Click here for our free newsletter. This most beau-tiful of cities has wonderful beaches like Copacabana and Ipanema, mountain views and tropical forests, posh restaurants and glitzy nightclubs. But the newest hit with tourists is visiting the slums, called favelas . Perched precariously along the mountainsides that dot the metropolis, these veritable cities within the city dominate the landscape. The largest of these favelas , Rocinha, with an estimated population exceeding 100,000, has just inaugurated a Tourist Reception Center where visitors can buy local crafts, find a map listing approved shops and snack bars, and hire local guides.
Visitors are enthusiastic.
The other half. Tourists are taken in jeeps or vans up the steep, narrow lanes that twist and turn up the mountain- side, past makeshift dwellings piled one atop another, ignoring most accepted engineering or architectural design. The streets are crowded and lively. People stand around a television placed on a box on the sidewalk to watch favorite teams in a soccer championship. Nowadays around 2,000 foreigners a month visit Rocinha.