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Best view in Rio? Pushing limits of slum tourism
Mon Mar 16, 2009 9:26pm EDT
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By Stuart Grudgings
RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Rolf Glaser zips his motorbike up the twisting alleyways of Vidigal slum, past a bunch of cheerful, gun-packing drug traffickers, and emerges at a cliffside plateau next to some demolished shacks.
A scrawny dog barks angrily from a nearby rooftop.
This, the German developer says with a straight face, could be Rio de Janeiro's next tourist hotspot.
"Can you imagine sitting up here on a terrace with a glass of wine?" he muses, motioning toward the sparkling azure Atlantic Ocean that filled the view on a boiling summer day.
"Do you think you would miss anything?"
Many Brazilians, Glaser admits, think he is missing something by planning to turn one of the hundreds of Rio slums -- whose names are synonymous with violence, drug-dealing and poverty -- into a trendy new spot on the city's tourist map.
Slum residents, many of whom clean the streets and tidy the homes of the rich, are often criminalized in people's minds purely by association with the "favelas," which are often controlled by drug gangs armed to the teeth.
But blond-haired, blue-eyed Glaser is one of a small, bold band of foreigners going where most Rio residents fear to tread, catering to tourists who want to see the "real" Rio beyond the sleazy Copacabana beach district and trips to the Christ the Redeemer statue.
The 52-year-old entrepreneur, who made his money in currency trading, plans to build around 10 well-appointed villas on top of Vidigal where tourists will be able to taste luxury and the gritty life of the slum at the same time.
And then there is the view.
In a city renowned for the jaw-dropping beauty of its beaches and forested mountains, Vidigal, perched high at the end of a swanky beach area, has a panoramic vista that would make real estate agents' eyes water.
That is already sparking worries that his investment, which he puts at around $500,000, may spark property speculation that could force residents to sell up and move to other slums.
BRAZILIAN FEAR, FOREIGN FASCINATION
Still, favelas remain largely off limits for Brazilian buyers, leaving the way clear for foreigners who have increasingly found them fascinating and chic.
"The city doesn't accept the favela -- there's enormous separation, forgetting and ignoring of favelas," said Dulce Pandolfi, a historian at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, who voiced concern that Glaser could spark "false illusions" for Vidigal residents. Continued...
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