Lapa Like a Local

Nothing to see here?

During the day in the Lapa area of Rio de Janeiro, the neighborhood is most commonly uneventful and quiet.  With the exception of screaming cars and the rumbling groans of heavy construction equipment moving rubble from pile to pile, not a lot goes on in this sleepy part of town.  Most shops are closed or seemingly abandoned and the few that are open are drowsy with business.  Other tourists can be spotted walking the cracked and unkempt sidewalks with maps in hand, puzzled looks on their faces and oversized cameras around their necks.

My first experience in Lapa was far less than stellar as well.  It was a miserable cloudy day and it was only by accident that I had happened upon it.  I did not even know that the area I was in was called Lapa and disregarded it as just another part of town; the neighborhood’s old colonial architecture forgotten and uncared for.  Little did I know that Lapa is one of the most exciting, lively parts of town in the whole of Rio and I was going to get to experience that unlike many gringos even know is possible.

                My evening in Lapa starts really early the previous morning while out wandering the streets with some other travelers in search of adventure and an open bar at three AM.  Both of which are not too difficult to find in Rio at that time.  A small group of us meandered along the beach in the Ipanema neighborhood listening to the waves lap at the shore until shouting and car horns drew us towards a bar that had people overflowing out of the entrance and into the street.  The bar, as good a place as any at that point, had an atypical mix of gringos and locals.  I was fortunate enough, or drunk enough, to start chatting with some of the Brazilians.  I suppose I made a good gringo impression with my butchering of the Portuguese language and we prattled into the later hours of the morning; I believe they were just happy I was making an attempt at their speech.  The topic of a well known street party in Lapa came up and a girl named Gabriela offered to take me out the next night to check it out.  Who was I to say no?

                The next evening she was cool enough to make it easy on me and met me at my hostel where we had a quick drink and afterward proceeded to a busy street to catch a public transportation van.  It was not a long wait till we heard the hollering of one of the VW van’s attendants screaming, “Lapa, lapa, LAPA!” half his body hanging outside the side window of the quick moving vehicle.  We flagged him down much like you would a cab and he started slamming his hand against the side door to signal for the van to screech to a halt.  He quickly jumped out, we leaped in and we made our way through Rio’s busy Friday night streets.  We rode around the giant lake that rests in the center of the city, past old aqueducts and besides famous theaters as Gabriella gave me a crash course of historical facts about the city I would never have bothered to learn otherwise.   

                After a 20 minute ride or so we disembarked the van and the sleepy area I had been wandering aimlessly in a few days ago had been converted into a street party the likes I had never seen.  Glowing orange under tall lamps, people crowded into the roads shoulder to shoulder for city block after city block till they just seemed to melt together in a rocking mass.  Gone were the deafening sounds of the back hoes and bulldozers, replaced by the chest pulsating beats of Brazilian funk music and samba emitting from the now open clubs and bars that stretched down flashing alley ways.  Food stands that were selling traditional fare created ballooning clouds of smoke that swirled into the night air and stood collectively setup on the sidewalks; maybe in an attempt to avoid the chaotic streets. 

                Leisurely we began to push through the crowds, occasionally stopping to watch a fire juggler toss flames high into the air to awe a pack of gawkers.  Gabriella, who I now pegged as either an expert bull-shitter or a very intelligent person, continued to inform me on the area’s revitalization.  Ten years ago Lapa was not what it is now.  It was crime ridden and riddled in gang warfare to the point even locals strayed away from certain areas.  With difficultly, I dragged my eyes away from the scantily clad locals and flashing strobe lights to see as much. 

                Many old colonial buildings still sit in disrepair, their chipped paint and rotted columns pleading to be invigorated and saved.  Sidewalks are pocketed with holes where I must have watched three drunken people, and I as well a few times, trip into and around.  Petty theft is also a problem here, especially for gringos.  Two people from my hostel that evening had cameras stolen from them.  A young English woman was posing in front of some landmark for her boyfriend when a man came sprinting out of the throng, snatched the camera right out his hands and vanished back into the masses at break neck speed.  An Australian girl had hers magically picked right out of her side bag in a crowd and never knew the wiser until the next day.

                Although there are still problems, the area is evolving and becoming an increasingly better place to spend a weekend evening.  Police presence is well known; their flashing red and blue lights adding to the party atmosphere on nearly every street corner and alleyway.  There will always be theft here I feel but, it is not as if it is malevolent crime where people are looking to assault one another for the sheer joy of it.  Construction and repairs are a constant fact of life in Lapa too. 

