On-the-Road Tales

Rio´s metro system is easy and efficient and it dropped me a few blocks from Copacabana. Yes, 3 days technically speaking on a beach in the span of a week? Must be a record for me, the sun-shunner. I walked along the water as far as I could go to Leme and then back the other way. In Ipanema, as I was taking a photograph – I was approached by a man with a Walmart bag gesturing wildly with his disposable camera a clicking motion. I said in perfect english, (I can not imagine he thought I was brasilian appearing ghostlike pale on the sand) “would you like me to take your photo?”. We got to chatting and turns out he lives in a van in California, showers at the local gym and goes on to save up his money until he has enough to travel to the next destination. How cool – I think he has things figured out. No rent, no worries and he goes off and spends a month in Rio or Australia etc when he can. We walked the length of the beach to leblon and I peeled off to find some shade from the brutal sun.

I jumped a cab to Pao de Acucar or Sugarloaf in Urca. You have to take 2 cable cars to ascend to the 400 meters to the top of the gneiss rock sticking out of the water. At the first station, I watched the sun drop behind the Cristo statue and illminate the sky with all sorts of neat colors and cloud designs. As I went to the second station to go the rest of the way up, I stopped dead in my tracks – there in front was the infamous Sugarloaf with the almost full moon rising to the side and the water alive with city lights reflection. An awesome spectacle. I could have stayed there all night. I am not one for cities but Rio certainly has it all – mountains, rock formations, beaches, cablecars. Too cool. It was dark by the time I got to the top but the view of the city sparkling, the beaches glowing and the lit Cristo floating in the sky was great. Of course to make things better, the domestic airport Dumont was off to the side its runway surrounded on both ends by water so it was interesting to watch their takeoffs as they flew by the mountain.

Good stuff – I recommend seeing Rio once in a lifetime at least. I had an awesome Esphina de Frango (chicken thing) and headed back to Catete.

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 8th, 2007 at 4:06 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.