Lunch at the Sanatorium

M, in the middle, came from Brasilia for a hip replacement by the surgeon who operated on B, on her right, and she and her husband are staying with B and P, his wife. They, in turn, are both recovering from malaria, picked up not far from Rio, and as M's husband has recently been diagnosed with Parkinsons, they're calling the flat The Sanatorium.  They are all great travellers and very active, so being confined to barracks doesn't come easy.
As M's still not very mobile, we were invited to lunch at B and P's place rather than meeting in a mall across the way. We had a wonderful Thai meal on a veranda looking out over Gavea golf course and the beach and sea beyond, cooled by the breeze and watching the sea birds.  The apartment is beautifully furnished with a colourful mix of old and new and local craftwork, the walls covered with paintings by B's mother.

The area has a strange feel about it, though. The smart high-rises, shopping mall and tree-lined roads are bang next door to Rio's most famous favela, Rocinha, now a mini-city in its own right. Thousands of unfaced brick and concrete buildings, up to ten or more stories high, crowded higgledy-piggledy on insalubrious alleys, stretching way up and over the hill - the hill HH used to drive over to get to the golf course when he first came down, before the tunnel was built and when the favela was a tenth of the size. The shacks then were still mostly a hodge-podge of odd planks, corrugated sheets and even cardboard. Later, I drove over in our jeep a few times too, till HH said he'd rather I didn't. None of the smart high rises had been built back then, there was just one hotel, and big houses on the other slopes behind the golf course. The contrast between riches and poverty wasn't so glaring then, but now it really hits you in the eye.