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Published: February 25th 2007
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Copacabana Beach
The view of Copacabana from the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain My time in Mexico had, unfortunately, come to an end and next stop was rio. My experience in Mexico was fantastic, and I can’t thank Sarah and Mandi enough for putting up with me and letting me stay on their sofa. I hope I wasn’t too bad a flatmate!!
In Rio I was to meet back up with Steve and Chris, who had spent the last four weeks island hopping around the Caribbean. Getting between two of the largest cities in Latin America would usually involve a single direct flight, however, in keeping with the shoestring nature of my budget, my journey from Mexico City to Rio involved 3 separate flights and an 11 hour bus journey!! However, it was cheep like the budgie.
Rio was a really fun city, visually stunning with its coastal setting and mountains rising steeply, and when the weather was good, (about just over half of the time we spent there), there was a lot to see and do.
Rio is a city that seems to have world famous landmarks around every corner: Steve, Chris and I spent quite a lot of time wandering and relaxing on Copacabana beach, enjoying some cold beers
Sugar Loaf mountain
We hiked up to the mid station, and then caught the cable car up to the very top. at the beach side cafes and watching the beach football, beach volleyball and foot volleyball taking place in front of us. This latter one is just amazing to watch - the players are allowed to hit the ball back with any part of the body excpet the hands, so you get to see amazing control of the volleyball with chest, head, shoulder and foot - as well as the obligatory unecessary bicycle kicks!!!
We’ve also had some amazing views of the city: firstly from the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain, after we hiked up to the mid-station and then took the cable car right to the very top, and also from the harbour on an exceedingly cheap boat tour that we somehow managed to stumble onto.
We have also visited probably Rio´s main landmark, the giant statue of Christ the Redeemer set atop of Corcadova hill. Unfortunately, as it was the first bit of clear weather for a few days, the whole of Rio seemed to have the same idea as us and it was a mite crowded at the top!!
Chris and I also took a tram up to the quaint district of Santa Teresa. Our
Sugar Loaf Mountain
The harbour tour that we unwitttingly stumbled onto gave us great views back towards Sugar Loaf ever useful guidebook told us to ride the tram to the end of the line and jump out. We duly arrived at said end of the line and as the tram turned around Chris and I jumped out. Fortunately, the conductor was a friendly type and through his frantic gestures we realised that perhaps this wasn’t the safest area of town for two tourists to be wandering!! We hopped back on and reached the centre of Santa Teresa where our guide book finally did turn good as we found the recommended restaurant and tucked into a fabulous North-eastern Brazil speciality dish. The combination of chicken, potatoes and rice was served up in a cast iron cauldron and the sauce that brought it all together was just fantastic!
Rio is known as the party capital of the world, and so accordingly we partied it up a grand total of....once!!! But that night ended up being a pretty big one. Steve and I went out wandering around "Lapa" which is the party district, and despite the limited amount of Spanish that was the common language between us, we met some Brazilians who showed us to some other parties in the city.
Christ the Redeemer
The statue of Christ the Redeemer watches over Rio. Cue plenty of jumping into random taxis and Steve and I not knowing whether we were heading to the next party, or heading to a serious mugging!! Suffice to say we wound down about 6 a.m dancing underneath a massive flyover to keep out of the rain, where some people had rigged up a huge sound system and there was a street party going on!! All good fun.
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