2009 | Rishi Sankar: Ah Trini Travelogue / Ah Trini Traveller

Don’t worry – tips on being safe in Latin America

Argentina, Belize 2008, Belize 2008, Brazil, Central America 2008, Chile, Guatemala 2008, Mexico 2008, Uruguay No Responses »

Jun 222010

On my first trip to Mexico years ago, I remember my friends telling me that it was unsafe, full of drugs, hookers, bandits and that everyone would try to take my stuff at every turn. In Trinidad, the bandit copied the “Colombian” kidnapping habit, hence my Trini friends would tell me that they knew someone, who knew someone else who was kidnapped or murdered in Latin America, about how their favourite pastime ”is kidnapping tourists”. Of course, the media sensationalizes everything today and has a pesky habit of accentuating the negative aspects about different parts of the world.

It’s like when I go to US every other week to work. The average American client person thinks that Canada is cold all the time and that there are marauding polar bears everywhere and that we have rogue weekly avalanches – I’ve never seen a Polar Bear outside of the zoo … but it is about what generalizations will spread. As ridiculous as some of the assumptions people have about parts of the world, there are some very simple things we can do to ensure that we don’t become a part of other people’s stories. Here are my quick tips to traveling safely in the Latin America or even in Trinidad – but they are applicable generally everywhere.

Take the taxi around – they’re cheap, especially if you can haggle!
During the day, I am usually pretty confident about just walking around, however at night, taking a recognized taxi is always the safer approach. For instance, In Buenos Aires, I walked around as much as I could, especially since taxis are a chore but at night I always took a taxi. In Rio … I always took a taxi, even in the day… Rio is rough … ! In Morocco, I had the best tour of Fez ever for a couple dollars. Although it might seem like overkill at times, especially if your hostel or hotel is just blocks away, taxis generally are much safer than walking, above all at night. We hear horror stories all the time about taxis taking people for all they have, but in reality this is a rarity. If you want to be extra careful, have the bar call a certified taxi and make sure you are not alone. We all know the stories where drunk tourist decided to walk .. got robbed and lost hundreds of dollars/cameras/shoes etc … when they could have spent 2.50$ a person and gotten home safely.
Spread the money around … your body
Simple and easy tip, yet I read travel forums and horror stories all the time about people being robbed of everything and their religion. Don’t keep all your money in one place. Do however keep “enough” money, in case you ever get robbed … hence walking with 20 pesos in Mexico per pocket is stupid … if you do get robbed, handing over only 20 pesos will get you beaten up plus robbed, and probably strip searched by your potential bandits.
Always keep a copy of your passport and never your actual passport
When traveling to a foreign country, especially one where you don’t speak the language, never take your passport along with you. Have multiple photocopies and scan a high resolution copy and email it to yourself, in case you lose your copies.

Repeat after me : Your passport is your life. Say it 100 times. Losing your passport in a foreign country, is akin to you being in a non fatal car crash. It’s serious, stays on your record if your embassy has to get involved and will absolutely RUIN your trip. Photocopies will quickly prove who you are, and get you back on the road quickly. Plus in some parts of Latin America, it is the law to at least have a photocopy.
Walk it, like you invented it
Do you ever question a guy who said he invented something? Nope .. why? Cause he said so. When going to anywhere new, act like you’ve been there before and walk with confidence. This is a difficult trick to master for the inexperienced traveler – it only comes with experience and that certain “screw you” attitude that some people naturally have.If you stand around looking like a hyper-vigilant, paranoid tourist; then you will be treated like one. Do you see locals staring around? No .. cause they know what they are doing … even if you have no clue where you are going … you can always simply ask to get to somewhere interesting. I’ve done it enough times and it’s worked 100% of the time for me.
Talk to the locals
They know where to go and where not to go … simple, easy … now write that down <scribble> “Talk to locals .. check!” The locals are hidden in this picture!
Don’t fall asleep on buses … unless …You’re at the back of the bus, by yourself.
I’ve met too many people who lost their stuff on the bus. Food, bags, shopping … all gone with a little nap.
Trust your insincts … if it doesn’t feel right, it isn’t right!

