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Published: July 12th 2011
The First Evening I landed bumpily into on Rio Monday 6 June 2011. It took about 10 minutes longer than I thought it would, on the scale that may not seem like much, But, at the speed that a plane travels at, consider it a reflection upon just how massive this mountainous, forested beach city is.
After much faffing about and confusion over which floor of the airport I was on, I found myself on the bus to Praia Ipanema. Whilst almost everyone has heard of Praia Copacabana, as with the case of Bondi Beach in Sydney, it is not the best beach in the city. Ipanema is to Rio, as Manley is to Sydney.
On arrival at the Che Largarto hostel here, I was promptly screwed over on the price and paid far too much (apparently a 20%!d(MISSING)iscount for loyalty is completely inadequate when compared to booking online, cheers you asses), fortunately at the counter, I did get to meet Fleur briefly, who had also just arrived.
I unpacked a little, met three young English girls who had just arrived in Rio from the UK on their first trip and were attempting to sleep all
day as a result of jet lag - a rookie mistake. Don't do it if you ever travel, force yourself awake until a sensible time. All of the girls were really nice and clearly interesting having chosen South America for their first backpacking trip as opposed to Thailand or Australia like everyone else.
I left the girls to sleep and ventured back downstairs with the intention of walking to Botafogo and checking out a hostel that Memo (my Costa Rican friend I made in Salvador) had recommended to me and to check out the beach fronts on the way. My evening improved significantly when I bumped into Fleur and she agreed to come with me.
I liked Fleur´s company, I am generally biased favorably towards the Dutch, but she seemed especially nice and genuine. I discovered that she lives in London and works as an English teacher - this explained why her English accent is better than mine. We followed the Ipanema beach front and also walked the length of Copacabana as the sun set behind one of the many mountains, leaving an increasing shadow on the rather awesome looking Sugarloaf Mountain.
En-route, we walked past a
number of small outdoor gyms. Each populated by a large number of buff and ridiculously greased up locals. We also observed the large number of people either jogging or cycling along the waterfront. This exercise clearly signifies hard work and exertion and perhaps is perhaps evidence of the increasingly good economic position Brazil is finding itself in. I also like to think that perhaps one or two of the people we saw were exercising in advance of the 2014 Football World Cup or 2016 Olympics. In Rio, as opposed to Salvador, I reached a quick conclusion that Brazil is indeed on the up.
Speaking of 'on the up', throughout the beach fronts, every building was a tall block building. Compared to any city in the UK, Rio is much much taller. There was a slightly odd lack of ´colonial buildings´.
We were walking and talking so casually that it took us a little while to realise that we had reached a dead end at the end of the the Copacabana. When we did realise, we realised pulling out the map might be a good idea and we decided to head in the correct direction to Botafogo and into
the city itself. Whilst entering the maze of buildings, we spotted the chairlift that travels up the Loaf and whilst doing this we realised that we were about to have to head up a road that vaguely resembled a mountain and so being lazy, we decided to head to the nearest Metro station.
Fleur had been working in Ecuador previously and with her Spanish we managed to get some tickets sorted easily enough. Brazilian's speak Portuguese, whereas the rest of South America generally speak Spanish, with regard to these to languages being 'basically the same' as a lot of people say, I would like to point out that they are wrong. Portuguese and Spanish are very different languages, abeit with some simarlarities. For starters, Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation is ridiculous. E.g. Rio in Spanish is Rrrio, in Portuguese it is Hhhio. Confusing. Also, 'oi' in Portuguese is 'hello', very different to it's use in Spanish, where it is 'today'. Different no?
Anyway, the metro, as with basically any I have been on around the world, was far more pleasant than its London counterpart and we moved quickly along this clean and inexpensive, air conditioned underworld, before hopping out of
one of the many exits to disappointing confusion.
