City of God

There are 752 favelas in Rio de Janeiro, precariously perched on the hills above the most expensive and beautiful areas of the city. Some one million people live in these slum areas, many of them known as ´gatos´ or ´cats´ because they don´t pay taxes and steal all their services from the city. The City of God or ´Cidade do Deus´ is just one of these areas, made famous - or infamous - by the eponymous film of 2002. But it´s a side of the city more and more tourists are starting to see.
After much debate about the morality of going on a favela tour, we met our guide, Alfredo, outside the Copacabana Palace Hotel - its five-star luxury seeming incongruous with what we were about to see. But as Alfredo explained, the favela tours help some of the tourist millions reach those who need it most.
You´d think with all the poverty and all the scare stories surrounding Rio, that entering an area of such poverty might be dangerous. But according to Alfredo, no tourist has ever been robbed in a favela. The drug lords make sure that no one causes any trouble for fear it might attract the attention of the police.
After visiting a line of stalls selling jewellery, paintings and bags to tourists, we reached the heart of Rio´s largest favela - Rocinha - which is now a district in its own right. Shops, banks and restaurants lined the streets, which were filled with motorbike taxis waiting to take people from one end of the ´town´ to the other. And people were so friendly. They were proud of where they lived.

After Rocinha, we visited a smaller favela - 2,500 residents compared to around 60,000 - where we were taken to a school set up using money from the favela tours. Kids sat around on computers, using Facebook and playing games, and danced with the teacher outside. There was even a little stall of gifts made by the children and their parents to help raise funds. It was an incredible experience which highlighted all the efforts being made to bring the residents out of poverty.
Surrounding the school, we were taken through a labyrinthine network of tiny streets, with houses almost falling into each other and dangerous-looking electricity cables hanging from every wall where these kids lived. This really was the other side to picture postcard Rio.

Standing on the Sugar Loaf Mountain that night, watching the lights go on across the city, we were back in the postcard. But the favelas were now unmistakable - clinging to the hillsides over Ipanema and Copacabana and spreading out across the bay. The government has spent millions to help the people in favelas, but they will always be there. And Rio would not be the same without them. But that was exactly the point of the tour. It showed how the favelas and their residents contributed to the soul of the city, the spirit of ´Carnival´ and makes it such a big attraction for people from all over the world.