Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro Province, Brazil

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Friday January 22nd, 2016. Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro Province, Brazil.



Rio de Janeiro, aka Rio, is the second largest city in Brazil and lies on the far western strip of Brazil's Atlantic coast close to the Tropic of Capricorn. It has a population of approximately 6,453,682 and is Brazil's second largest city.



D went on deck (while it was still dark) in order to watch the Marco Polo enter the harbour (M stayed in bed). Rio harbour is comprised of a unique entry from the ocean that makes it appear to be the mouth of a river. The harbour is surrounded by amazing geographical features including Sugar Loaf mountain and the Christ the Redeemer (which was covered in fog). D had reasonable views of Sugar Loaf though.



After a posh breakfast we disembarked. It was hammering it down with rain and the blue lines the "Independents" (that's what they call people like us who won't pay for the ship's tours) were supposed to follow to the cruise terminal had become rivers. We sploshed down to the cruise terminal and secured a decent map and some advice on buses and tubes from the girl at the Tourist Information Desk. We left the terminal building but soon realised that we were going to get soaked. So plan B was put into effect. We returned to the ship, grabbed the laptop and sploshed back to the cruise terminal where we sat for a couple of hours posting blogs and catching up with emails etc. After an early lunch we decided to try again.



It had stopped raining but was still cloudy and threatening so the beach was out of the question. Instead we made our way to Uruguayana Metro station which was about 20 minutes walk away. We got two return tickets which were credit card type things to Largo do Mechado Station. Then we caught a bus up to Corcovado. We alighted and went to the railway station only to find that there was over a 2 hour wait for the next train. We decided to take a Van instead. They had been waiting for the tourists at the bus stop but we had wanted to try the train first. We were taken up the road where we purchased a ticket for 30 riads. This did not include the entry fee to Tijuca National Park which is where the statue of Jesus Christ is located.



We were directed straight to a mini bus and driven up the very steep Corcovado Mountain. Just below cloud levely we stopped at a viewpoint called D Marta. As we were below cloud level we had a great, if dull, views over the city. After about 10 minutes here we continued up to the mid station in Tijuca National Park where you can purchase the tickets to go and see the Christ the Redemer Statue. The girl on the cash desk told us that we would see "nada" and advised us not to bother - so we didn't. We spent a very pleasant 15 minutes or so talking to one of the park employees at the tourist desk who confirmed there was no point going any further as not only could you not see any of the city - you couldn't even see Jesus' head. We took a couple of snaps of the city from the mid station which was still considerably lower than the top - so you could see something through the mirk. We returned to the ship the same way we had come.



The four of us were joined for dinner by John and Sandra from the next table who had been left alone - all their table-mates had gone on the Samba trip. Stewart and Pam told us that they had been on a trip to Tijuca NP to see the statue and were really disappointed that they didn't get to see anything. There was no show tonight - just a movie. Pam and Stewart went to the movie and we returned to our cabins to read. We hope the weather is better tomorrow but the forecast is much the same but with slightly less rain.

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