Now in Botafogo, we simply had to walk around 200m to the hostel we wanted to check out (Fleur agreed Che Lagarto was vastly overpriced). I had the hostel address, but somehow I had managed to lose our map and so we wandered around a tad confused and attempted to work out what I could have done with it. To compound our confusion, no matter how many people we attempted to ask, in English or Spanish, no-one knew where the hostel was, nor the road that it was on. We pondered the possiblity that perhaps the locals have a pathetically limited knowledge of their own area. This later proved to be unfair. The one thing we did know about the hostel, was this fact that it was supposedly 200m from a metro exit, although there was several of these, which led us to wander up and down numerous streets with little useful effect. Eventually we agreed that I was an idiot and jumped in the Metro back to Copacabana.
Once we left the Metro, at the West end of Copacabana we walked West, back to the West of Ipanama where
we were staying, trying to spot somewhere good to eat as we went, West. Some streets were well lit, whilst some were very dark - either way I felt far safer than anywhere that I had been in Salvador. To defend Salvador in this comparison somewhat, Ipanama is a wealthy area, Copacabana slightly less so.
We didn't have success finding somewhere decent looking to eat and so when we got back to the hostel and realised that there was a pub next door, we walked in hungrily. Shortly after picking up a menu each, it dawned on us that we had somehow ended up in a fairly weak British pub of all places. Sadly there was no cider, even worse, they sold Budweiser. We ate good burgers and sat upstairs on the balcony talking over various subjects, such as the hostel failure. At this point I decided to check my guidebook again for the hostel. Scouting the pages for the hostel I found to my horror, that there was two hostels with the same name. I had the address for one that was located in a different suburb. Such a tit. I think Fleur would be happy to agree.
We had a couple of Caprihinas, before calling it a night.
We met the next morning at breakfast and after discussing what the liquid the hostel alleged was juice, we left for the Sugarloaf. On the way we checked out the hostel in Bogofoto, which was definitely more my kind of hostel, although the location wasn't great. Fleur didn't seem hugely impressed and decided she would stay in Che Lagarto as she was only there for a few nights. I was happy to stay in Che Lagarto if she was as well. Walking from Bogofoto to the the Loaf involved a few suicidal road crossings, some interesting graffiti and numerous views between blocks of the Christ the Redeemer statue standing guard over the city.
Sugarloaf Mountain Rio de Janeiro translate as 'River of January'. It is true that the city was founded in January but the Portuguese were a bit off with the river part. Rio is not on a river and what they mistook for one turned out to be a large bay. Still Bay of January doesn't have the same ring to it.
Sugarloaf sticks out into the bay and is the second
of two large rocks which are linked together from ground level by a chair lift. To save money and in hope of a mini adventure and some exercise, we decided to walk to the top of the first rock and from there take the chairlift to the top. Shortly after starting up the path Fleur spotted some Sagui monkeys. She happened to be carrying some oranges with her and fed these cute animals, allowing us and numerous other people some great photo opportunities.
We spotted a crude path through a wooded area and decided to head up that way instead of following the path. We reached a T-Junction after a bit of a climb and breathed in a whiff of pot. The creators of which told us to turn left. We did and eventually made it to the top, a tad sweatily, and took the slightly rickety chairlift (ran by American Military oddly) across the gap to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain.
At the top we first admired a Dutch shop, Amsterdam Sauer, for its completely random presence before admiring the stunningly beautiful views across the Copacabana, Ipanema and Botafogo districts as well as many more, all overlooked
by that big statue of Jesus. During this time we got annoyed with some ignorant American tourists who were blocking the view with their ample frames and demanding everyone got out of their way whilst they took far too many photos of themselves (presumably blocking the view, along with the sun). After some of our own photos we celebrated the day with a cold Heineken, yup Dutch beer, before heading back down and winding down for the evening.
The Lonely Planet Walking Tour I met Fleur for breakfast again. The previous night a young Ecuadorian doctor, Valeria, had moved into Fleur's room and joined us. After various respective disappointments with weather in places where we had been travelling previously, we decided we some beach time and we headed for Ipanema beach. The morning sun was blazing brightly and we walked across the sand happily. Sadly, we hadn't anticipate the wind. The wind wasn't heavy enough to chill, but it was most definitely enough to pick up sand and throw it at us whilst lying down. We attempted to compensate by sheltering next to a sand bank. This was as dumb a move as one I made two
days ago in Uluni, Bolivia, regarding buses and snow storms. Opposite environments, the same dumbittude. That is a story for later though.
