Carioca Nights

Forró is the popular dance music of Brazil's Northeast
and there are plenty of Northeasterners in Rio going out dancing
every weekend. We actually like the accordion-laced forró
more than most of the current samba, and the dancing is a blast.

Entertainment

To find out what's going on at night, pick up the Jornal do Brasil at any newsstand and turn to the entertainment section. On Friday they insert an entertainment magazine called Programa, which lists the week's events.

Nightlife varies widely by the neighborhood. Leblon and Ipanema have up-market, trendy clubs with excellent jazz. Botafogo has cheaper, popular clubs with more dancing and samba. Cinelândia and Lapa in the Center have a lot of samba and pagode and are also the heart of gay Rio. Try some of the bars around Sala Cecilia Meireles. Copacabana is a mixed bag, with some good local hangouts but also a strong tourist influence with a lot of sex for sale.

Entertainment is less organized and more spontaneous in Rio than you'd expect. Much of Rio's nightlife happens on the streets, in front of bars, in restaurants and anywhere outside with room to drink and sing. Most bars stay open until 4 am on busy weekend nights and to around 2 am other nights.

Centro & Lapa

Getting a taxi late at night in Lapa or Cinelândia isn't a problem; there is also limited bus service all night long. You can catch buses to the zona sul along the Praça Mahatma Gandhi on Avenida Luis de Vasconcelos.

Suburban Dreams, at Pedro Lessa 41, Centro, behind the Biblioteca Nacional, is a bar, open until very late, and right in the center. It's the only thing open on the block. The suburbs referred to here are the poorer areas on the outskirts of the city. The bar is frequented by many gays, blacks and zona norte people. It's a good change from the zona sul club scene but don't bring too much money to this part of town late at night. There's no cover charge.

Café Bohemia is a vegetarian restaurant by day and has wild transvestite shows on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. For a couple of dollars you get dancing and a very funny show if you can get by in Portuguese. It's on Avenida Santa Luzia; turn right off Avenida Rio Branco. The show starts about 1 or 2 am.

Bar Brasil in Lapa is an old bohemian hangout and is always lively. Some Cariocas who live in the zona sul only come into the center to go to Bar Brasil. Lapa is generally an interesting area to explore at night.

Botafogo

Cochrane, off Rua Voluntários da Pátria, is one of Rio's more popular gay bars.

Vaticano, Rua da Matriz 62, is a hip bar, popular with the arty Rio set.

Copacabana

Galeria Alaska, on Avenida Nossa Senhora de Copacabana, has a transvestite show and dancing and is a Center of gay Rio.

Ipanema & Leblon

Jazzmania (287-0085), on Rua Rainha Elizabeth, is Rio's most serious jazz venue. They have more international stars than any other club, but also the best of Brazilian jazz. The club is expensive at around $10 cover on the weekend and a little less on weekdays. The music starts about 11 pm and goes late.

People's (294-0547), at Avenida Bartolomeu Mitre 370 in Leblon, is a posh club with some of the best names in jazz. To hear the great music you have to pay a $8 cover charge and endure the incessant smoking and talking from the snobby crowd. When it gets crowded the Yves St Laurent types seems to get in and seated, while the Lonely Planet crowd gets left at the door.

There are several other expensive restaurants/clubs in Ipanema and Leblon, which have good jazz but look like a scene right out of Los Angeles or New York. Chiko's Bar, at Avenida Epitácio Pessoa 560 on the lake, goes late and has no cover charge. Mistura Up, at Rua Garcia d'Avila 15, and Un Deux Trois (239-0198), at Rua Bartolomeu Mitre 123, are also popular.

Lord Jim's British pub is the place to go if you want to play darts. It's at Rua Paul Redfern 63 in Ipanema. The Garota de Ipanema is at Rua Vinicius de Morais 49 and has lively, open-air dining. There are always a few foreigners checking out the place where Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes were sitting when they wrote The Girl from Ipanema. A recent Brazilian Playboy survey rated its chopp as the best in Rio—a bold claim indeed, but who can resist a sample? The petiscos are delicious.

The Zeppelin Bar, behind the Sheraton Hotel on Avenida Niemeyer, is a quaint bar and restaurant overlooking the ocean. It's medium-priced with great live folk and pop music from Thursday to Sunday night. It has a very relaxed atmosphere.