I miss the fireworks …

2009, Disneyworld, US 2009 No Responses »

Mar 202010

I miss the fireworks at Disneyland!

At the Copa! Copacabana….

2009, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro 1 Response »

Dec 092009

So after a long day’s work, Jeff and I decided to try and head up to Sugarloaf for some nightshooting. We thought that we had enough time to make it from Caesar Park to the mountain but of course Rio’s famous rush hour traffic put paid to that thought. So as a detour, we decided that it would be feasible to try and hit Copacabana beach for a little nightshooting.

One of the most palpable things about Rio thus far was how unsafe I felt. Now to me, manageable travel safety is defined as the following:

“The combination of high travel experience, confidence to diffuse an unexpected situation, moderate to high ability to negotiate in a foreign language without knowing that language and low situation of risk”

In Rio, for all the days I was there, I felt that while I had all the other skills, I felt like I had very low ability to negotiate and high situation of risk; hence this to me makes it somewhat unsafe. However on Copacabana beach at night, with tons of tourist police around, I definitely felt a bit safer. So after aborting our Sugarloaf mission, we jumped out just before the Copacabana Palace.

This is the most famous hotel in Rio, having been featured in movies and of course, we being the rockstars that we are, sauntered into the hotel with not a care in the world. From the outside, the hotel definitely looks a bit posh and inside reflects that; of course if one is trying to be cool walking in, you don’t take pictures like a gawking tourist, hence no pictures on my camera.

One does get a drink and take pictures by the pool though..

So after a caipirinha at the hotel bar, it was time for some beach walking. It’s amazing the level of activity on the beach at night. People run on the beach or play soccer or futevole (sp) till the late hours.

Drinking on the tourist beach is a given, with all the little bar shacks along the waterfront

And all along the beach, there are intricate sand sculptures

and then there are some that just defy the imagination

and of course one makes new friends

After all that walking along the beach, it was time for dinner and the dish of the night was the famous Filet Oswaldo Aranha

Filé à Oswaldo Aranha, one of Rio de Janeiro’s best known dishes, is a tradition created by a Brazilian minister in the Getúlio Vargas government in the 1940s, when Rio de Janeiro was still the capital of Brazil. Like many other politicians of his time, Oswaldo Aranha liked having lunch at Cosmopolita, a Lapa restaurant opened in 1926 which used to be called Senadinho (“Little Senate”) during the Vargas government thanks to its clientele.

Oswaldo Aranha always ordered a thick slab of filet mignon, prepared in a frying pan with sliced garlic and served with sliced potatoes, farofa and plain white rice. I ordered a side of extra garlic in the end.

After that gut busting meal, it was back to the hotel for the night.

Copacabana at night…

View photos at SmugMug

Feijoada at where else….Casa de Feijoada!

2009, Brazil, Rio de Janeiro 1 Response »

Dec 082009

After starting off the trip with wanting to try Feijoada at the Caesar Park (since it is reputed to have some of the best in the city), Laura and I went off for dinner at one of the only places in Rio that serves the meal daily – Casa de Feijoada. With little more than a couple slices of mango and juice in my tummy, we went looking for a late lunch there… it was 5pm btw. I had been practicing my pronounciation of “fay-zho-a-da,” all week, so now the same way I say “Ho-do-via-ree-ah” for bus station and sound almost like a native, elicits a stream of Brazilian Portuguese to which I then give up all hope of understanding.

Facts I knew about the dish:

You get a lot
It is beans and meat
There is some fat in the dish
You only get it on Saturdays – who knew why?
They give you orange slices with your food.

So we get to the small little restaurant and it wasn’t terribly fancy. It was a 6 block walk down the beach from the hotel, nestled in a little nook intersecting three streets.

We were ushered to a corner table by the window. Immediately, food started to appear at our table… olives, toast, teeny little pots of black bean soup (the waiter demonstrated that we should be sipping this soup)… soon after appeared scoops of fried little sausages … and quite soon after the waiter appeared with two glass bottles. One had an orangey colored liquid in it and the other a pale green. The orangey colored liquid turned out to be passion fruit liquor… or the passion fruit version of a home made, aged and high-powered caipirinha. Caipirinha… mmmm. The pale green liquid was “lime” flavored, and the flavor that I normally associated with the caipirinha. So introductory batidas out of the way.

