Rio Police Officers to Visitors: 'Welcome to Hell' | Hacker News Reader

Rio Police Officers to Visitors: 'Welcome to Hell'

deadspin.com

16 pointsmdu967 comments

Things seems to be getting worse in Rio. I hope in the long run the olympics are a net positive.

Seems like they have a plan for security.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/10/magazine/does-hosting-the-...

> "(During the Games) the army, the navy, everyone is going to be here," Paes said. "Fortunately the state will not be responsible for security during that period."

Has there been a recent example of the olympics being a net positive in the long run? Russia and London were total disaster economically. I don't know about the other ones. Maybe Beijing.

I had no idea London was an economic disaster. Any links?

I know the final cost ended up being several billion over the planned budget. Now, maybe they made up the difference in terms of tourism and stuff like that.

As a Brazilian living abroad, I always tell people to not waste their money traveling to Brazil.

Bah, there are plenty of good reasons to visit Brazil! The beaches of Nordeste are beautiful (especially Pipa, my favorite, and Fernando de Noronha), the natural beauty of the Pantanal is unique & unmatched, Iguaçu is amazing, and if you're brave and willing to venture into the Amazon, surely the experience will be once in a lifetime. Brazil is a beautiful country with warm and inviting people. The only problem is the government. Most savvy tourists will be fine anywhere. Idiot tourists are at some risk in big cities. Most everyone is safe in rural areas and resort cities.

That said, I'd skip Rio, SP & Brasilia as vacation destinations unless you have truly compelling reasons to want/need to visit.

My mother (southern Brazilian of German descent - white, blonde, blue eyes) recently went to Natal, RN, and was harassed a lot by the locals (with sexist slurs and aggressive approaches) because they though she was from abroad and couldn't understand them. Cops constantly recommended her and her friend (same looks) to leave the areas were they were (they were going after historic sites, buildings, churches, etc.) and to stay only withing the proximity of beaches, were it was safer.

Another problem with the Brazilian tourism industry is the amateurish way everything is conducted. Guides don't have good knowledge of English, don't carry insurance (e.g. when taking people on boats), and their equipment (e.g. life vests) is often outdated and in bad need for maintenance. A lot of nature tours are much riskier than most people realize, and if something goes wrong, there's not exactly a good plan in place to take them to safety/medical help.

Safety is a concern everywhere. There is no large Brazilian city, except perhaps Florianopolis and Sao Paulo (surprisingly), where the murder rate is not sky high. Contrary to America, where areas with high murder rates tend to have such rates due to gang-related crime isolated in bad neighborhoods, violent crime is widespread in Brazil and people aren't safe anywhere except maybe in very touristy areas like beach fronts.

Brazil has some extremely beautiful places to visit, but I don't think going there is worth the risk. America has equally or even more beautiful places and the people in charge have much better training (e.g. National Parks and their Park Rangers).

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