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Published: August 15th 2010
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When we arrived
Rio de Janiero, we were met by our very enthusiastic guide, Alex Ma Ling, a Chinese Brazilian - now I didn’t expect that! Alex wants everyone to think that Rio is one of the safest cities in the world, but he isn’t fooling anyone. When he goes through the list of tours his agency runs, one of them is a slum tour in a jeep where you drive through some of the 700
favellas (slum neighbourhoods) and see how they live - he says it is a great tour, you see lots of drug deals going down, some with guns, but it is real safe because you are behind bullet proof glass - you just better hope the jeep doesn’t break down!
We drive past slum areas with just corrugated iron for rooves, and then go through a massive tunnel which brings us to the other side of Rio, with its stunning Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. The weather is cloudy and we can’t see
Christo Redeemer on the mountaintop above our hotel in Copacabana beach. Our hotel is right in the middle of the 4km stretch of Copacabana beach. A perfect starting point for running the 8km
circuit on one side of the road and its rooftop pool and balcony area perfect vantage point to check out what is going on at the crazily busy Copacabana beach. We enjoy the pool area for a bit, find a place to eat and have an early night before hitting the beaches the next day.
A Brazilian steakhouse
churrascaria restaurant is usually set up as a
rodizio, where the expert waiters circle the restaurant with long skewers of perfectly grilled meats. Diners are given small cards, green on one side and red on the other. Flip it to the green side and the service is non stop. To take a break - just flip the card to the red side. Waiters move from table to table using sharp knives to cut off wafer thin slices of meat that has been flame grilled on the outside, and is usually cooked medium to medium rare on the inside. I never knew so many different cuts existed. Beautiful food it was if not expensive and we had a great dinner followed by a few ales at a nearby bar which was absolutely pumping.
We went for a walk to the botanical
Me and JC
I'm the one at the front with the blue t-shirt gardens, which was very nice with many different plants and enclosures, but after going to the Amazon and seeing some amazing forests such as Iguassu, it was a little hard to appreciate, but nevertheless it was nice to avoid the crazy crowds of Copacabana for a day and get some fresh air.
Walking back from dinner, we realised that a large crowd of people were gathered on a certain part of Copacabana and we were informed that it was part of the new year festivities where everyone brings down their offerings to
Iemanja, the goddess of the sea, in the hopes that she will grant them their requests for the coming year. Some send their gifts to Iemanja in wooden toy boats, although it is all a rather fruitless exercise as the waves are quite violent on the shore and most people who send out their offerings only to see them dumped back onto the sand - I guess Iemanja doesn’t want your crap! There are all kinds of offerings, mostly food and fruit - I couldn’t help but think what a useless waste of good food this stupid superstition this was - but who am I to judge
really. For a bunch of Catholics though, they really are confused on this whole worshipping other idles rule.
The countdown to New Years Eve was great. By 8pm the crowd is already massive and we buy a beer out of an ice box very cheap. Someone even offers us a swig from their vodka bottle for a couple of
reis. Everyone is happy and drinking on the beach whilst up on the stage, some funky music is being played by a band of what seems to be a cast of thousands - of course we can’t understand any of the music as the lyrics are in Portugese, but many people are dancing and singing and enjoying the festivities. We walk around the massive stage and make our way to a space on the foreshore to sit and enjoy the entertainment, having a few drinks in the process. Luckily, our hotel is very close by which is handy for bathroom breaks as the public toilet situation is shambles. Just before midnight the crowd lines up along the beach to watch the fireworks.
The 4.2km concave beach of Copacabana is a perfect spot to watch fireworks and they sure put
on a show. Plenty of cruise ships were watching out at sea as fireworks were set off from small barges all the way along Copacobana beach for at least 20 minutes. Like that, 2009 was upon us, and we had a couple more beers before trying to cross the street to get back to our hotel in the mad crush that followed.
We head back to the hotel at 1am and decide to head up to the rooftop balcony to observe the continual mad goings on at street level from a safe distance. There are still a few lingerers from what was a ticketed rooftop balcony event to watch the fireworks including an English couple who were on their honeymoon who refused to leave the hotel after being mugged at knifepoint on
Avenue Atlantica at 7:30pm on their first night in Rio by a bunch of 16 year old locals. We were glad we hadn’t heard that story until now as we thought the area that we were staying was perfectly safe. Of course the story goes that at this time of year the kids come out of the favellas to prey on rich tourists in Copacabana. Whilst I saw groups of kids, obviously we didn’t look rich enough to approach.
It is strange to have such heat and humidity but very little sunshine and once again the clouds are thick and block our view of sugarloaf mountain. After such a late night, we have a pretty slow start to the day and spend much of it by the pool just enjoying Rio and nursing our hangovers. We went and checked out the markets, which were actually quite impressive - there were millions of pieces of impressive artwork in the market and we also buy a hammock.
We then did the city tour, encompassing the glorious sites of Christo the Redeemer, the massive statue overlooking Rio from the top of the mountain. We catch a cable car up to the top, the crowds are unbelievable, yet when we reach the top, the whole city is not visible due to the cloud cover. What a disappointment - still to get up close to the statue was great and it is truly a massive statue. Whilst it was only built less than one hundred years ago, it is so marvelled by people that it was voted into the new 7 wonders of the world. From there we went to lunch with some other tourist groups and then went on to look at the Carnival sight as well as the Cathedral which was a stunning circular shape. We were most impressed with the Christmas story setup that was inside the cathedral. From there it was on to
Sugarloaf Mountain and the cable cars up it for some more cloudy viewing of the city. The crowds were phenomenal but I guess it was the weekend and it was the busiest time of year for Rio outside of Carnival.
8 days in Rio was the perfect way to end a very demanding South American adventure. Being able to relax by the beach and take in the sites at a slower pace than we would normally was great.
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