Our favorite bar is also Rio's oldest. In a town that's losing its traditions rapidly to modern Western schlock, Bar Lagoa has changed little. They tried to close it down to build a high-rise, high-tech, condo complex, but opposition was too strong. It's open from about 7.30 pm to 3 or 4 am with food, drink and a loud Carioca crowd.

Brazilian Dancing

The following clubs have popular Brazilian music like samba and forró and Rio's popular dance classes. You're unlikely to find any tourists, or middle-class Brazilians there. If you want to learn about Brazil and dance, or just watch Brazilians dancing, these are the places.

Pagode da Passarela has samba and pagode on Friday and Saturday nights. It's very crowded because it's affordable to almost everyone: $0.50 for women and $l for men. It's in the center near Praça 11. Bola Preta (240-8049) is a big dance house with different types of popular music each night. They have serestas, roda de samba and pagode. The club's right in the center, on Avenida 13 de Maio. Another good place to samba, but out in the suburbs, is Pagode Domingo Major (288-7297), at Rua Gonzaga Bastos 268, Vila Isabel. It's probably a good idea to go with a Brazilian if you don't speak Portuguese.

If you'd rather not go into town, Clube do Samba (399-0892) is out in Barra at Estrada da Barra 65. They have samba and pagode Friday and Saturday nights, On Sunday you can get a feijoada there. This is a middle-class club, with admission costing about $8.

Forró is the popular dance music of Brazil's Northeast and there are plenty of Northeasterners in Rio going out dancing every weekend. We actually like the accordion-laced forró more than most of the current samba, and the dancing is a blast. A good club for forró is Estudantina (232-1149) at Praça Tiradentes 79, Centro. They go Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights until about 4 am. The cover charge is $3.

Samba Schools

As early as October or November the samba schools begin holding rehearsals and dances, typically on Saturday night. These are generally open to the public for watching and joining in the samba. Almost all the escolas de samba are on the north side of town and, of course, things get going late, so you need a car or a taxi. Check with Riotur or the newspaper to get the schedules and locations. Each school has a quadra (club/arena) but they also hold rehearsals around town. The major schools' addresses are:

Portela

Rua Clara Nunes 81, Oswaldo Cruz (390-0471)

Mocidade Independente de Padre Miguel

Rua Coronel Tamarindo 38, Padre Miguel (332-5823)

São Clemente

Rua Assunção 63, Botafogo

Império Serrano

Avenida Ministro Edgard Romero 114, Madureira (450-1285)

Mangueira

Rua Visconde de Niterói 1072, Mangueira (234-4129)

Beija Flor

Rua Pracinha Wallace Paes Leme 1025, Nilópolis (791-2866)

Império da Tijuca

Rua Conde de Bonfim 1226, Usina da Tijuca

Salgueiro

Rua Silva Teles—Andaraí

Big Shows

Circo Voador under the Arcos da Lapa is a big tent with reggae, samba and trio elétrico music. The crowd is mostly from the north side. It's one of my favorites and is very reasonably priced. They get many of the best bands from Bahia and São Paulo. Their Sunday night dance gets really crowded. It starts at 11 pm and goes till late. Cover charge is $3.

Down the block is Asa Branca (252-0966). They have samba and pagode shows that aren't especially for tourists, though they are staged shows. Scala, Plataforma I and Oba Oba have expensive Vegas-style shows with naked samba. Scala II has many top musicians like Gilberto Gil playing there these days. It's a show house, flashy and artificial, but I'd go anywhere to see a Gil show.

Pão de Açúcar has a regular performance of the samba school Beija Flor on Monday from 9 pm to 1 am. It's expensive and touristy, but it's samba. Carioca nights are held Friday and Saturday from 10 pm to 4 am. Mostly rock, but not always, the shows are not terribly expensive and are under the small pavilion on Morro da Urca—the first stop to Sugar Loaf. It's a spectacular view.

Canecão also gets the big stars of music. It's right next to the giant Rio Sul shopping mall at the entrance to the Copacabana tunnel.

Maracanãzinho is the smaller stadium next to Maracanã in São Cristóvão. The biggest shows, like Milton Nascimento, play there.

