Stevo and lel’s adventures

So we have now left Argentina  🙁 and have headed into Brazil;  Rio de Janeiro to be precise!  We have arrived late at night so can’t see much however there is a vibrant buzzing atmosphere about the city and our tour guide, Renatta (pronounced with an H like Henatta) is absolutely lovely. She will be taking us on our full day guided tour tomorrow which I am certain will be great – so much to see and do!  some bits about Rio;  it’s probably most famous for its  carnival celebrations, samba and other music, its amazing beaches ( copacabanna.jpg and  Ipanema).  Some of the most famous landmarks in addition to the beaches include the giant statue of Christ, known as Christ the Redeemer (‘Cristo Redentor’) atop Corcovado mountain, Sugarloaf mountain (Pão de Açúcar) with its scary looking cable car Chirst & sogarloafcopacabanna.jpg; the Sambódromo, a giant permanent parade stand which they built to contain the  Carnival (although it apparently just holds the ‘offical’ carnival many other carnival celebrations spring up all over the town)  and Maracanã stadium, one of the world’s largest football stadiums *yawn*  ;)Being winter it’s out of Carnival season so we can’t see that in all of it’s glory however we plan to see all of the rest! We only really have one and a bit days here due to a flight cancellation so it’ll be a challenge to pack it all in!We should really mention the other side of Rio; the city is reputed to be one of the most violent  in the world and motivated movies  such as City of God and as mentioned by our guide Elite Squad  (which we plan to see when we get home – its about the special machine gun armed police in Rio who monitor the favellas – the normal police apparently would not stand a chance). Its quite strange as in Rio, apparently unlike other major cities, many of the slums are directly adjacent to some of the wealthiest areas of the city.Our guide informed us of govenment plans to build a wall around the favellas to contain them, apparently to stop further infringement into the national parkland, whether that actually is the reason or not is very hotly debated just now in the city!We didnt see much of this violence save a few wee kinds approaching us and checking out Stevos wallet etc however a lovely Scots couple we met on our first night at a Samba show had a tale to tell of having a gun held up in front of them mid day at the beach for a can of tango – quickly relinquished!   

We are staying in a lovely hotel on Copacabanna Beach!  http://www.redeatlantico.com.br/pt-br/atlantico-copacabana/foto.asp# The golden sands are just metres away from the hotel. You have to cross quite a busy road to get there mind and it’s quite a challenge as Rio has some funny traffic rules. When we arrived last night we came down the road to get to the hotel and as of this morning the traffic direction has changed and you can’t approach the hotel the same way!  It’s been set up to aid rush hour conjestion and is actually pretty clever I think, all traffic between a certain time is outbound only… wonder if that would work in the uk?

Anyway I digress. We have a lovely corner room with a view of the beach, when we arrived late last night there were still footballers playing on the beach, despite the dark, this is a common thing here, they’re totally obsessed and play well into the wee small hours of the morning. Volleyball is also big on the beach and they love to take on the foreigners.

Just before the beach – I guess you’d perhaps call it a promenade here? – there are wee stalls selling the usual touristy stuff and some nicer, pricier things like leather maps and silver jewellery. Henetta had already informed us that in Brazil the price they sell to the tourists is the actual price, they don’t barter here apparently. The stalls stay open really late and we had a nice time wandering and browsing after our meal.

As we arrived later we went to a bewery which also does food on the recommendation of our guide, although  it’s on Copacabanna it’s filled mostly with locals and not so many tourists so the menu was in Portugese!  We ordered burgers and a side of chips – and then we found out the burgers came with  chips and the chips came with bacon, and cheese. Chip overload (we never ate all the chips…). It was lovely but way too much food! Being a brewery we also sampled the local cervasa – probably a few too many I think!  😉  

Breakfast in the hotel was, again, great with the usual choices of fresh fruit, breads, cheeses, eggs, cakes, juices,  meats including  fatty bacon (the bacon is really fatty here, more like streaky bacon). The coffee was way better than the Argantinian stuff though and asI’m a complete coffee addict I was liking this a lot!   

We were picked up earlish at 8.30 in an attempt to beat the coach party rush and it seemed to work well. When we hit Corcovado (the Chris   Redeemer hill) there were few people about and hardly any on the train up. We were running short on camera memory and luckily there was a bloke selling memory cards at the foot of the hill – very enterprising. We payed almost £50 for a 2 GB card which wasn’t so great. Electronic etc are not cheap in Brazil, Henatta informs us most people buy online.. can see why!

When we parked the car before heading up, Henatta paid a guy to ‘look after it’. He saw us checking out the favellas crammed onto the side of the mountain and proudly informed us that he lived there and that is was nice with good views, he was genuinely happy about that which we thought was kinda cool.

You take the wee train up and as you go you travel through forest getting occasional, tantalising glimpses of whats to come. You then alight and climb some stairs to the top where the huge christ is.  Up close he is very impressive, covered in mosaic to give a smooth finish. How they carried all of the stuff necessary to put him together (the hill is very steep) way back when is really quite amazing. He is a sight to behold from the steps at the top and he makes for an even better sight from down in the valley. An astounding, impressive and inspired landmark.  The 360 degree views are also fantastic.. see for yourselves!

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