Day 17 - Trip to Rio & Sugarloaf Mountain

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Earliest start yet, waking up at 4:15am to be ready for our booked airport taxi at 5am. Got down to the door at 5:55am and the driver was at the door as we opened it. The driver had no English but he already know where to take us and just needed to know which terminal.

It was quite busy given the early hour but we had plenty of time and only waited a short time before we started boarding. The plane actually took off earlier than the stated time and we got to Rio much earlier as well. Breakfast was a pretty ordinary ham and cheese roll but we were so hungry it was sufficient.

Our pick-up was waiting as usual and the guide spoke excellent English having lived in the US for a while. He also gave us info for our pick-up when leaving and some options for tours if we chose to do so. All these organized pick-ups are a new luxury for us that we don’t normally do but it is nice and convenient.

Got to the hotel at 12:20pm and I messaged Pierre, our fellow traveler from Jordan/Israel earlier this year that we had arrived and arranged to meet in the lobby at 1:30pm. Pierre lives and works in Brasilia as a journalist and flew down on Saturday to met up with us , but spend time with a former work colleague who has retired and moved to Rio. By coincidence another work-mate of his and his wife are staying in the same hotel as us this weekend.

So good to see Pierre again and we decided to go to the Sunday markets at Ipanema beach, which is the next beach to Copacabana where our hotel is. It was just a short walk there and we decided to have lunch first as we were quite hungry. We went to a place called Fazendola where it is like a buffet and can get whatever you like but it is then weighed and you pay according to weight. We all know how Daisy is the Queen of stacking buffet plates and she couldn’t help herself even though payment was by weight. Daisy’s plate weighed 50% more than mine but at least she did eat it all.

We then returned to the markets where Daisy bought a couple of things and then it was onto the metro which kept going deeper and deeper. Took the train to Botafogo and we had a 24 minute walk to the Sugarloaf Mountain cable car. Once again I got a 50% senior’s discount and up we went to the first station which had magnificent views of Rio and all the beaches. We were there just as the sun was about to set and we then took the cable car up to second station and had a drink and a snack whilst admiring the views.

By the time we got back down it was dark and Pierre booked an Uber car for ride to a restaurant called Café Lamas which is just the oldest café still operating in Rio, established in 1874. We were suppose to meet Pierre ex-work colleague but she wasn’t there and it turned it she hwas too tired and had already left. Nevertheless, we stayed and stayed a lovely Milanese steak. The another Uber back to our hotel and at 10pm, we had a relatively early night.

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