Parque Catacumba, along the lake, often has free outdoor concerts on Sunday at 5 pm. Check the newspaper.

Discos

There are many discos with bright lights and loud music in the big city, but the hip venues change regularly—check out a copy of Programa. Interestingly, many of the discos have stiff dress codes and admission charges, designed in part to deter the many prostitutes who come to meet tourists. Some are even called private clubs and require you to pay $20 through a concierge at your five-star hotel in order to enter.

Help calls itself the biggest disco in Latin America and no one seems to doubt it. It's at Avenida Atlântica 3432 in Copacabana. Lots of drunken gringos seem to get robbed just outside. Calígula in Ipanema is where the rich and famous hang, out. The current favorite is Resumo da Opera; it's in Lagoa at Avenida Borges de Medeiros 1426.

Things to Buy

Most stores are open Monday to Friday from 9 am to 7 pm (some stay open even later). Saturday has half-day shopping, from 9 am to 1 pm. The malls usually open from 10 am to 10 pm, Monday to Friday, and 10 am to 8 pm on weekends.

Pé de Boi

This store sells the traditional artisan handicrafts of Brazil's Northeast and Minas Gerais, and it's all fine work. There's lots of wood, lace, pottery and prints. It's not an inexpensive store; you have to buy closer to the source to get a better price, but if you have some extra dollars—$10 to $20 it a minimum—these pieces are the best gifts to bring home from Brazil: imaginative and very Brazilian.

The small store is worth a visit just to look around. Ana Maria Chindler, the owner, knows what she's selling and is happy to tell you about it. Pé de Boi (Bull's Foot) (2854395) is in Botafogo on Rua Ipiranga 53. It is open Monday to Friday until 7 pm and on Saturday from 10 am to 1 pm.

FUNAI

Brazil's Indian agency has a tiny craft shop at Avenida Presidente Wilson 16-A (it's actually around the corner from the main entrance). Open Monday to Friday from 9 am to noon and 1 to 6 pm, the store has woven papoose (baby) slings for $5, jewellery from $0.50 to $5 and musical instruments.

Casa Oliveira

This beautiful music store (222-3539) is at Rua da Carioca 70 in Centro—Rio's oldest street. It sells a wide variety of instruments, including all the noisemakers that fuel the Carnaval baterias (rhythm sections), a variety of small mandolin-like string instruments, accordions and electric guitars. These make great presents and it's a fun place to play even if you don't buy.

Malls

Brazilians, like Americans, seem to measure progress by shopping malls. They love to shop at these monsters. Rio Sul was the first mall to maul Rio. There are all kinds of stores. The C&A department store has a good range of clothes and is inexpensive. Rio Sul is right before you enter the Copacabana tunnel in Botafogo, There are free buses from Copacabana. Barra Shopping, in Barra da Tijuca, is newer and bigger. It's at Avenida das Américas, on the right as you drive south into Barra. It's hard to miss! They're about to build a tribute to Ayrton Senna out the front—a giant racing helmet.

Bum Bum

Since your bathing suit has too much fabric attached to the seams, resign yourself to buying a new one. Bum Bum is the trendsetter of the bikini world, and it knows it. It's not cheap, but you're paying for style not fabric. It's in Ipanema at Rua Visconde de Pirajá 437. If you're on a budget, there are plenty of other boutiques that sell bikinis for less money but with just as little fabric. Ki-Tanga is a good example.

Hippie Fair

This is an arts and crafts fair, with many booths selling jewellery, leather goods, paintings, samba instruments and clothes. There is some awful stuff here and some that's OK. Prices go way up during the peak tourist season and the air rings with the sounds of New Yorkers hunting down good buys.

The fair takes place every Sunday at the Praça General Osório in Ipanema. But you can find the same items at Praça 15 de Novembro in Centro or at the northern end of Copacabana beach. If you're just beginning to travel in Brazil, skip it.

