It says something crucial about Rio de Janeiro that the city chose to name its international airport after a musician: samba legend Antonio Carlos Jobim.
In Rio - as well as all over Brazil's vast land - music serenades every aspect of life. The sound of home-grown musical forms, like samba, bossa nova, tropicalia and forro (pronounced "foho") bursts from bars, sweeps up from street singers, pounds around the pavement and even occupies its own excellent state-run radio station (MPB, or "Music Popular Brasil," 90.3 on your dial).
There's music in the language, too. The form of Portuguese spoken here holds far more sensuality than you'll find in its land of origin. It's all soft consonants and rich vowels, a rush of sounds that turn every phrase into a breathy exhale.
The sensuality of Rio is hardly confined to aural intrigue. The marbled texture of its beef at their "churrascaria" restaurants, the curving glide of their beaches at Ipanema and the genetic privilege of their "Cariocas" (the name adopted by the drop-dead gorgeous locals) all speak of tactile pleasures.
Speaking of that last lure: The local gene pool - mixed from the African slave trade, the Portuguese conquerors and indigenous Indians - has created features and figures lusted after the world over. No wonder Rio has become nearly synonymous with sex.
Contrary to popular belief, however, the beaches where these creatures preen and frolic hardly mandates the wearing of a thong. In fact, in the four days I spent here, I barely saw a single one of those silly things.
Copacabana's beach actually boasts a fair share of older people. It's nearly the Miami of these parts. Each area of the city's three most popular, and contiguous, sand zones - Copacabana, Ipanema and Leblon - caters to a different tribe. There are numbered beaches dedicated to bodybuilders, families, older people, gays, you name it. (You'll figure out which is which soon enough.)
Copacabana tends to be more reasonably priced and down-to-earth, though also more crime-prone than the fancier areas of Leblon or Ipanema. Of course, that last named beach inspired the most famous bossa nova song in the world, "The Girl From Ipanema." Its locals have dutifully exploited that fact with a small park, a touristy bar and a cheesy store, each named after the hit.
Hearty types can walk the length of all three of the main beach areas in a bit over an hour. But even the least athletic should make sure to stop at Fort Copacabana, which divides Copa from Ipanema. Jutting far out into the bay, this bulky structure provides killer views back to the soaring skylines of the hotel circuit, as well as the area's many undulating mountains.
No matter where you stand in this city, the view is likely to leave you gasping. For one thing, you're always catching sight of the two most famous landmarks: Corcovado - that giant Christ on the hill with his arms stretched to embrace the city - and Sugar Loaf, the best formed of the many mountains that tease their way around the town.
To reach the peak of Corcovado you take a cute, Swiss-made train in a 35-minute ride through an urban jungle complete with anteaters, monkeys and, naturally, some guys playing samba looking for a handout.
Once on top, you can gape at the world's largest art deco statue. It's a marvel of sleek design, even though from far below it looks suspiciously like the world's largest hood ornament.
Sugarloaf offers equally majestic vistas - so much so that you'll have to take two suspension cars to get to its precarious peak. For anyone who fears heights, this is a nightmare waiting to happen. For everyone else, it provides a vista you'll never get out of your mind.
After these places, probably the most attended tourist site would be Maracana Stadium, the world's largest soccer venue (200,000 capacity), complete with a museum to the sport housed in its bowels. Soccer fetishists (which includes every living Brazilian, it seems) will drool over things like a life-size bust of Pele's leg. All others will find the place a snore.
To reach these places from the beaches, you can navigate a pretty fathomable bus system. But if you can afford a driver, that will make things that much easier. Several other far-flung places should lure you from beachy pursuits to more urban exploration.
Definitely take the ferry from Rio's downtown to the town of Niteroi, which lies 13 kilometers across the bay. The draw here - besides yet another different and great view back to Rio - is a fantastically mod piece of architecture housing the city's Contemporary Art Museum. Rising like a flower out of a rock, the place looks amazingly like Diane Keaton's house of the future from Woody Allen's "Sleeper."
At night, you should spring for a cab to take you to the Lapa district, located downtown (roughly $15). This super-cool part of town boasts narrow streets, old Brazilian architecture, and a music and club scene so bustling, fresh and seedy/exciting, it made me misty for the long-vanished downtown New York of the '70s. Think the Mudd Club, Heat and Hurrah, all rolled into one.
Make sure to go to the club Scenarium (Rua do Lavradio, 20), a boho palace packed with old dentist equipment and other cool curios. Here I saw an amazing samba-rock fusion band, Empolga as Nove (Excuses at Nine); check them out on the Internet.
In this area, you can roam from club to club. They're packed into a few tight streets, all in the shadow of the imposing downtown skyscrapers.
The more camp among you may be tempted to visit the Carmen Miranda Museum while in town. Don't. It's a tiny mildewed dump, strewn with a few tattered versions of her fruity gowns. Apparently, warring factions within her estate have kept the most interesting stuff from a proper display.
Instead, you should visit one of the many "samba schools." These are the places where groups perfect their sambas to compete in February's Carnival. Not far from the soccer stadium there's a small Museum of Samba, located at the Sambodromo. Here you view examples of the festival's grand outfits, which make their participants look like walking wedding cakes.
Speaking of food, while here you shouldn't miss Brazil's most devilish dish: Feijoada, a dark brew of beans, pork, sausage, bacon, spare ribs and just about every other edible part of a pig. Food writer Robert Sietsema once referred to this dish as "a symphony of oink," but it will make you coo. Sop it up with plenty of pão de queijo, their gummy-but-great cheese bread. Wash it all down with their liquor-loaded house drink, caipirinah. The booze comes from the powerful, sugar-based cachaca, which makes it all work quicker.
Food-wise, Brazil also boasts tons of those all-you-can-gorge churrascarias, where you cruise the salad bar first (usually laden with lots of fish crudo and sushi concoctions), after which waiters come around with giant skew-ers of meats that they'll carve for you as often as you like.
Though a godsend for carnivores, I have to say I had the best sushi I've had in my life in Rio. (There's a huge Japanese population in Brazil, it turns out). Given the favorable exchange rate to the local currency (roughly two reals to the dollar), even the fanciest of these places - like the gorgeously situated Porcão - will run you around $45, not including booze and tip.
To work off the feasting, you could go for a night walk along the beaches. Just make sure to stay on the path by the main road. Venturing down to the sand could end in something nasty. Crime and Brazil have an intimate relationship, unfortunately, due to the alarming disparity in wealth. You have to take the usual care in such places: Don't flash money or wear jewelry. Forgo fancy cameras and try to blend in as much as possible. Also, you should be careful in the clubs, where date-rape drugging of tourists is a local sport.
If you want to tempt fate further, you can always take a tour through Brazil's super-dangerous slums (favelas). The companies that run these things make you sign your life away before you go, but as far as poverty voyeurism goes, they can't be beat.
If you want a safer view of favelas - which, ironically, occupy the most beautiful vistas in the mountains surrounding Rio's beaches - rent the 1959 movie "Black Orpheus" when you're back home. It's an epic dance of a film, shot in the hills and bursting with sex, energy, tragedy and joy.
Those elements pretty much describe Rio as a whole. On the negative side, that popping sound you hear from your hotel window at night may well be gunfire from the favelas. But if you keep to the safer areas, and try to stay with the crowd, you'll experience colors, textures and food like no place on earth, all tied to a tune and a beat that will move you.
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