With a local guide, I took a tour of the neighborhood Santa Marta, a densely populated, narrow strip of houses that crawl up a hillside in Rio de Janeiro, rising above the upper middle class neighborhood of Botafogo. This is one of Rio’s many favelas, in a city where class differences and economic inequality are in plain sight, and make for a tense atmosphere throughout the city. Santa Marta has been slowly integrated into the city’s infrastructure, facilitated by the construction of a funicular line that made getting to the upper levels of the neighborhood much easier.  I recommend this for any visitor to Rio interested in learning about the city beyond the beaches and tourist sites, go with a local guide, and preferably in a small group. The tours typically start near the bottom of the funicular and start with the ride up to the top, slowly winding back…