Climbing Sugarloaf Peak in Rio de Janeiro

Sugarloaf peak showing the Via dos Italianos

I lugged climbing shoes and a harness all six weeks of our summer vacation — so that for just one day I could climb the famous Sugarloaf in the heart of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in early July.

Sugarloaf sits on the tip of the Urca peninsula, which has 270 rock climbs – just this one puny little neighborhood and park in one corner of Rio! Rio is considered the center of Brazilian rock climbing because greater Rio has at least double that many climbs.

I had it all worked out with a guide ahead of time, a friend of Edgar Aulestia, the owner of the Monodedo rockclimbing shop in Quito, Ecuador, where I live. Flavio Daflon was my guide and wrote the book (literally) on Urca climbs.

The Italian Route, or A Via dos Italianos in Portuguese, is the most famous route in all of Brazil. The Italians who created the route knew a beautiful line when they saw one — Flavio called it “The Nose of Sugarloaf,” a reference to the most famous rock climb in the world, the Nose of El Capitan. Italianos goes free at 5.10 for two pitches, then gets a little to a lot easier.

The actual Via dos Italianos is really just the two-pitch straight part of the climb up the arete – about 180 feet or so. Then you have to traverse over to the left to a different route (Secundo) to finish. Anyway, the weather was gorgeous, the climbing technical and absorbing, the views unbelievable, and my guide was relaxed and very professional. My only complaint was that I hadn’t done thin face climbing in a long time. I spent the entire day practically on my tiptoes. By the second or third hanging belay, my toes screamed like they’d been sledged, my Achilles tendons moaned like they were stretched on The Rack, and my calves felt like arson victims. I couldn’t walk normally for over 24 hours after topping out. Still, for me, it was the highlight of our trip!

Why it’s no fun smoking in Brazil

Traveling in Brazil for 3 weeks in June and July was a great experience, and right off I noticed that fewer people were smoking compared to my last visit 20 years ago. Argentines and Uruguayans, on the other hand, are still smoking like chimneys. What’s the difference?

I tend to feel like we do a great job in the U.S. of letting people know about the dangers of smoking. After all, we started the business of warnings, and there’s this blurb (or another one) on every pack of cigarretes:

SURGEON GENERAL'S WARNING: Smoking Causes Lung Cancer, Heart Disease,
Emphysema, And May Complicate Pregnancy.

But let me tell you, we could do better, as we discovered in Brazil. I found this quote on Wikipedia, in an article that summarizes the kinds of warnings found on cigarettes in different countries:

Though America started the trend of labeling cigarette packages with health warnings, today the country has one of the smallest, least prominent warnings placed on their packages.

Without further ado, here’s how they get the word out in Brazil, which Wikipedia says was the second country to adopt warnings. Clearly, they’ve kept pushing the envelope.

The right side of a cigarette advertising poster

The back of three cigarette packs, indicating that smoking causes: cancer of the mouth and loss of teeth; spontaneous abortions; and vascular disease which leads to amputation.

"Children that live with smokers have more asthma, pneumonia, sinusitis and allergies."

Anyone feel like a smoke?

La Patada China (the Chinese Kick)

Joy and I just squeezed in a visit to our Peace Corps friends Kat and Damon on the Ecuadorian Pacific Coast, where we ate amazing seafood, hiked on beaches, went whale-watching, and I got to hold a live octopus in my hand. It’s embarrassing that Joy and I have been in Ecuador for over a year without having visited the coast, it’s just that we’re not really beach people. The fact is, though, we had a great time and will surely go back. We just hope we don’t wind up with “The Chinese Kick,” which seemed to be going around.

This isn't it! (I found this on a google search)

La Patada China translates as The Chinese Kick. Damon and Kat reported that recently quite a few of their contacts in their town wouldn’t let them in their houses because some family member had The Chinese Kick. This was perplexing to them. “You won’t let me inside your house because your daughter has ‘The Chinese Kick’? And you’re afraid she’ll give it to me?” Clearly you can get The Chinese Kick really easily. You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to imagine that you don’t want to get The Chinese Kick. So what is it? Though perhaps not politically correct, this disease nickname struck us all as pretty hilarious as it plays upon stereotypes from popular culture in an unexpected way.

