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Published: June 16th 2009
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There is a reason Rio de Janerio is famous! It is a sprawling city of over 6 million people built amist patches of jungle and lush mountains filled with monkeys and tropical birds. It has world class beaches, Copacabana and Impanema, magnificent views from both Sugar Loaf Mountain and Cristo Redeemer and a raw, none stop night life where anything can and does happen!
The beaches in Rio are where people go to "see" and to be seen!! Both men (except John 😊 ) and women wearing next to nothing as bathing suits. There was a steady flow of micro bikinis walking along the surf and I think John´s neck is probably still bothering him from his people watching! 😊 Our hostel, Stone on the Beach, was 3 blocks off of Copacabana, which is a long crescant shaped beach lined with skyscrapers, a stone boardwalk and the jungle covered sugar loaf mountain in the distance. Both Copacabana and Ipanema beaches were alive with soccer, volleyball, giant sand castles, vendors and performers.
One of the most famous views of Rio is from the cable cars that travel up the jungle covered Sugar Loaf Mountain, which is just off the coast
rising from the sea. It provides views of sailboats, marinas, beaches, an airport (where we watched planes fly by at eye level), and the city meandering thru the jungle below. There are actually two cable cars, one from Praia Vermelha, with a mid-station stop on Morro da Urca and another that carries visitors on to the top. There is a 45min path thru the jungle at the base of Morro da Urca to the midstation letting you skip the first cable car (as well as save you 20 reales per person) and allows you to see the monkeys, spiders, and birds first hand as they were everywhere. Chrissy, Skully and I had it all to ourselves only passing one other hiker all day!
We spent the next day touring a Favela (shanty town) in the city. The well known movie ¨City of God¨is based on a true story of the organized crime and drug cartel that operates from an actual Favela in Rio. We were torn about the idea of taking a ¨tour¨of others misfortune but found a group that works in the Favela which donates 60% of the proceeds from the tour to building and maintaining schools there.
This was also the only safe way to see these areas so we gave it a try and were not dissappointed. Our guide was a streetsmart girl from Rio, covered in tatoos who had been working in the Favela for the past 5 years. She picked us up at the hostel and drove us to the limits of the Favela where we parked and were given the ¨rules¨. First we were going to hire a motorcycle driver "Moto Taxi" to take us to the top of the favela on the back of their bikes (no helmets) and we were forbidden to have our cameras out as we could be shot by the drug watchers on the street (not that this was even possible as we were hanging on for dear life). Although we didn´t see any, there were other people from our hostel who witnessed teenagers carrying automatic weapons with shrouds of bullets over their shoulders. Chrissy and I had enough to worry about as our drivers actually bumped other motorcycles (at high speed), passed cars and trucks on either side of the street or between vehicles as traffic passed in both directions! It was a CRAZY 10 min ride
as fast as we could go up the narrow, winding road!
The favela we visited had over 300,000 people living in it. There are no police inside and none from the outside are permitted in. The city governs itself and is enforced by the 10% of its population which controls the drug trade, which was over a 4 million dollar a month buisiness for that particular slum. So to outsiders, some things we saw and heard made this a lawless neighborhood by societies standards. There were power lines that ran thru the main street where literally thousands of power, cable and internet lines were illegally placed. The streets of the Favela were a winding maze that only carried foot traffic and we had to duck under these makeshift high voltage power lines that hung 5 feet from the ground! So amazingly, most of the slums inhabitants had electricity, cable television, and even internet! We visited schools and a small bakery to have lunch and were occasionly warned of drug watch checkpoints to put our cameras away.
A visit to Rio isn´t complete without seeing a soccer match at Meracana Stadium which can hold nearly 200,000 standing people!!. So
we watched one of Rio´s local soccer clubs Fluminense vs. Goia (Sao Paulo club). It was great to watch while snacking on Meat Flavored Potato Chips!!
The same evening we journeyed out to Lapa, a seedy area of town known for its pickpockets and muggings as well as its excellent samba bars and all night parties! We took the metro there after the match and had a couple dodgy blocks to walk through in order to find the principle avenue. We were incredibly glad to have a 50 something year-old military ex-pat from Zimbabwe (Alan) walking the streets with us! We had a good time but headed home early by Lapa´s standard at 3am only to have a knife pulled on us by a 10 year old kid! Our man from Zimbabwe came handy here as well as he "politely" advised the young thug to leave! HA. We caught a mini bus back to Copacabana and were unfortunately dropped at the beach which is notoriously known as a dangerous area after the sun goes down. We were surrounded by cross dressers and prostitutes and quickly made our way back to the Hostel! What a night!
Our last day
was spent visiting the Cristo Redeemer statue on Corcovado Mountain, the Parque Nacional da Tijuca which towers over Rio and offered the best views of the city, beaches, and sprawling favelas below.
Many times a big city is just that, and not much different from the next, but Rio de Janerio definately has its own character. We could have spent weeks exploring the different bouroughs of the city and enjoying the non stop activities offered by our hostel with a movie cinema room, roof top hot tub and bar... but we had to keep moving. We met some great people there as well, a hilarious Italian named Paulo and a carefree Canadian, Andrew. Pete joined us again from Salvador... he couldnt live without us...haha! We all shared a lot of laughs.
Next stop... Ilha Grande, an Island 200 km south of Rio. Lots of good times ahead!
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Steve Vozniak
non-member comment
Meat flavored chips!
Rio is a wonderful place!