Day Twelve – Favela, Maracana

We started our morning by being met by Alex, our tour guide from Be a Local, in the hotel lobby.  Alex had arrived in a van to take us up to the top of the Rocinha favela and for us to walk our way down.  Favela means “little farm” in Portuguese and while the term favela is still used, Brazilians now prefer the word “community” in place of favela.  For Rocinha specifically, the community has existed for about 100 years and contains about 25,000 houses and about 75,000 people.  I was blown away by the living conditions and the way that all of these people were packed together.  I will say…I wish I had been warned to wear sneakers instead of flip flops, as there were a few times that we had to jump over raw sewage running down the pathways that we were walking in. 

We started our tour at one of the highest buildings at the top of the hill (and climbed some uneven/short staircases to get there), which rewarded us with a lovely view of Rio.  From there we were able to see how each of the houses is fed water; through a gravity fed pipe-system that is set up with rain barrels, it basically flows through the pipes all the way down to the bottom of the community.  It was extremely overwhelming to see the significant demographic experience from the top of this building to the shore of the beaches that we overlooked. 

After our trip through the favela, we headed back to the hotel for a couple of hours of down time.   When 2pm rolled around, we were picked up by Be a Local to go spectate at the Flamengo v Atletico game that was happening at 4:20p at Maracana stadium.  However, we were “early” (we think that this is planned by Be a Local to feed into the local tourism) so we stopped by a gas station near the stadium where we were allowed to drink beer, get some food, and buy jerseys from a man on the sidewalk.  It was an interesting experience and it became clearer as quite a few Be a Local vans showed up that this was a planned stop by the tour provider.

When we got close to match time, they loaded us up into the buses and dropped us off at the Gate to the stadium.  We were in the North gate, section 221, so we got frisked and went into the stadium to find our seats.  Oddly enough, we sat in seats all together (even though our tickets weren’t together) in a section that wasn’t indicated on my ticket.  No one said anything, though.  This experience was out of this world.  Almost everyone was in a Flamengo jersey (home team) and there were people chanting and waving extremely large flags throughout the entire match.  Even though Flamengo lost to Atletico 2-0, we had a great time watching not only the sport event, but the people that were there as well!

You could tell that this stadium was newly redone as the seats and everything were spic and span.  Maracana was used for the World Cup and will also be used for Rio 2016 and can now hold up to 75,000 people (down from the original 200,000 people, including standing spectators, that the stadium originally was built for). 

Once the game ended, we waited around for the stadium to empty out a bit and then left to find our tour van. We were able to easily find it and we were shuttled back to the hotel.  Instead of dispersing, though, we all decided to find a place to eat together.  We walked a couple of blocks down the beach from our hotel and ended up at MAB’s.  The restaurant wasn’t frilly, but the food and the drinks were good.  I ordered a cachaça (when in Rome, right) and a grilled chicken breast with rice and beans, true Brazilian fare.  The group split up after dinner and I walked back to the hotel and went to bed relatively early, after an extremely fun day.

Day Eleven – ESPN Brazil and Travel to Rio de Janeiro

Paulo showed up in a super large bus to take us over to ESPN Brazil at 9a.  The bus even had WiFi, #Win!.  Upon arriving, we learned that our main contact hadn’t arrived yet, but we were shown to a conference room to drop our bags and given a short tour of the studios.  This location has two main studios, one of which is under construction and the other was in the midst of filming a live show, which we got to watch from the wings!  During our tour, we crossed paths with Roberto, who is the Manager of Digital Media.  He walked us through the “mobile first” motto at ESPN, where everything is first developed for mobile and then for the computer.  His department monitors the web statistics of what people are looking at (a live-feed) and then feed that information, including anything surprising, to the news desk, so that the editorial department can have the option to change the topics being talked about on the sports desk at that time. 

 

After our hallway chat with Roberto, we were brought back to the conference room where we had dropped our stuff and were joined by Fernando.  He walked us through the three channels of ESPN in Brazil and then introduced us to Carlos Maloof, who is the Programming and Acquisitions Director.  Finally, we were joined by Fernando Casseloni, who is the head of Engineering, Operations, and IT.  It was very interesting to hear how all three of their roles melded together and also how they were in the midst (that day) of finalizing their 2016 budget, which was why the first Fernando wasn’t able to join us for long (he had phone conferences to attend to).  The thing that I found most interesting at ESPN Brazil was how the office was using Business Intelligence to not only drive their content to the viewer, but also in their driving of advertisements to the viewer.  Also, it was comforting to know that they experience some of the same challenges that we do in the states with demographics (i.e. elderly) and mobile.

 

We left ESPN and headed back to the hotel to pack up our things and head over to the GRU Airport.  Our delayed flight departed GRU for Rio de Janeiro (GIG) about an hour late (745p) and we arrived in Rio around 9pm.  Our tour provider, Be a Local, met us at the airport and loaded up our luggage and drove us to our hotel in Copacabana.  We had another issue with English/Portuguese, but between Jo and Heidi (and the GPS on Jo’s phone) the van driver was finally able to find our hotel on Copacabana beach, the Hotel Astoria Palace.  It was late, so while most of the group went out to explore the late-night life, I stayed in the room and ordered room service and worked on my blog and then fell asleep. 