We left the beach around midday, got tidied up and headed to the Centro district to do LP's walking tour. For those who don't know, the LP walking tours are in the country specific books and are meant to guide the reader around numerous interesting sites, usually in a city centre. I believe I previously wrote about mine and Gareth's complete and utter failure at following the one in Kathmandu. The sites were interesting in that case, but the navigation was feeble and Kathmandu's arbitrarily lay out proved to be a cruel mistress.
We started out by walking to the Theatre, somewhere in this blog entry should be a photo. I regard this as one of those photos that a person takes, but will never look at again, and will probably forget what it was. Photos of colonial buildings and cathedrals generally seem to fall into this category as well.
Following looking at a theatre from the outside, we saw an art museum from the outside and then a small gathering of people selling LP's.
It was dull. The girls had some enthusiasm for it still however. We wandered further to an expensive, ornate and beautiful tea-house which we didn't purchase anything in and later a market that wasn't open. On reaching the closed market Fleur had had enough and we bailed in the direction of Santa Teresa and Lapa. On they way we began to walk past a monsterous concrete building, almost like a pyramid with hundreds, if not thousands of windows. I remembered seeing Memo's photos and realised that this was the modern cathedral. Fortunately this monstrous structure is far nicer to look at on the inside. Each of the four sides have a massive column of stain glassed windows letting in fantastic coloured light. It's definitely a different kind of church to those I have encountered before, but the simple design works well internally and at it was nice to see a religious building that isn't laden with treasure that could be spent better elsewhere.
We reached Lapa, a large open area, signified by some large white arches, the Arca da Lapa aqueduct, over which a tram travels to the district of Santa Teresa, one of the highest points in Rio.
We went on to the bottom of the infamous Lapa Stairs, a famous work of art in Rio. Much like the famous art gallery I visited in Salvador, the artist is not Brazilian, this time it was a Chilean. His staircase is perpetually evolving and changing, the tiled and paint that cover it are replaced as he receives donation from around the world. After walking up the stairs and taking note of the numerous countries labelled and detailed on tiles, we made it to a semi-restoring building in the centre of Santa Teresa, Parque das Ruinas. The three of us climbed to the top and burst out laughing at the vision of two French guys planking on the balcony. At the top we were once again granted stunning views over Rio - it's numerous beaches, the modern cathedral and Centro district and of course, the many many favelas. Following this we made our way back via a tasty buffet restaurant and a bar for a quick, quiet drink.
Failing Christ The next morning Fleur and I headed back to the beach, with no wind this time. The weather was perfect and we spent a few hours comfortably
lounging before decided that we should do something more productive with our day.
We couldn't find Valeria, so just the pair of us jumped on the bus to Corcovado. This is the 710m mountain where a the famous statue of JC stands aloft over Rio with his arms spread, one of the seven modern wonders of the world. On arrival we battled through some taxi drivers and touts and entered the station, where you can catch a tram almost to the top of this peak.
In front of the ticket counter, there was a tv with a grey screen. On closer inspection we realised it was in fact on. On asking we were informed that this was displaying a webcam feed of the top of the mountain, We waited awhile, in feeble hope that the huge grey cloud would miraculously clear, but it did not, and we caught a bus back to Centro for another wander. First thing we spotted was a modern art gallery where they was some kind of strange spaceship construction which you could queue up for in order to have some strange 'out of body experience'. I made a mistake and said I'd prefer
not to waste time queuing for it. On leaving the museum I noted a statue on my map and so I led Fleur in its direction as some compensation for the Redeemer disappointment. I had told her previously about the wonderfully ridiculous poses Asian folk like to pull whilst having their photo taken and she had promised to strike one at the Redeemer. The statue we were approaching was concealed by trees which slowly peeled away to reveal a completely un-noteworthy lousy statue. Fortunately Fleura's pose completely made up for it. We had a good laugh too.