It’s common in the U.S.; s and children can get “the kick,” and often you’ll be sent home from school or work if you get it. Chinese people (or any other Asians for that matter) need not be involved.

Are you ready to know? The Chinese Kick is the local nickname for Conjunctivitis. In the U.S. we call it Pink Eye. Why The Chinese Kick? Well, I think that when you have Pink Eye, it sort of looks like some martial artist kicked you in the face…. Joy added the insight that your swollen eye may take on a bit of an Asiatic slant.

Back from our vacation

Well, we’re back from 6 weeks traveling in Brazil and Argentina, with some Uruguay thrown in for flavor and a couple of hours in Paraguay for spice. My in-laws, Bettye and Bob, traveled with us for nearly 3 weeks in Brazil, and together we had a blast. The plan is over the next couple of weeks to write a few separate pieces about some of what we saw and experienced.

The view from Sugarloaf over Rio de Janeiro

Here is what we visited with a brief description:

• Sao Paulo, Brazil: Bob gets mugged in broad daylight on day 1. Uphill from there, perhaps the highlight was being approached one day by Brazilian tourism students and having them show us around the wonderful Sao Paulo Market while they took pictures of us for their class project.
• Paraty, Brazil: On Brazil’s island-studded “Green Coast,” Paraty was a beautifully preserved colonial port that shipped out all the mineral wealth from Brazil’s gold mines.
• Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: “A Cidade Maravilhosa” (the Marvelous City”) was even more beautiful than I remembered it. Surely no other city sits in as beautiful a natural setting. Stay tuned for pictures of me doing a long technical rock climb of Sugarloaf peak in the heart of Rio’s coastal neighborhoods.
• Ouro Preto, Brazil and other colonial mining towns of Minas Gerais (the Brazilian state whose name translates as “General Mines”): a highlight from my previous visit to Brazil 20 years ago, gorgeous colonial towns with cobblestone streets winding around beautiful old buildings and ornate yet elegant churches. We visited 4 different towns in this region (perhaps one or two too many, but each had its own charms), Bob and I swam in an underground lake in the bottom of an old gold mine, we all took a steam-train ride on “Smoking Mary,” and Joy and I paid a “moto-taxi” visit to an amazing natural rock garden and cave.
  

  Incredible Iguazu, showing a tiny fraction of the falls

• Salvador da Bahia, Brazil: several days in this northeastern heart of “African Brazil,” the city that spawned the dancing martial art of Capoeira, and the animistic faith of Candomble. It felt ancient and poor, lively and warm, a city that is unselfconsciously making the most of its cultural richness and heritage, despite or because it was the center of the Brazilian slave trade for centuries.
• Iguazu Falls, Argentina-Brazil border: truly one of the most beautiful places in the natural world. Soon enough we’ll show you enough pictures to either convince you or bore you, but no number of pictures can capture the scope and magnificence of this complex of over 200 waterfalls.
• Corrientes, Argentina: fifteen years after meeting him in Austin, I finally got to visit a friend from Argentina in his hometown. Now a successful but admittedly disillusioned lawyer with a beautiful wife and baby , Nestor showed us the full extent of Argentine hospitality, including a fishing trip on the immense Rio Parana where Joy caught a Dorado.
• Colonia and Montevideo, Uruguay: quiet little Uruguay sits across the mouth of the Rio de la Plata (River Plate) from much larger Argentina, but we really enjoyed our time there. Great old buildings, wonderful museums, fantastic food and smart, funny, friendly people more than made up for the cold, windy, rainy conditions we endured for most of our visit.
  

  La Boca neighborhood, Buenos Aires

• Buenos Aires, Argentina: it was great to be back in the city where I’d lived and worked for five months 20 years ago. I’d been dreading a diet of nothing but world-class steak, pizza, and pasta, but I had it wrong. Though it’s true that ethnic restaurants are in remarkably short supply in such a world-class city, Argentine restaurants serve up wonderful tarts, quiches, and stews, and the ice cream was even better than I remembered. Food aside, we visited Evita’s grave (coincidentally on the anniversary of her death), saw some great museums, a bunch of incredibly huge “gomero” trees that grace the plazas and parks, took in a tango show, and hung out with some Academia Cotopaxi colleagues and another old Argentine friend.

Can you tell we had fun?