Rio de Janeiro and Petropolis

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Arriving in Rio de Janeiro was really quite exciting. Even on the bus towards the hostel I could see golden beaches, the distant Christ the Redeemer statue as well as Sugarloaf Mountain. And despite high expectations of the city, Rio didn’t disappoint. Its setting is absolutely stunning, with spectacular beaches giving on to a mountainous backdrop. The city centre itself is rather nondescript, but that’s not the reason why Rio is so special.

Even though I arrived really early and dead tired, I still wanted to go out and explore the city as soon as I arrived. The hostel I had chosen was in the neighbourhood of Botafogo, situated near Sugarloaf and halfway between Copacabana and the city centre. Botafogo beach, even though it hasn’t been immortalised in song like its famous neighbours Copacabana and Ipanema, was really nice, principally as Sugarloaf forms the backdrop. From here the coast curves around to the neighbourhood of Flamengo, where a beach-front park stretches all the way to the city centre. But I didn’t walk the whole length as it stretches for some distance. In the afternoon I headed to Copacabana. Even though it was hot, it really wasn’t that busy. It seemed to be a pretty normal beach; I guess I had expected something extra-special just because of its reputation. A large chunk of the beach had been turned into a giant screen for the World Cup, though there were no matches that day so it was pretty much deserted. I walked the length of Copacabana (around 3km), stopping for a coconut along the way, before then arriving at Ipanema, which is located just around a headland. I didn’t have long to enjoy Ipanema as sunset quickly approached, but it seemed similar to Copacabana, with the beachfront crammed with restaurants and hotels.

I thought I should at least have a look at what the city centre has to offer before concentrating on the rest of Rio’s iconic landmarks. To be frank, exploring the centre wasn’t that great. Traffic was once again a major issue. The metro is rather poor (I hope they improve it by the time of the Olympics in 2016), so the city’s streets always seemed to be pretty jammed. The main square in the centre, Praça XV, is close to all the major sights. Firstly, overlooking the Praça, is the Imperial Palace, where the Portuguese Royal Family set up court when Napoleon took control of Portugal. It really is rather modest for a royal palace, and it now houses a modern art museum. On the whole, rather disappointing. Opposite the palace is the former cathedral, and nearby are a few other colonial churches. But nothing spectacular compared to the churches in the historic cities in Minas Gerais. The Tiradentes Palace housed the Brazilian Parliament until the capital was moved to Brasília. It still holds the Rio de Janeiro State Assembly, but they let me in to have a look anyway, but there wasn’t much to captivate the visitor. Rio has a couple of historic convents and monasteries, right in the city centre, which are now tourist attractions as well as religious centres. The first monastery, Sao Bento, was really opulent and worth visiting; the second, Sao Antonio, is undergoing restoration and in order to get to it you have to walk through a mini-slum. Near Sao Antonio is the new cathedral: another modernist building, with an appearance of a volcano. It definitely looked better on the inside than from the outside. And finally I stopped of at the Praça Republica, which in essence turned out to be a place where homeless people spend the day. Though it seemed safe enough. It was also bursting with stray cats and an animal I didn’t even recognise - a small rodent-like creature, which at first I mistook for a baby capybara. That’s about all there was of note to see in the city centre, which was all easily seen in less than a day.

Visiting Brazil’s most famous icon, the statue of Christ the Redeemer, turned out to be a bit more hassle than I had anticipated (in true Latin American style). The statue is located on top of the Corcovado (Hunchback) Mountain, overlooking the city. In theory you can walk to it, but this is not recommended as it’s difficult to get there if you don’t know the way and the path is supposedly dangerous. Normally there is a funicular train which goes to the top, but of course this being South America the train is currently not working. To replace the train, one company (controlled by the Mafia, so the owners of my hostel claim) run a minibus service charging 50 reais (around 22 pounds) to get to the top, which is a lot more expensive than the train would be. But there’s no competition so you have no choice. I managed to haggle them down to 42 reais (some Brits I met in the hostel said this was about as low as you could get if you were persistent.) But anyway, it was definitely worth the cost and the hassle. The statue is magnificent and the views over the city even better. The platform the statue sits on is quite small, so the area was absolutely jammed. Inside the statue itself is a small chapel where a service was taking place, but as I heard one of the guides explain, the statue isn’t really seen as a religious monument, rather as an icon of the city. Coming down from the statue, whilst waiting for our minibus back, a monkey appeared from out of the adjoining forest and one of the guides kept luring him close to all of the tourists with food. Definitely not tame, and nice to be able to see a wild monkey so close up.