It started raining, heavily, hence why we should've stayed in the gallery previously, so we sheltered outside the old cathedral before legging it back to a Metro station and eventually the hostel. This was due to be Fleura's last night in Rio and we sat in the hostel bar drinking some beers, non-Dutch for a change. I tried to convince her to stay in Rio, but she had booked a nights accommodation in Ilse Grande and was set on going there so not to waste money. After she went to bed, I stayed for one more beer.
Changing Hostel and the Christ the Redeemer
The following morning was a Friday and my accommodation booking was up. There was still things I wanted to do in Rio, or would consider, such as a favela tour (through a local guide, not an overpriced, misguided, non-contributing hostel ran one) or hiking in the national park. None the less I felt a pang to leave Rio without Fleur around. It was Friday though and I had a flight booked for Sunday morning and figured that it would be best for me to just move hostel for the last two nights and base myself in Copacabana instead of something more drastic like leaving early.
Fortunately for me, I met four Norwegian girls that morning who were also bailing on Che Lagarto due to it's ridiculous price and were heading to a hostel in Copacabana. Somewhere along the way we picked up a bizarre young American-Russian lad, Nik. They girls seemed to find him amusing, I figured he was very-gay, closeted and a little off-balance even, but not generally a bad guy.
We checked into the hostel after some Nik confusion. Apparently he was staying with friends in Rio, but clearly not spending
much time with them, he also was carrying everything he had in a small day pack. The hostel folk couldn't work out whether he was meant to be checking in or not.
After the confusion subsided we all left, along with an Iranian guy we met in the hostel. The others set off for the Sugar Loaf and me for round two at making it up to see the Redeemer. On the bus I decided to start a conversation with a guy carrying an LP book, thereby clearly being a tourist heading the same way as me. The guy turned out to be from Saudi Arabia and had been backpacking down the West Coast of South America with his wife. We had a strange, conversation about the uprisings in North Africa, specifically Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. We steered clear of Saudi Arabia's problems. I for one had no intention of asking why his country was so utterly repressed towards females that they recently passed a law stating that they cannot drive anymore. We had a decent conversation and he gave me some recommendations for Peru and Bolvia, and I gave him some for Salvador, he was a very decent bloke.
I took the tram up to the base of the statue, with a blue sky given on the webcam screen. I chuckled to myself at the porky people who chose to take the elevators the remaining distance to the the top whilst I walked up the stairs with the vast majority of the tourists, ending up at the base of the ass side of the Cristo Redentor.
As I walked around this 26m statue I felt disappointed. It was a strange disappointment that is hard to explain, I will attempt to explain anyway.
This Cristo Redentor staute was originally going to be holding a cross in one hand and a globe in the other, the cross being self explanatory and the globe of course representing the world. It was eventually decided that this monumental statue (forgive the pun) needed to be a simpler design to become iconic. The arms stretched out allowed Jesus himself to be the cross, whilst the world was represented simply by the fact that the statue stands aloft over all of Rio. It is a very effective design and it certainly is iconic. So, what was the problem I had with this statue, one of the seven modern wonders of the world? It wasn't the fact that its Christian, which I'm sure a few members of my family might suggest. It was the fact that when you are up close to Cristo Redentor it loses its magic. It is a plain looking, abeit tall statue, surrounded by tourists pulling identical uninspired poses, none of which have any interest in being there as pilgrims. I of course am one of these – although there was little chance of me doing the arms stretched out pose myself. I posed in honour to Fleur instead, with the photo taken by my Saudi Arabian friend. I then took a heap of photos of other people posing and the effort they were going to to do so which I found far more entertaining.
In my opinion, the Cristo Redento IS one of the seven modern wonders of the world, but to me the effect is not from up close, but down in the city. From a street, from Santa Teresa, from the Sugar Loaf, when you see this statue in the distance watching over you, it is a truly impressive iconic piece of art.
Perhaps I was a little underwhelmed in part as well because of course when you are on top of a mountain, a huge part is about the view, which was of course fantastic, however after Santa Teresa and the Loaf I had already been heavily exposed to Rio from the top. It is said that one of the most disappointing tourist sites in the world is the Eiffel Tower. The reason being that in the photos taken from the top, the person is always missing the most iconic piece of Paris in the photo, the Eiffel Tower itself. I felt the same about the Corvado viewpoint missing the Cristo Redentor statue.