Nordeste or São Cristóvão Fair

The Nordeste Fair is held at the Pavilhão de São Cristóvão on the north side of town every Sunday, starting early and going until about 3 pm. The fair is very Northeastern in character. There are lots of barracas (stalls) selling meat, beer and cachaça; bands of accordions, guitars and tambourines playing the forró; comedy, capoeira battles and people selling magic potions. It's a great scene. of course there's plenty to buy. Besides food, they have lots of cheap clothes, some good deals on hammocks and a few good nordeste gifts like leather vaqueiro (cowboy) hats. If you're ready for adventure and have a car, it's best to arrive the night before the market. This is set-up time and also party time. At about 9 or 10 pm the barracas open for dinner and beer. Some vendors are busy setting up, others are already finished. Music and dance starts, and doesn't stop until sunrise. It's great fun so long as you're careful.

Getting There & Away

Air

From Rio flights go to all of Brazil and Latin America. Shuttle flights to São Paulo leave from the conveniently located Aeroporto Santos Dumont, in the city center along the bay. Almost all other flights—domestic and national—leave from Aeroporto Galeão.

Incoming visitors at Galeão pass through customs and then continue into a large lobby where there's a tourist-information counter run by a private company called RDE which can arrange hotel and taxi reservations. The staff also try to palm off a `travelers passport' for the outrageous sum of $25, and attempt to pressure befuddled travelers with the argument that government regulations require purchase of this junk package. This is a load of nonsense and a blatant ripoff attempt.

For more airline information read the book.

Bus

From Rio there are buses to everywhere. They all leave from the loud Novo Rio Rodoviária (291-5151 for information), Avenida Francisco Bicalho in São Cristóvão, about 20 minutes north of the center. At the rodoviária you can get information on transport and lodging if you ask at the Riotur desk on the ground floor.

Excellent buses leave every 15 minutes or so for São Paulo (six hours). Most major destinations have leito (executive) buses leaving late at night. These are very comfortable. Many travel agents in the city sell bus tickets. It's a good idea to buy a ticket a couple days in advance if you can.

For complete bus schedules and information, read the book.

Getting Around

To/From the Airport

All international and nearly all domestic flights use Galeão International airport, 15 km north of the city center on Ilha do Governador. Aeroporto Santos Dumont is in the heart the city on the bay. It's used for the São Paulo shuttle and some flights to a variety of other destinations like Porto Seguro or Belo Horizonte. You can take the same bus as for Galeão airport or get to the city and take a taxi, or simply walk to the airport from Centro.

Bus—air-con

There are two air-con airport bus routes operating from 5.20 to 12.10 am, every 40 minutes to one hour (about $4). One route goes to the center and to Santos Dumont airport, the other route goes to the city center and along the beaches of Copacabana, Ipanema, Leblon, Vidigal, and São Conrado. The driver will stop wherever you ask along the route. On both routes, you can stop at the rodoviária if you want to catch a bus out of Rio immediately. If you want to catch the metro, ask the driver to let you off right outside the entrance to Carioca metro station.

You can catch the bus on the 2nd floor (arrivals) of the main terminal, at the Galeão sign. The tourist desk inside the airport has schedule and price information. If you're heading to the airport you can get the bus in front of the major hotels along the beach, but you have to look alive and flag them down. The bus company is Empresa Real. Galeão should be written on the direction sign.

It is safer to catch one of these buses or take a taxi rather than a local bus if you have many valuables.

Taxi

Many taxis from the airport will try to rip you off. The safe course is to take a radio-taxi, where you pay a set fare at the airport. This is also the most expensive way to go. A yellow-and-blue comum (common) taxi is about 20% cheaper if the meter is working and if you pay what is on the fare schedule. A sample fare from the airport to Copacabana is $18 in a yellow-and-blue taxi versus $24 in a radio-taxi. If you're entering Brazil for the first time, on a budget, a good compromise is to take a bus to somewhere near your destination and then take a short taxi ride to your hotel.

Sharing a taxi from the airport is a good idea. Taxis will take up to four people. To ensure a little bit of security, before entering the taxi at the airport you can usually get a receipt with the license plate of your taxi and a phone number to register losses or complaints. If you're headed to Leblon or Ipanema, the Tunnel Rebouças is more direct than the beach route.

Bus

The buses are a real mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly. The good: Rio's buses are fast, frequent, cheap and, because Rio is long and narrow, it's easy to get the right bus and usually no big deal if you're on the wrong one. The bad: Rio's buses are often crowded, slowed down by traffic and driven by raving maniacs who drive the buses as if they were motorbikes. The ugly: Rio's buses are the scene of many of the city's robberies.

