Samba City

Samba CityWe can never write about Rio de Janeiro without tapping our feet, jiggling at our desks, samba-swaying around the office. Tam tam-tam . . . tam tam-tam. There in three words is Rio—a pulsing samba city with a hooded look and the screaming colors of a parrot.We always try to fly in from Lima, Peru, straight up and over the craggy Andes (it's like flying over the moon, cold and dead), then across the tangled green jungle that hides some of the world's most primitive people. The natives s...