Trevor's South America Trip: The Pilgrimage

Day 59 - 27 de Julho: Rio de Janeiro

Today was finally the day. The day when every pilgrim of world youth day would gather together for an entire night under the stars. I woke up and hurried to pack all my things for the night, while still trying to make the meeting time of 7am with the group. Luckily, our meeting point was right outside my house - the Glaucio Gil station. With my sleeping bag, towels, toiletries among other things, my bag was decently heavy, but i figured that i'd manage. However, upon meeting the group at the station, they shared some news with Robbie and I that we wish we had heard earlier. Apparently, officials were suggesting that pilgrims not stay overnight for this world youth day. As Copacabana beach was a backup location (since the original location was flooded), they were saying that they may not have the facilities for everyone. So last night, the call was made to not stay over. Now, I was carrying this heavy bag for no reason, but the group let me run back to the house to drop it off and grab my small day bag. We were still waiting for a couple more people after all. I put on my small bag and my canada flag cape and ran back to the station - my flag made me really look like a superhero. Finally, it was time for to make it to our first location; a park to pick up our boxes of food for the night. Robbie knew of a different bus from Alvorada that he wanted to try, so we jumped on the 333 which took us through a mountain route, eventually stopping at a metro station that would get us there. Onwards to our usual metro station, Cinêlandia! Little did we know that it was closed - we instead got off at the next stop; Gloria. It was almost the same distance from the site, so no harm done. Now, however, it was time for our patience to be tested. The line was absolutely massive. Somehow, the planning committee figured that having only one food pickup station in the whole city for the millions of people would be a good idea. Being nice, rule-abiding canadians, we went to the very back of this line. You could not see the end of it, but we hoped that it wouldn't be too long. 3 hours was the final wait for our food. People were obviously budging into the front of the line. Our leader, Delia had noticed this and told the volunteers to do something about it. The volunteers then linked arms, creating a pathway to the food, only for the people in line. Unfortunately, after the fact, we realized that we waited 3 hours for the same cheap snacks we had gotten in our breakfast boxes the whole week. Some people were more disappointed than others, but I was just glad we had so much food. Next, we decided to go to Vivo Rio to perhaps see if they were letting pilgrims stay the night there (and also use their washrooms). Unfortunately, they were closed and all the close by washrooms had mile-long lines. All we could do then was start our walk to the beach. Just like in Madrid, this was an incredible part of the experience. Walking our pilgrimage walk with everyone else from all over the world. People were cheering us on from the overpasses like we were running a marathon. There was even a point when we were walking, where the Christ the Redeemer statue was in full view. 7km later, we made it to the Copacabana area. I led our tired group away from the crowds, towards the meeting point that we were going to meet our priest, who went to a special mass this morning. We were worried though; with all the delays we were several hours late to meet him. Our group had this thing going that when someone wanted to stop, we would yell stop but it wouldn't work since everyone says stop. So we made a call that was more distinguishable by our group... and much more canadian. Whoever wanted to stop would yell out "beaver beaver" and everyone else would acknowledge the call by yelling out moose. As we got later and later to our meeting point, I was thinking the beaver population in this area was getting a bit out of hand. We finally showed up on the corner of Atlantica and Bolivar. It wasn't a surprise that our priest wasn't there. We waited a good while, but the 3 hour delay at the food station was too much. At this point, we sent a few scouts to find room on the beach for us. Yes, at this point, the plan was reversed and we were now staying at the beach overnight. And just like in Madrid, I was going to do this with no sleeping items whatsoever. Our scouts returned victoriously; a generous group from brazil had given us some of their beach space to set up camp. This event is always very territorial (groups set up camps and guard them with their lives), so it was a real surprise to see this. As this was a beach, pilgrims took advantage and made sand walls around their land. This turned the beach into a new world of sorts, with different countries occupying different plots of land. They would even stick their flags into the ground to claim their land. We had brazilian and peruvian allies on our borders. People kept walking through our stuff though (probably to get to their plots of land). Our group was getting annoyed by these people, kicking sand over all our stuff, so I was about ready to tell them they were stepping foot on canadian soil and needed to produce a passport. 3 of our group members opted to return home tonight to get a good sleep. But the majority of our group was together. Not knowing how tired i'd be tomorrow, i thanked the group for the time we shared together. This group has become very special to me, and I know i've made some friends for life. The part of the vigil that i was awake for was nice, but i (and a few others) were getting tired now, so one by one, we passed out on the beach. I used my canada flag as a blanket and was offered another blanket by one of my group. The night was cold, but I managed. We were all in this together, fighting through the challenges, while admiring the immense beauty that surrounded us.