Don't carry any valuables on the buses. Don't advertise being a foreigner, and do have your money ready when you enter the bus. Be particularly cautious if you're boarding a bus in a tourist area. If you feel paranoid about something on the bus, get off and catch another.

In addition to their number, buses have their destinations, including the areas they go through, written on the side. Nine out of 10 buses going south from the center will go to Copacabana and vice versa. All buses have the price displayed above the head of the money collector. The buses you need to catch for specific destinations are listed under individual sights.

Train

The train station, Estação Dom Pedro II, is at Praça Cristiano Ottoni on Avenida Presidente Vargas. To get there take the metro to Central station.

Metro

Rio's excellent subway system is limited to points north of Botafogo and is open from 6 am to 11 pm daily, except Sunday. The two air-con lines are cleaner, faster and cheaper than buses (discounts are offered with multiple tickets). The main line from Botafogo to Saens Pena has 15 stops, of which the first 12 are: Botafogo, Flamengo, Largo do Machado, Catete, G1ória, Cinelândia, Carioca, Uruguaiana, Presidente Vargas, Central, Cidade Nova and Estácio, which is common to both lines. At Estácio the lines split: the main line continues west towards the neighborhood of Andaraí, making stops at Afonso Pena, Engenho Velho and Tijuca, and the secondary line goes north towards Maracanã stadium and beyond. The main stops for Centro are Cinelândia and Carioca.

Taxi

Rio's taxis are quite reasonably priced, if you're dividing the fare with a friend or two. Taxis are particularly useful late at night and when carrying valuables, but they are not a completely safe and hassle-free ride. First, there have been a few rare cases of people being assaulted and robbed by taxi drivers. Second, and much more common, the drivers have a tendency to exaggerate fares.

Here's how the taxi is supposed to operate: there should be a meter and it should work; there should be a current tabela to determine the fare; upon reaching your destination, check the meter and look that up on the tabela, usually posted on the passenger window, which is used to determine the fare. Now, what to watch out for: most importantly, make sure the meter works. If it `doesn't, ask to be let out of the cab. The meters have a flag that switches the meter rate; this should be in the number one position (20% less expensive), except on Sunday, holidays, evenings between 10 pm and 6 am, and when driving outside the zona sul (some taxis will switch to the high rate near the airport, which is legal). Make sure meters are cleared before you start (find out the current starting number). Make sure the tabela is original, not a photocopy. The taxi drivers that hang out near the hotels are sharks. It's worth walking a block to avoid them. Most people don't tip taxi drivers, although it's common to round off the fare to the higher number.

The meters are weighted towards distance not time. This gives the drivers an incentive to drive quickly (for a head rush tell your driver that you are in a bit of a hurry) and travel by roundabout routes. Taxis don't always run during thunderstorms because alcohol-powered cars stall easily in the wet, but buses usually plough on ahead. It's illegal for cabs to take more than four passengers. This is, of course, irrelevant except for the fact that most cabs won't do it because of conventions of the trade.

The white radio-taxis (260-2022) are 30% more expensive than the comuns, but they will come to you and they are safer.

Car

Car rental agencies can be found at the airport or clustered together on Avenida Princesa Isabel in Copacabana. There doesn't seem to be much price competition between the companies. Prices are not cheap, at about US $70 a day, but they go down a bit in the off season. When they give prices on the phone the agencies usually leave out the cost of insurance, which is mandatory. Most agencies will let you drop off their cars in another city without an extra charge.

Motorcycle

Mar e Moto (274-4398) rents motorcycles but it is cheaper to rent a car. It's in Leblon at Avenida Bartolomeu Mitre 1008.

Walking

For God's sake be careful! Drivers run red lights, ran up on footpaths and stop for no one and nothing.

Excerpts from Brazil - A Travel Survival Kit, 3rd edition, by Andrew Draffen, Chris McAsey, Leonardo Pinheiro,  and Robyn Jones. For more information call Lonely Planet: (800) 275-8555. Copyright 1996 Lonely Planet Publications. Used by permission.

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Lonely Planet
Brazil - A Travel Survival Kit
by Andrew Draffen, Chris McAsey,
Leonardo Pinheiro, Robyn Jones,
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