Rio de Jeneiro

As always the cycle race is one of the best ways to see the surrounding countryside and this is especially so as the road race in Rio de Janeiro unwinds.

Rio is a a beautiful geographical setting, spoilt in some ways by the real estate which is crammed onto every square foot of ground. The apartment blocks and the hotels, squeezing out the ordinary houses, making the intensity of life living in such stark density and such a claustrophobic life style, one wonders at the way mankind seems able to adapt to anything.

Suddenly the helicopter swoops down on the ravaged dwellings of the favela clinging to the mountainside, a slum of unimaginable proportions and a misery for anyone condemned to live there. For them the Olympics belong to a different world, a world they can hardly imagine. For them the luxury is clean running water and food on the table.
The road hugs the loverly beaches fringing the mountain which dominates the landscape. The heavy tropical foliage deep greens contrasting with the white sand and the blue water. A paradise if one didn't know better.

The local population have been protesting about the billions spent on the games when their city is bankrupt and can't pay for services to the ordinary citizen.  Clean water, electricity, food on the shelves, are all in short supply as this mega show takes over their town. It's when capitalism and big business come to town and squash the rights of the individual, when Coke and Niki swallow all the available resources, obliterate our collective sensibilities and steamroller their imprint on everything, leaving little behind other than a vivid memory as, in a couple of weeks the show skips town to leave the people to pick up the pieces of their lives again.

The surf tumbles in bringing the large rollers crashing onto the beach, the sunbathers lie with little thought for the cycle race passing a hundred yards away. The sun worshipers glaze their bodies, turning as if on a spit, they become comatose in the heat, cooking their flesh to a turn, oblivious of the long turn damage of a deep tan.

The contrasts are all around. The sun and the sea, the rich and the poor, those who count themselves special and those who specialise in just staying alive.

Rio is the extravagant face of mans desire to set himself apart, to signal to others that he/she counts more than the next person.

Be it the curves and exposure of of the girls on the beach in Ipanema, or the Ferrari set, drifting about strutting their stuff in their red machines. The restaurants, full of expense accounts and overpriced food, the special service expected from the hotel staff, the acknowledgement that the client belongs to a special exclusive breed, they have plenty of money.

 And all the time the spectre of the favelas haunting the scene.