The Lapa Street Party I got back to Stone of a Beach hostel and met the girls who were all getting ready to go out for dinner and to hit the Lapa street party. We ate Mexican food downstairs with the eccentric Nik and had a few cocktails. Two the girls heading to a mercado after and came back with a large bottle of vodka and some mixers. We chilled out listening to music, and danced on our balcony whilst the bottle went quickly down. Nik claimed that he had never drank alcohol before, had a sip and turned it down much to the girls disgust. It was mixed with Sprite, juice and ice, the young Norwegians were pros and it was good. I recalled that Nik had had a drink in the restaurant before. Not having drank before was a strange, pointless lie.
Vodka bottle emptied, we took a cab to Lapa for the weekly street party. We exited in exactly the same spot as apparently ever other backpacker in Rio and within an hour I had caught up with a tonne of people who I had met previously in Che Lagarto. I started speaking to some local Brazilians who I took great pleasure in winding up over their football teams of choice. One was a Corinthians fan, another a Sao Paulo fan and so forth and they ended up arguing in a friendly manner over how poor each others teams were. The conversation moved on and I realise their motive was purely to hang around this particular part of Lapa in wait for attractive, preferably drunk female backpackers and they asked me all about my beautiful Norwegian friends and whether my male friend was gay. We moved on, buying cans of beer from stalls and heading in the direction of the Lapa stairs. Lapa was for all intense purposes effectively empty during the day, during the street party, there were thousands of people. One of the Norwegian girls spoke to me to tell me Nik had told her that he was 10%!s(MISSING)traight and 90%!g(MISSING)ay and wanted to sleep with her, weirdness confirmed. She very much said no. Apparently he had been rude to basically everyone else who had approached our group, even randomly telling an English girl he thought she was ugly as soon as one of the girls had started talking to her. He was beginning to be a pain in the ass.
At some point in time the girls decided it would be a good idea to get off the street and go into a nightclub. I assume this was somewhere around 3 - 4am. They paid little to enter, I paid a tonne as a male. We got a beer and ended up standing outside again in a fenced area, by any scale, right next to where we had been before. The only differences were the expenses and a fence.
At some point in time (and here things go downhill from a mother reading point of view) I decided I had had enough and heading back out to the street proper for a while. Later on I decided to grab a bus home to finish the night.
That doesn't sound bad does it? Unfortunately it didn't end there.
Darkness. Shaking. Earthquake? No, don't be stupid. Oh crap. I was being woken by a couple of Brazilians. I had fallen asleep on the bus. Fortunately these two guys spoken English and despite me insisting I was fine and there was no problem, they climbed in a taxi with me and took me back to my hostel. They even paid for it.
This night definitely could have ended worse, I was lucky.
When I got back to the hostel, the only person there was.... Nik. None of the girls, only an odd Russian/American who wasn't even meant to be staying there. He was sleeping in one of the girls beds. Eventually they turned up and after some time the staff kicked him out. Apparently when he arrived home he simply asked for the room key and was given it - ridiculous.
Suffering The next day I woke up at 3pm and started moving around 5pm. A while after I dragged myself as far as Bob's Burgers for some grotesque food. That was just about the extent of my last day in Rio. The next morning I headed back to the airport to fly to Foz de Iguazu.
Overall I had a good time in Rio, but Salvador was far more interesting. Spending time with Fleur was great and she is one of the people I really hope I get to see again one day. The Lapa street party was the biggest party I've ever been part of and was great for the most part. I was however really looking forward to getting my last flight out of the way so I could begin travelling overland which as a backpacker, is the only way to fly. Till next time...
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Pete
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Just about made up for the wait on that one!
Great read Al! Sat here eating me dins whilst reading through it, must have taken me 20minutes to read (although that says very little as I ain't the greatest reader as you know..) Good story of your time in Rio. As ever, looking forward to the next installment.