SolaceSoul

The original quote was something like “God loves children, fools and drunkards”, and of course, some idiotic self-absorbed nationalistic Westerner had to change it to “drunks and the USA”.

“The Good Lord watches over children, fools and drunkards.” And he was two of these, behaving like the third! https://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/miscellaneous/australian-tourist-spends-night-in-dangerous-favela-drinks-with-criminals-and-learns-to-use-guns/ Australian Tourist Spends Night Unharmed in Dangerous Favela, Drinking With Armed Criminals (Here is the original O GLOBO / Extra article, translated from its original Portuguese in Google Translate.) “Unaware of the risks, an Australian tourist said he spent the early hours of last Friday drinking beer alongside armed men from Complexo do Alemão, in Rio's North Zone, as GLOBO columnist Ancelmo Gois anticipated. Hugo Stanley-Cary, 34, decided to visit the slum complex after leaving Lapa, a bohemian neighborhood in the central part of the city, where he had already drunk. The foreigner, who was mistaken for a police officer upon arrival, managed to convince the criminals that he was not wearing a disguise. He spent the night drinking in the community. The set of slums has recorded 242 firearm shots this year, according to the Crossfire platform. "After the misunderstanding, they were nice to me." We drank some beers, showed me how to use weapons, shared songs, stories, and fighting techniques. At 9:00 they took me to the exit, but I didn't want to leave, ”Cary said. Stanley-Cary works at a homebuilder in Australia. He said he spent a month in Nicaragua and has been in Brazil for three weeks, between Sao Paulo, Foz do Iguaçu and Rio de Janeiro. At EXTRA, the tourist said he was in Lapa at dawn last Friday, around 3 am, when he asked an application driver to take him to the "most dangerous slum of all". He admitted that he had already drunk. So it ended up in the Complexo do Alemão. Without fear, the tourist remained in Alemão and walked the alleys. He was found drunk and was taken to the hostel where he was staying by residents of Complexo do Alemão. Hugo Stanley-Cary only left the slum at dusk. The journalist Rene Silva, from Voz das Communities, was called to help in communication between residents and foreign tourists. "He said he was in Brazil on vacation, and I said he had to go, because that area was dangerous." There were about 20 residents around him, protecting him from being stolen, ”he said. Rio's municipal secretary of tourism, Paulo Jobim, just said that the case proves that the reception of the carioca is one of the greatest assets of the city: - This record shows one of the greatest assets of this city: the carioca way of being! To recover the tourist potential of our city, we have to mobilize the cariocas to receive the tourists with love, in this way. Sought, the Rio Civil Police informed the report that does not have a tourist information booklet and would not comment on the case, because there was no record of occurrence on the episode.”

When I see that you have made a post where you have vigorously pushed back on the oft-repeated physical stereotypes of black and brown men in Latin America / South America having much bigger dicks, and being more sexually virile and passionate than others, then I will listen to a word you spew about needless physical characterizations and harmful stereotypes.

I wouldn’t necessarily describe @badboy‘s Rio-to-Thailand comparison as “unfavorable” — just that he meant that Thailand is known for twinks (and ladyboys) much more than masculine, muscular and / or tradey hustlers. Of course, that could just be a stereotype.

Sad, lonely old man lashing out and projecting. I’m very sorry that you have no real friends, online or off, but I’m not to blame. Check your internal wiring.

Yep. Intelligence is like having a big dick, or like being a lady. Or, like what Margaret Thatcher famously said about power: “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.” Sure, you’re smart, Fredo! You’re really smart! And you want RESPECK!

Not a bad idea. Probably my next step.

Wow. I say this with all seriousness. Seek help.

I remember a few years ago when The Waldorf Astoria and other swanky five-star hotels in New York City had a bed bug infestation problem. https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/bedbugs-reported-nyc-swankiest-hotels-article-1.2524895?outputType=amp

Like I said in a previous thread, I may understand the viewing audience a little better than you. Very few here are interested in analyzing, dissecting and digesting the results of a peer-reviewed research dissertation from the Journal of Probability and Statistics. Tone down the pseudo-intellectual rhetoric a bit. You’re blinding us with science, Ms. Sakomoto!

I have to use my decoder ring, but you’re basically saying here (in your own purposefully muddled and pretentious way) the very same thing that the travel blogger that @badboy posted said here, but in simple English: https://www.fluentin3months.com/theft/ Most, but not all, incidents of travelers’ crime and crimes of opportunity could be prevented by the targeted victims with some extra planning, precaution and awareness on the targeted victim’s part. Almost every one of these crimes can be traced back to victim error. They ain’t called “crimes of opportunity” for nothin’!

I just finished reading this article. He offers some excellent insight and advice on how to avoid being a victim of travelers’ crimes, or just crimes of opportunity in general. I agree with much of what he says — especially where he notes that almost every incident of travelers’ crime can be traced back to mistakes or errors that the victim or target made or could have prevented with some extra planning, precaution or awareness. Thanks for posting, @badboy! Here are some of the truisms he noted in the article that are absolutely correct — but are sure to piss off some of the posters here, because they hit too close to home:

Broken ribs or black eye > hurt feelings.

As the saying goes: “play stupid games, win stupid prizes.”