Workers are constantly tearing down buildings containing unfixable, shattered pillars and constructing new businesses with large glass windows and well lit overhead signs.  Even roads that have been torn apart and littered with lumps of tar and concrete do not discourage vendors and partiers from setting up small shops and cutting loose among the debris; creating an upbeat and admirable atmosphere.  As the Brazilian flag reads, “Ordem e Progresso.”

                This and more Gabriella and I discussed as we criss-crossed our way among the partiers.  An interesting person, it turns out she had just spent a few months in New York City on an internship from her university in Rio and was fully fluent in English.  In addition to her knowledge of the area, she seemed to know everyone in Lapa; from street to street I was introduced to locals young and old, men and women.  At time it felt like walking around with a celebrity to be honest.  We made our way down to a quieter section of Lapa and found our way to a hole in the wall store called “Casa de Cachaça.” where I did my best not to stick out like a hopelessly lost gringo.  I think with the exception of my newly obtained straw hat, I did alright. 

                Cachaça is Brazil’s national liquor made from the fermenting of sugar cane juice.  It varies in strength and tastes but, I had never known so many different types of the liquor to exist before.  The tiny store had rows and rows of old and new bottles alike lining all the shelves top to bottom.  A sign was posted inside the shop that listed over 50 different types of the liquor and where they were from in Brazil.  For a pretty cheap price we tried a few in tiny plastic shot glasses that we sipped from as we continued to wander the streets.  Some of the tastes were low in alcoholic content but powerful in flavor; one kind was made from bananas, another type produced from ginger root.  I tried one strong kind called “Providencia” and after my initial sip it quite literally made me stumble a few steps back as I felt my eyes roll into the back of my head.  No tequila or vodka I have ever tasted has strength quite like that brand.  If I had to guess, I am not sure that we could even legally produce the potency of it in the USA.

                Constantly interacting with people and pointing out other well known figures and locales from club organizers to where the transsexuals sleep at night, Gabriella led me down the same alley ways I had wandered days ago.  They seemed to have changed so much I could have believed to have been in another city altogether.  Closed shops opened their doors to become lively clubs and empty streets were so crowded that getting anywhere at times seemed to take half of the evening. 

We approached the famous Lapa Steps, made by Chilean artist Jorge Selaron.  The 250 steps stretch approximately 125 meters up a steep hill and act almost like a bridge between the Santa Theresa and Lapa neighborhoods.  In 1990, Selaron began to take tiles from old construction sites, as well as make his own and plaster them all along the steps in abstract designs.  As the step’s fame grew ever more popular, people began to donate tiles from around the world to be added into the artwork.  Selaron is constantly changing the tiles and will not stop working on the steps till the day he dies, according to his website.  They have been featured in music videos and commercials from around the world such as Snoop-Dog and Kelloggs Cornflakes.

The beginning of the Lapa Steps

                By day the area is usually silent, occasionally tourists happen by the place and their camera shutters fill the air momentarily before they shuffle onto the next picturesque destination.  By night however, the steps are heavily saturated with the scent of Mary Jane.  From almost a block away the distinctive weed’s aroma could be picked out among the crowd and as we got closer it almost seemed to be visible in the street lamps above.  No longer at the base of the steps was a tourist bus with gazing gringos but a police car with a few officers looking less than impressed staring at the jam packed steps.  We arrived just in time to watch a youth with a red fuzzy clown nose glued to his face do a hand stand and saunter down the steps on his hands past tight fit groups of people rolling joints as they cheered loudly.  There literally must have been thousands of people on the stairs puffing on doobies so large that Bob Marley would have been jealous.  We lingered for a moment then continued to wander the never ending party. 

                Much like this the course of the evening remained the same.  Time to time we would stop off at a place to grab a drink or a bite to eat until the first rays of light began to pierce through the clouds.  Like vampires, the crowds began to disperse into cabs and busses bound for home.  I imagined some stumbling to the beach to comically pass out in the soft sand too drunk to wait for a bus or pay for a cab.  Clubs turned down the music and flipped off the neons, signaling an end to the night of festivities as the streets emptied of street performers and food vendors packed tents into the back of trucks.  The sun steadily continued to rise in the east over the Atlantic Ocean, notifying us that a new day had come and it was time for us to part.  

Gabriella and I made it back to Ipanema and said our goodbyes; leaving me with questions on how she knew so much of the city’s history, so many random people in the street and who she might have actually been.  If anyone at all really, I have a hard time believing everyone in the city is as knowledgeable as her about both the underground and the more posh history of the subtropical city.

                One thing I certainly know though was that I will never judge a neighborhood solely by its appearance during the daytime again.