Day Ten – Football Museum at Pacaembu and Pinheiros Club

Our tour guide, Paulo, led us to the Football Museum at Pacaembu Stadium.  This museum was extremely well put together and set under the stadium that fits about 40,000 fans.  We each were given an English speaking headset/tour guide that walked us through what was occurring in each room as we entered the room number.  I bought a small gift in the gift shop for my dad (he’s a soccer referee in the US) before exiting the building.  Once everyone was done with their tour, we headed into the little market that was across the street from the museum.  There we had a chance to try sugar can juice.  I was a little unsure at first, but mixing the sugar cane juice with fresh strawberries came out with the most delicious concoction!  It was amazing…I’m so glad I tried it!  It was even more fun seeing the vendor make the juice right in front of us, feeding the sugar cane into the machine and seeing the juice come out of the front of it.

After everyone (who wanted one) had gotten a drink, we headed back up to the museum.  We were a little short on time, so we decided to each lunch at the restaurant attached to the museum that had a buffet available.  Lunch was mediocre, but at least it perked us up a little bit!

After lunch we headed over to meet Dr. Valdir at Pinheiros Club.  He’s a member of the Club and had arranged to give us a tour of the club.  I hadn’t expected it to be as immensely big as it was; I feel like you need a map on every corner to find your way around!  Pinheiros is literally in the middle of Sao Paulo, surrounded by skyscrapers and some heavily-trafficked streets.  However, once you’re inside, you feel like you’re in a separate world.  Dr. Valdir took us through the different sports arenas that are available to the ~38,000 club members including (but not limited to) track and field, swimming, basketball, volleyball, handball, water polo, gymnastics, and tennis.  The club also features quite a few restaurants and social centers.  Surprisingly, the cost is only $100/month/member, but that usually doesn’t include the cost to play sports such as tennis, which he said he pays an additional $15/month for, which includes the fee for a locker and tennis balls.  Before we left, Dr. Valdir took us through the museum within the club which features Olympic/Pan-American accomplishments of its members, including a touch screen of Valdir’s winnings in his multiple Pan-American games.  This club was a true representation of how much Brazilians have melded sport and exercise in their culture; it made me wonder what the US would be like if we did the same. 

 

 

 

We were dropped back off at the hotel later that evening (around 7pm) and Jamie, Matt, and I decided to go out and find some local food for our last night in Sao Paulo.  Matt did some searching on TripAdvisor and found a new and very popular restaurant called Sancho Bar and Tapas.  We hailed a cab, and 20 minutes later (including some English/Spanish confusion with the taxi driver), arrived at the restaurant.  It was around 9p, so the restaurant was packed, but we were lucky and they were able to seat the three of us in about 20 minutes.  Now…when we Americans think Tapas, we think small plates, so Matt ordered six plates for the three of us to share.  Apparently Brazilians don’t have the same take, as we ended up with WAY too much food, but BOY was it delicious!  We had a “mix de croquetas”, which was croquettes with varying fillings including spinach, cheese, and chicken.  After that, we were delivered the “tortilla patatas com espinica”, which was a circular egg quiche filled with spinach (I think this one was our least favorite).  We also ordered the “Del Mar Paella” which was paella mixed with shrimp, mussels, and a bunch of other seafood.  I was happy when it arrived that it wasn’t overly spicy (hot), but still extremely flavorful.  We ended the meal with a few other dishes (we were out of table space at this point), that weren’t really worth remembering.  However, the drinks and the food were both very good!

The three of us headed back to the hotel after dinner and headed to bed, looking forward to our trip to Rio the following afternoon.

Day Nine – Morumbi Stadium, Museum of Modern Art

We had a later start this morning, meeting in the lobby at 845a to travel via bus to Morumbi Stadium.  The Stadium is the home of the Sao Paulo Football Club, which started in the 1930’s.  Our tour guide was a younger gentleman who spoke excellent English.  He took us through the trophy room, the flag case (where visiting teams leave their team flag behind), the press room, locker rooms, warm up area, and the field.  The coolest part for me was when the tour guide turned on the “entry music”, which is chosen by the goalie, for the teams’ entry onto the field.  Of course, nothing pumps up a player more than some good ol’ AC/DC Hells Bells, with Football fans cheering in the background.  Exiting from the tunnel and onto the field, it’s amazing how small you feel, being surrounded by the 70,000 fan stadium which not only has the football field, but also a full track surrounding the field.  We took a quick photo by the SPFC logo and were ushered back inside to the main entrance at the end of the tour. 

The rest of the day was free, so we worked with Paulo to take us over to Ibirapuera Park, which not only has buildings designed by Oscar Niemeyer, but also has the Sao Paulo Museum of Modern Art.  I found the museum to be “just ok”, not something that I wanted to spend a good portion of my afternoon in.  It did have some interesting interactive art, including a man sitting stock-still in a clown costume who would honk a bicycle horn if you got too close (for a good heart-stopping surprise!) and some interesting hanging paper art that showed different designs as you changed your angle. 

I ended my day with a quick dinner from a small restaurant on the same street as our hotel and some more work on my Blog (on the turtle-slow local Internet).