One thing I know for sure about myself is that I don't love to exercise. I like to think of exercise as that person who you're required for whatever reason to see once or twice a year, but who grates on every last nerve so that while you're with them, you're counting down until you're done with this visit and once the visit is over, you're already dreading the next one even though it might not happen for another 6 months or a year.
After 12 days here, I felt compelled to join these people in some sort of forward motion. And we have this humongous lake right out the front door with a great walking/biking/running path all the way around it. I see people out exercising around it nonstop so today, now that the rain and dreariness finally went away and the sun came back out, I decided to go for a walk.
To be fair to me, I've been a teensy bit intimidated about going for a walk around the lake by myself because a cardiologist was stabbed around 7pm while riding his bike around the lake a few weeks before we got here. The bike was stolen, and the doctor was left in the bushes and later died. A 16 year-old has been arrested for the murder. Jimmy has run the lake several times on weekend mornings and said he felt very comfortable - there was lots of people out the whole way around. It's less crowded on a weekday morning but I could see people out and about this morning so I knew someone would always be close enough to witness if anything bad happened. The only "valuables" I had on me were my $20 Timex watch and my nice sunglasses, but anybody can have either of those things just for the asking. I didn't take my iPhone and missed at least a hundred photos that I wish I could share with you.
The other thing about this lake is that it's the one you may have seen in the news recently. It's going to be the sight of Olympic rowing and flatwater canoeing/kayaking. Back in April, they pulled something like 40 tons of dead fish from the lake. I don't know what they've done to keep the fish alive now (or maybe there are no other living fish in the lake left), but I didn't smell anything bad (and I have a most sensitive nose) nor did I see anything dead. There are always people out rowing or stand-up paddleboarding or waterskiing out there, but everyone we talk to say the water is definitely not clean.
Despite being terrified of falling into the dirty water on the few places where the path was right next to the lake, the walk was wonderful. First of all, I learned that the parking lot across the street from our building that you must cross to get to the walking path is used by driving schools. So there's a lot of lurching and braking going on in there and you should give wide berth. I saw tens of vendors of water, Gatorade and aguas de coco (fresh coconuts where they lop off the top, stick a straw in and you drink the coconut water). I saw the Flamengo Club's rowing center and the Jockey Club. I saw adorable little cafes that I'd love to go back to. Once I turned a corner, I had magnificent views for a long time of the Christ statue up on the mountain. There were lots of playgrounds and bike rental stands everywhere.
The path around the lake is 4.8 miles long. I wasn't sure when I went out if I would walk the whole way around or go out for a bit and turn back. The path is marked every 100 meters so you can have some idea of where you are (as long as you know what marker you started at). Thankfully, I noticed the markers early on so I knew at which point it wasn't worth turning back. And even more thankfully, I knew my starting point because at some point, I lost all sight of our apartment. I could not see the mountain behind it, I could not see the mountain beside it (with the concrete pillars), I could not see the swan boats that are rented only in front of our building. There was a moment of panic until I realized that a) if I kept walking, eventually, I would see the swan boats and b) I'd get back to the 6.3 km marker which is the first one I noticed.
So I walked. And walked some more. I was a bit like Forrest Gump and I just kept walking. Finally I made it back to the swan boats, but even if I hadn't seen them, the fire trucks were back in front of our building and surely I would not have missed those!
I feel like I accomplished something this morning that made me feel a little bit more like a Carioca!
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