Outside of Rio de Janeiro City, but still in Rio de Janeiro State, is the imperial city of Petropolis, which was built by the second (and last) Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, in the 1840s. Definitely worth the day trip from Rio, even if it did take 2 hours to cover the 66km to get there. The main attraction was the Imperial Palace, built for the Royal Family and not that dissimilar to visiting a royal residence in the UK. They even had the former Brazilian crown jewels on display. Unfortunately no pictures were allowed on the inside. There were a few other things to see in Petropolis, namely the gothic cathedral, where the former Royal Family is buried, as well as “The Crystal Palace”, which is essentially a giant greenhouse. All in all, Petropolis made a welcome change from the crowded and noisy Rio.

The other day trip I took outside of Rio was to the city of Niteroi, which is a ferry ride across the bay from central Rio. Very quick, cheap and easy to get there; it’s basically an extension of Rio rather than a separate city. The ferry ride was an interesting way to see some other parts of Rio, especially one of the airports which is situated on an island in the bay and which the ferry passes close to. Most mornings in Rio there seemed to be a light smog enveloping the city, and unfortunately this meant that viewing the skyline of Rio from Niteroi was difficult as everything was very hazy. Christ the Redeemer was impossible to see; even the much closer and larger Sugarloaf mountain was barely visible. It probably would have been better to visit in the afternoon, when the smog seemed to clear most days, but as this area is not reputedly the safest, the morning seemed better. The main attraction in Niteroi is a modern art museum. Yet another modernist building designed by Brazil’s favourite architect, Oscar Niemeyer. This building was rather beautiful, and had a lovely position commanding views on 3 sides of the bay. In hindsight I shouldn’t have paid to go in, as the views were better from outside and the “art” was all pretty forgettable. The only other thing to mention about Niteroi is that it is the easternmost point of Brazil that I’m visiting on this trip, thus the easternmost point of South America that I’ll see (even though there are hundreds of kilometres more of Brazil east of there.)

As this was my last day in Rio, I made sure I returned from Niteroi in good time to go up Sugarloaf Mountain in the afternoon to be ready for sunset. I couldn’t find the bus to get there, so took the bus to my hostel and walked it from there - only 20 minutes or so. At this point the smog had seemingly lifted and there was not a cloud in the sky - it seemed to be perfect conditions for going up Sugarloaf. There is luckily a cable car that goes up the mountain, or rather the cable car goes to the top of Urca Hill, from where a second cable car goes to the top of Sugarloaf. All for 44 reais return (about 17 pounds). The views from Urca hill were pretty spectacular. Especially of Copacabana beach and Botafogo. In the other direction is Niteroi, but this view didn’t compare to that of Rio. There were definitely more people on Urca and Sugarloaf than on Corcovado when I visited Christ the Redeemer, but as the site is so much bigger (on both hills there are so many different viewing areas), it didn’t feel so crowded. I got in the queue for the second cable car, and about 20 minutes later I arrived on top of Sugarloaf, some 220 metres high above the city. Annoyingly, the sky had clouded over in those 20 minutes and the sun had all but disappeared. But the view was still spectacular. There were quite a few trails going through the wooded areas of the peak, and at one point I came across a few tourists who appeared to be looking intensely at something, which I realised was a group of small monkeys (possibly marmosets?) just off the trail. Unfortunately, one of the tourists couldn’t get a good photo so tried to prod the nearest one with a stick to make it move. It of course fled, and I could see that it was carrying a tiny baby monkey on its back as well. I met someone from my hostel who was also waiting for sunset, so we waited together pondering if the cloud would disappear and whether we would actually be able to see anything. In the end, the cloud didn’t disperse, which was a real let down. Someone else from the hostel showed me the pictures that they had taken a few days earlier of the sunset, and it truly did look spectacular. Meanwhile, the cloud seemed to thicken, so we decided to descend to Urca Hill before heading back to the hostel and hopefully get a better view. From Urca you couldn’t even see the top of Sugarloaf due to the cloud. But yet the queue to go up was still long. Luckily Urca hill wasn’t cloud covered, so I managed to get a few night shots.

The following morning it was time to say goodbye to Rio. Paraty will be my next stop, which is a 4 hour bus ride to the west (about halfway between Rio and Sao Paulo). The next blog will come from there

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Photos

Botafogo and Christ the Redeemer
(the small white dot in the background)

Tiradentes Palace
Former Parliament

The Praca da Republica
Lots of these strange rodent-like animals

The Praca da Republica
And hundreds of stray cats appear to live here too

Northern Rio
With the Maracana stadium

Comments

[Daniel]

It's a cutia.