Columbian drug lord Juan Carlos Ramirez Abadia's underwear was the quickest item to sell at yesterday's auction of his belongings. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that the drug baron was arrested last year in São Paulo while he was half naked. Of the 3,000 items for sale, 80% sold in 3 hours. The auction, which welcomed 5,000 attendees, was held one week after Abadia was given a 30-year jail sentence. [BBC]

Thanks to the natural rubber produced by trees in the Amazon, the Brazilian government will manufacture more than 100 million condoms this year in a state-run factory in the northwestern state of Acre. Given the name Natex, these contraceptives will benefit at least 500 families and provide 150 jobs in Xapuri, as well as help fight AIDS. "The Brazilian government has one of the biggest programs in the world to distribute free condoms," a practice often criticized by the Catholic Church. [BBC]

An epidemic of dengue fever, a dangerous disease transmitted through mosquito bites, is sweeping through Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state. Over 55,000 cases are on record, and 67 people have died from the disease so far this year (a bit less than half of those deaths occurred in children under the age of 13). Hospitals are flooded with patients; a local newspaper has reported that "average waits ranged from eight to 28 hours in some places." [CNN]

Bob Dylan played Sao Paolo last Thursday, and midway through his encore a crazy fan jumped up on stage. The overly enthusiastic young woman was "hugging and kissing him and trying to take his Cordoba hat" before she got carried off by security. Bob was clearly confused when the incident occurred, but he reportedly said he "wanted to meet the woman so he could give her his hat" after the show. There's a video after the jump, but be warned, you have to endure two and a half minutes of an awful rendition of "Like a Rolling Stone" before you see the miniskirt-wearing stalker lady. Bob's way too old for this shit.

It was Friday night, the sun was setting, and my father decided that he wanted to celebrate the Sabbath like a good Jew. Sure, some people come to Rio de Janiero for the beaches, the music, the bikini waxes, but not my father. And this action was particularly puzzling as Brazil is neither a country known for its Jewish population, nor is my family terribly religious.

After getting the name of a synagogue from the concierge, he set off with my mother and no command of Portuguese. And after twenty-five minutes of walking, it turned out that no such synagogue existed.

“Well, we tried. Let’s head back,” my mother said.

And just as my father was about to respond, he spotted a Jewish couple. How do you know they were Jewish, you anti-Semite, you ask? Well, let’s just say nothing screams Heeb like payas (those curly sideburns) and an accompanying woman with a long skirt and a stroller full of babies.

“Perfect!” My mother exclaimed. “I bet they know where there’s a synagogue. Go ask them.”

“And how am I supposed to ask them?” my dad said, frustrated.

Frankly, I think there are a lot of ways he could have explained himself. Simulate praying. Draw a Star of David in the air. Show them you’re circumcised. Instead he said, “Let’s just follow them and see where they’re going.”

And that’s when my father started his Jewish reconnaissance mission. And as my mother knew it was fruitless to argue, she went along for the ride. I don’t know if it’s because my father was in the army during Vietnam—albeit it was language school—which made him feel like trailing someone was a good idea, but off they went.

Whenever they feared they would be “discovered” they would jump into the nearest doorway, like some kind of two member A-Team gone horribly wrong. They followed the couple for three miles, past the beach, past the prostitutes, the pick pockets, and the many salsa and meringue clubs that filled the city.

Finally, the Jewish couple entered a building. Only problem was that it was someone’s house. Seems the couple was heading to dinner, and not to hang with God just yet. My parents dejectedly began the trek back to find our hotel.

Luckily, the expedition wasn’t a total loss: my mother found a “Curves” gym, which she belongs to in the states, and it thrilled her to no end. Apparently, it’s just the little capitalist things.

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

Brazil has amazing views and a vibrant music scene, but muggers and prostitutes are just as plentiful. And while that adds a sense of adventure to your trip, there’s something creepy about watching a hooker hit on your father in broad daylight.

One afternoon, my family visited the Museo de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro. (That’s right, I’m cultured. And while the art was fascinating, it seems that artists are a tortured bunch regardless of country of origin.) After, we walked through the financial district of the city, which on a Sunday afternoon was pretty deserted.

We passed a guy that looked to be in his twenties, and sensing that we might be from out of town, he gestured to us for the time. Being that we didn’t have any fanny packs on us, I was sad that it was that obvious. My dad showed him his watch and we continued on our way.