When the waiter finally came over to ask for the order, we saw the menu and ended up with the “traditional” feijoada but the choice of meats included some of the following and you had the choice of one, some or all of them

Pig ears
Pig Tail
Pig knuckles
Jerk Meat
Chorizo
Regular sausage
Bacon
Beef

Of course, I am just not about eating the non business parts of the animal, so I asked for the Sausage, beef and Jerk, while Laura just ended up with the bacon … we were the only ones in the restaurant at the time and we truly had no frame of reference for the size of the ship that was going to hit us.

Then the food tsunami hit us.

and the video above the picture below don’t capture how much it was.

By this time, it was too late, because the parade of food began again. To our table appeared white rice, black beans, “collard” greens (bright green cabbage), yuca fries, “farofa”, pork rinds, and two large steaming bowls of stew. One bigger bowl contained my concoction of meats , while the other was just filled with huge thick slabs of bacon for Laura.

The overall meal for meal was like a huge hot Creole meal in Trinidad, so I was pretty much in my element. The collard greens by the way…. DELICIOUS … just like pan fried Bhagi without the sada roti. My plate ended up like this …

After eating and eating and barely denting the huge amount of food.. we packaged the leftovers (you have to pay for the containers), we started our waddling back to the hotel. This is the reason, they serve this on Saturday’s only… you need the entire weekend to digest.

Casa de Feijoada

View photos at SmugMug

Where’s the girl from Ipanema?

2009, Brazil, Ipanema 2 Responses »

Dec 062009

Ipanema and its beach are known for its views, waves and beautiful bodies. Walking along the two mile beach, it was impossible not to notice the Brazilian men with chiseled bodies (If you base Brazil on what you see on this beach, you’ll thing that all Brazilians run, have 8-packs and do weights and exercise on the beach) and skimpy speedos (This must be the european thing to have your junk hanging out) all playing volleyball and tanning. Tall, bronzed, statuesque Amazonian women in even skimpier thongs lay on squares of colourful cotton under the blazing sun, aligned carefully for the perfect tan. Someone said that you should just go with your shades to the beach; how weird I must have looked with my camera backpack wandering the sand and climbing rocks at each end of the beach.

Two mountains called the “Dois Irmãos” (Two Brothers) rise at the western end of the beach. The view of the “Dois Irmãos” below is from the rocks at the eastern end of the beach, where the fishermen and surfers all go from.

The beach is divided into segments by marks known as “postos” (lifeguard towers). Each “posto” supposedly means something and has a specific crowd. There are only 3 postos on Ipanema beach; I managed to find a “Posto” index to help me:

Posto 1 (Leme) – Between Aurelino Leal and Anchieta
Posto 2 (Copacabana) – In front of the Praça do Lido (the only one in the original location)
Posto 3 Between Paula Freitas and Hilario de Gouveia
Posto 4 (Copacabana) – In front of Constante Ramos
Posto 5 (Copacabana) – In front of Sá Ferreira
Posto 6 There is no Post 6!!!
Posto 7 (Arpoador/Botafogo) – At the end of Arpoador
Posto 8 (Ipanema) – In front of Joaquim Nabuco
Posto 9 (Ipanema) – Between Vinicius de Moraes and Joana Angelica
Posto 10 (Ipanema) – In front of Anibal de Mendonça
Posto 11 (Leblon) – Between Almirante Guilhem and Carlos Garcia
Posto 12 (Leblon) – Between Queen Wilhelmina and Aristides Espinola
Posto 13 (São Conrado) – Próximo ao Hotel Intercontinental Tour 13 (Sao Conrado) – Next to Hotel Intercontinental

All along the beach there are interesting vantage points and tons to see and photograph

In true tradition, there is an area for everyone, so there is an area specifically called “the gay beach,” situated near Rua Farme de Amoedo; which is well-known for being a gay-friendly area, I didn’t know they had to specifically label it

Beer is sold everywhere on the beach along with the traditional cachaça. I have to say that on a hot day, the ridiculously cold coconuts are amazing. I thought only in Trinidad, could I get a coconut straight from the freezer..