We may or may not be referring to the same garoto robbery. The one I’m referring to occurred in May, and was on Candido Mendes. This garoto is particularly flashy and I believe he does have a motorcycle, so he probably was on his way to the bike when it occurred. Either way, you reveal that at least 3 garoto robberies occurred upon leaving 117 this year — and thanks for this info. And yes, this very well could and probably does happen at 202 (which practically sits at the bottom of a favela), and the other saunas. Yes, quite a few area locals know that cash money is flowing in and out of the saunas. I will add that although, yes, there are plenty of things one can do to reduce his or her risk of being a target for or a victim of crime —- the percentage of risk will never be zero, and sometimes shit just happens. And face it, some people just have bigger targets on their backs in certain areas. An older white man shaped like the Pillsbury Doughboy dressed in an Izod shirt and plaid shorts with Ray-Ban shades and a backback in Copacabana is going to be a much bigger, much easier target than a youthful looking brown-skinned black man built like a running back, even if that black man has a decent watch and a smartphone! Conversely, in the American South or Midwest, that very same black man would most likely be stopped by the police or reported by a suspicious white resident as a crime suspect, and his life and liberty could be in danger.

You are right. No one questioned that the incident happened to sydneyboy. No one here even said that he did something to invite it or deserve it. My chief complaints are (1) his constant referral to an incident that occurred fourteen years ago is no longer timely and not very relevant to today, and (2) he says or does nothing to instruct others on how to prevent what happened to him happening to others in the future (and when others point out to him how the incident possibly could have been averted, he gets salty).

This advice may be better suited for those of you who prefer twinks or barely legal guys who prefer older daddies or bears — but it doesn’t seem appropriate for those of us who actually like our men to look like men, or who are interested in garotos de programa and don’t at all mind paying for a good time.

I’m going to read this article in its entirety, but I did want to add a slight correction about flip-flops. Brasileiros and brasileiras LOVE their Havaianas.

“VENOM”? YOU are the one STILL posting about one crime incident that happened to you in Copacabana FOURTEEN YEARS AGO — as if you hold some grudge against the entire city for something that happened when many of the current garotos at saunas were only 7 or 8 years old. In 2014, my and my 3 friend’s ATM cards were cloned at a bank machine in Copacabana and $2300 was stolen from my account in one morning. That was 5 years ago, I’m over it. Actually, I was already over it the next month. You’re not warning posters of dangers in current dangers or instructing them how to remain safer in Rio. Nothing you’ve posted does either of those. You’re digging up your one crime story from the George W. Bush administration era in an attempt to tar and feather a city (and possibly country) for allowing it to happen to you. I have said in another post where you discussed this incident outside The Copacabana Palace, that you basically make yourself a huge target by walking around The Palace looking like a wife-eyed gringo tourist — that area is PRIME for tourist muggings! So, if you insist on telling your 14-yet old mugging story ad nauseum, the best advice you could add at the end is: “don’t stay there, don’t look like me, and don’t do what I did”! NOT, “blame it on Rio”! And again, you got mugged on your first trip to Rio, and you still returned 8 more times since. You even Saigon this thread you’re planning yet another trip. THAT is the takeaway — that the draw of Rio (Brazil) usually wins over any of the more and less obvious risks and dangers (real or perceived).

“Back in the good old days, we didn’t listen to that hippity hoppity and that rockity roll! You whippersnapper kids stay off my lawn!”

Possibly, but none of this explains how the exact same crime with exact same circumstances, at the same location at the same time of day, the exact same items taken, the same kind of perpetrators, same witnesses, and the same taxi called to take him to the same hospital not nearby, happened to the same poster twice —- once on September 30 and the other in February of the next year. Because in his own words, this is what ihpguy said happened in his own posts. He has even doubled down on it, in righteous indignation. Anyone can read the two posts and see that. Can you explain away such odd, exact coincidences?

On October 4 of last year, @ihpguy DEFINITELY said this same story with the exact same set of facts happened to him on Sunday, September 30, 2018. So the exact same crime at the same location with the very same circumstances, perpetrator and witnesses occurred to him on September 30, 2018 AND in February 2019 (as well as two other muggings in February)? I hate to agree with you, @Riobard, but that’s just an unbelievable coincidence.

Yes, it was 117. He was robbed leaving the sauna on a Saturday night. It was on Rua Candida Mendes, this past May. I don’t know how much clearer I need to be.

Agreed, but this also applies to all of the big cities in Brazil — Rio, São Paulo, Salvador, Recife, etc.

I don’t see anyone apologizing for crime in Rio or Brazil at large or discounting your experiences. Crime — both petty and violent — is rampant in Brazil. It is not so great in good economic times, and the economy there now is in the toilet. Poorer young men are more desperate than usual, and the police force and public hospital staffs were practically cut in half a few years ago to save money. Bolsonaro is (surprise!) proving to be a mouthy, feckless idiot (just like his idol north of the Equator), so expect whatever he does to make things even worse. Muggings have bled (no pun intended) onto the boardwalks of Ipanema and Leblon. These were the very same warnings given to me when I was last there for 3 months living off Farme this past winter / their summer. And although crime can hit anyone, clearly those who physically look like they might have something to give up more easily (whether it’s the flashy muscular garoto just leaving a productive night of the sauna in Gloria, or it’s the very gringo-ey looking middle-aged man fluent in Portuguese who’s walking along the beaches of Ipanema / Leblon) are going to be at higher risk than others. Hell, I don’t even look anything like that at all, I “blend in” very well there, and even I am not naive or foolish enough to think that I couldn’t be a victim of a crime of opportunity at any time in Brazil. Safety should ALWAYS be a major consideration in Rio, São Paulo, Salvador, Recife and all points in between. Brazil is NOT Singapore! When garotos (working sauna guys) tell you that they don’t feel safe from crime, then there should be no reason to believe that you would be any safer. It’s easy to get lulled into the beauty and landscape of the city and the entire country of Brazil. So, @ihpguy, you were mugged three times in one month! Even that is highly unusual. Do you plan on leaving Brazil?