All of a sudden I heard a scream coming from behind me and then a thump. I turned around to see that very same man holding on to my mom’s handbag and pulling for dear life. My mother, tough woman that she is—due to her upbringing on the mean streets of the suburbs—was gripping it just as fiercely.

As soon as I saw what was going on I started screaming at the Brazilian, using every curse word I knew in combinations like “youmothershitfuckingassface!”

And then I thoroughly surprised myself. I walked right up to the guy, who was still engaged in the tug-of-war, said “Don’t touch my mom!” and then slapped him across the face. Granted, there was no force behind my slap (adrenaline works in mysterious ways) and it probably felt more like I was caressing his face, but he got the idea.

And then he did something even more surprising: he ran away.

This entire ridiculous exchange took place in about 10 seconds, but it wasn’t until after the Brazilian escaped that my father actually turned around.

“That’s okay, we can handle it,” my mom said sarcastically.

And it turned out she didn’t even have anything valuable in the bag. “All I had in there was my reading glasses and a book,” she said. “But I really liked that bag.”

Who knew it was so dangerous to come between a woman and her accessories?

- by Emily Epstein of b’scuse me? fame.

This weekend there will simultaneous partying involving parades, masked mischief, beads, babes, and drinking going on all over the nominally catholic world. To get the skinny, take a gander at the latest episode of The Map, where Liza runs down some of the world’s top Carnival spots, and hits up a German “Karneval” party right here in New York. For some extra goodness, take a look at other carnival videos from our archive. Here’s a clip about Rio’s Samba school parade, and a list of the cities most famed for their pre-Lent madness:



– Basel, Switzerland
– Binche, Belgium
– Cologne, Germany
– Mobile, Alabama
– New Orleans, Louisiana
– Patras, Greece
– Port of Spain, Trinidad
– Rijeka, Croatia
– Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
– Sitges, Spain
– Viareggio, Italy
– Venice, Italy

For every cruise ship full of pleasure-seekers tempted to travel by spa treatments, gourmet cuisine, and the occasional shore excursion, there is a tougher sort of tourist in search of a little hardship. Some people go for the controlled experience, forking over $18 for a simulated illegal border-crossing at Parque EcoAlberto in Mexico. Others, as the Christian Science Monitor reported earlier this week, prefer a more authentic kind of cultural exposure. Describing a small but growing trend among Americans and Europeans visiting Rio de Janeiro, Andrew Downie writes: “To many Brazilians, favelas are dirty, violent, frightening places. But to many foreigners, they are exciting, interesting, and romantic. More and more outsiders are coming from overseas to live, work, and just visit favelas, observers say. In doing so they are highlighting the difference between Brazilians who regard favelas with fear, rejection, and even disgust, and foreigners who embrace them as vibrant crucibles of modern Brazilian culture.”

A lot, it seems. “Brazilians like to say that the beach is their country’s ‘most democratic space,’” writes Larry Rohter in a terrific story in the New York Times. “But some bodies — and some beaches — are more equal than others.” Rohter focuses on Ipanema and Copacabana, revealing what groups frequent each of the 12 postos (lifeguard stations) that span Rio’s most elite beaches and how Brazil’s cultural and social trends are often born on the sand. “When, in the early 1970s, for example, the actress Leila Diniz wore a skimpy bikini to Posto 9 while gloriously pregnant and unmarried, traditionalists were horrified,” Rohter writes. “But feminists point to the episode as a galvanizing moment in their efforts to gain equal rights.”

Coordinates: 1 0 S 49 30 W
Area: 15,500 sq. mi. (40,145 sq. km)
Leave it to the start of a new year to remind us that beginnings and endings often have a way of blurring together. Such is also the case with the Amazon and Marajó Island in northeastern Brazil. When it reaches its terminus in the state of Pará, the powerful river that drains approximately two-fifths of South America is carrying a significant amount of sediment it has picked up along a course that stretches more than 4,000 miles. And here at the mouth of that waterway, almost directly on the Equator, is where much of that soil is deposited, forming the largest fluvial island in the world. Shaped by the force of the Amazon’s current and the Atlantic Ocean’s ceaseless tides, Marajó has quite a lengthy history of human habitation for a place that is constantly being remade. Ceramic pottery excavated from mounds scattered across its virginal grasslands, forests and dense swamps date back well over 1,000 years.

-- is the editor of the Oxford Atlas of the World.