january-2012

the gay section near Posto 8, and next to Copacabana Beach,
you fi nd Posto 7, the surfi ng area. “Posto 10 is probably the most
laid back area,” Tião laughs. “Th is is the lazy section.”
Down on the sand, four quick-fi re volleyball games are
underway, and a group of men are playing beach football. Th e
cycle track behind me is thick with cyclists, skaters,
skateboarders, joggers and speed-walkers. Tião smiles as he
reads my thoughts. “Well, they do say that Ipanema’s the
healthiest beach in the world...” he says.
From sunrise to sunset, Ipanema is a permanent procession
of sporty-looking bodies. At times, the promenade here could
almost be a conveyor belt out of some utopian factory dedicated
to the creation of the perfect body.
Apart from people-watching, one of the most spectacular
sports on Ipanema is futevolei (or foot-volley). It was created as a
reaction to a law against soccer on the beach in the early 1960s;
the players would use the ‘camoufl age’ of a volleyball court to
avoid the police.
Players compete in pairs, and the ball is kept in play using
any part of the body apart from the hands and arms. On
Ipanema, you can see both men and women exhibiting a level of
skill that is rarely seen even across town in Rio’s historic
Maracanã stadium.
Of course, there are many who prefer simply to relax. Th ey
rent parasols and buy provisions from barraqueiros, the (oft en
elderly) ‘beach-boys’ who sell traditional Globo biscuits and
refreshing maté tea. Men dressed in Arabic costumes shuffl e
through the sand selling little triangles of meat-stuff ed esfi ha,
similar to somosas. Fift y-three year old Januário sells other
triangles: “Bikinis of all sizes,” he says, “right from minimangoes
up to triple-handful.”
His friend Antonio has spent half his life patrolling Ipanema’s
iconic black-and-white pavements selling his cangas (sarongs).
“So many people come here running and cycling…” he says,
“but I have probably covered more miles of Ipanema than
anyone alive.”
Th ere is very little that happens on the beach that Antonio
and Januário don’t know about. Th e waitresses in the beachside
kiosks, serving caipirinha cocktails round-the-clock, call them
the unoffi cial mayors of Ipanema.
This picture-perfect patch is only eight blocks long, and is
bordered on three sides by water: the sea, the lake and the
adjoining river. On the fourth are the rocks that separate it from
Copacabana. Ipanema might be part of a city that is seven
million strong, but it’s also one of the most privileged villages in
the world.
52 Holland Herald