music, samba, bosa nova and Brazilian jazz. He gave graphic descriptions of Carnival (along with a description of a tornado heading down highway 100 toward their tower field.) I wasn’t so interested in the tornado, although it was great on the spot coverage, but his description of Carnival transported me from the snow, flood and mud of that Minnesota “spring.” I have wanted to go to Rio ever since. Ten years ago, we did this sail-in on Prinsendam at carnival time. I was not disappointed. Since This is my third trip to Rio. Last time I flew out of Tom Jobim airport. When he died, they named the airport for him, perhaps in part because of that song.
And now we’re descending
And everything rushing and now the wheels
Touch the Ground.
And now we are sailing in. I am happy as I look out at:
The Statue of the Savior
With open arms above the yellow seashore
And as I look at the Savior (Christ the Redemer) drifting in and out of a clout bank I think, in the words of another Jobim song:
And a window looking over Corcovado
Oh how lovely,
This is where I want to be.
And it is, and I am. We are docked and my cabin window does look out over Corcovado, Oh how lovely. Here is a gallery of Rio sail-in shots.
*Samba do Avião. Tom Jobim, English Lyrics Gene Lees from the movie Copacabana Palace.
I still have not digested Buenos Aires. Those post will come later.
I just read your old post about Carnival in Rio in 2015…We were also there on that rainy night. We lasted through three of the six Samba schools then went back to the ship in anticipation of another downpour. In hindsight, I wish we would have stayed for the duration (but I was freezing under my wet plastic poncho). We are still in awe at how the performers carried on in their sling back stilettos & feathery costumes as if oblivious to the rain. Although we’ve been back since, it was not during Carnival….We would gladly go again.
I am not sure we could do the rain again 10 years later. Rich