Rio´s rains don´t dampen my spirits

Rio has a reputation as being the city that celebrates the most holidays in the world, I believe this to be the case because Cariocas hate to work and love to party. There´s a saying that the Paulistas (inhabitants of São Paulo) love to use to mock the Cariocas; they say that Cariocas will work when Jesus, who stands arms spread watching over Rio de Janeiro, places his hands together. This past month the city has particularly lived up to its reputation. This is the first week that I have actually had to work a full 5 days for lack of holidays celebrating saints, heros, workers...any excuse for a holiday. If a holiday falls on a Thursday a carioca is most likely to take the Friday off work too, if it falls on a Tuesday they take off Monday. Just recently there were 2 holidays in one week, one on a Tuesday, the other on a Thursday, so of course all universities closed for the whole week and my colleagues, most of whom are students as well as interns, were understandably irritated that the company didn´t operate the same policy as their universities.

The day of Saint George is not only celebrated by Catholics in Brazil but also by followers of the afro-brazilian religion Candomblé. The worship of Orixás, or gods, by African slaves shipped to Brazil was prohibited by the Catholic church and criminalized by the Brazilian government forcing Candomblé practitioners to seek methods to conceal their religion. Various Catholic saints that resembled similar qualities to Candomblé gods were worshiped in an attempt to keep traditions alive whilst fooling the authorities. Saint George replaced the Orixá ´Ogum´ because of his similar warrior characteristics.
I celebrated the day of Saint George by climbing the Sugar Loaf with two experienced climber friends. The majority of the ascent took place along steep trails amidst overgrown vegetation and across bare slanting rock, occasionally leading to large boulders from which we took in breath taking views of the Atlantic Ocean and Niterói, the city across the bay from Rio. A short part of the ascent involved myself being harnessed and roped to a sheer rock face and told to trust my legs and the shoes I´d been lent as I attempted to scale the 10 vertical metres of rock. Apart from a short episode of trembling thighs and a string of expletives I didn´t do a bad job. As I rested watching the vultures circling the mountain above me, boats entering and exiting the port and fishermen casting off from the rock, I couldn´t help but think how lucky I am to be living in this marvellous city.
We reached the top just in time to watch the sun set and see the first fireworks exploding across the city in celebration of Saint George. As it darkened in the distance flashes of lightning lit up the sky behind Corcovado and large black clouds descended on the city with promises of rain. We took the cable car down to the smaller of the two mountains then descended via another much easier trail, this time in the dark. Just as we rounded the corner of the road our car was parked on the rains arrived and began to pummel us til we were sopping within a few seconds. The drive home was terrifying but exhilirating as we couldn´t see out of the windows for the torrential downpour and had to navigate rivers instead of roads. The following morning brought bright sunshine and noone arriving in Rio that day would have guessed that the previous evening the streets had been flooded.