Activity Summary
Tuesday 9th January - Day 462 (continued)
Flight to São Paulo
Flight to Rio de Janeiro
Wednesday 10th January - Day 463
Centro walking tour
Museu do Amanhã
Thursday 11th January - Day 464
Sugarloaf Mountain
Copacabana beach
Ipanema beach
Friday 12th January - Day 465
Christ the Redeemer statue
Snacks at a cafe in Ipanema
Saturday 13th January - Day 466
Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro
Summary
Rio de Janeiro
We enjoyed Rio. Sugarloaf and Christ the redeemer were good activities and gave really nice views over the city.
We could appreciate the ease and appeal of Copacabana and Ipanema beaches for the masses of people there but they really didn’t draw us in, content with walking along the beaches as opposed to sunning ourselves. Heard from multiple sources, they aren’t particularly safe places to chill on and taking any form of valuables is asking for trouble.
Transport
Rio de Janeiro
Uber to Foz airport
Flight to São Paulo
Flight to Rio de Janeiro
Airport taxi to Airbnb
Accommodation
Rio de Janeiro - Airbnb, Av. Nossa Sra. de Copacabana, 1371
Number of nights - 5
Price per night per person - £29
Positives:
Large apartment
Two bogs for the first time ever
Decent kitchen
Free coffee, not to be underestimated
Location was good
Aircon worked very well in the room, not so much the rest of the apartment though
Negatives:
The owner was a bit of a nutter, wouldn’t stop messaging Nicola unhelpful stuff
Check in was a bit of a pain
Recommend?
Yes
Diary
Tuesday 9th January - Day 462 (continued)
Sitting in the more spacious first 7 rows, we had a rather pleasant flight to São Paulo.
The layover in São Paulo was perhaps longer than we needed but in our heads, the extra time would help protect against problems. We also expected there to be more on offer in the terminal but São Paulo was a little disappointing and we had a particularly crummy burger for sustenance.
As our flight time approached things got a little more angsty. Every flight to Rio for the last few hours had been cancelled, numerous flights were delayed and the gates kept changing constantly. After the third time of being moved, we noticed there was no chance our LATAM flight was going from there at 7pm and ended up running around trying to find the correct gate after getting spooked by a nearby gate having absolutely no information on the screens but had people boarding.
Eventually the flight was confirmed delayed by an hour and the gate updated. A bit of a pain.
The flight to Rio de Janeiro was relatively short and everything made it there in one piece.
It was now well past 10pm and to just get it sorted we booked a taxi using the desks in the airport. It cost R$80 (£13) but it was late and got us to our Airbnb safe and sound, albeit with a weird ticket system and the instruction to find the black cars. Missing being able to converse in Spanish, we eventually found a happy go lucky guy to take charge of us and then he proceeded to drive like a maniac to our accommodation. At least the roads were empty.
Checking into the apartment was a bit stressful for Nicola, having the host bombard her with one line WhatsApp messages that are impossible to translate. But we got there in the end.
The Airbnb was pretty great. A large apartment with two toilets (woop) and decent aircon finally.
Wednesday 10th January - Day 463
As is usual thing to do when getting to a new city, we went into the Centro region of Rio for a walking tour (Rio by foot).
There weren't many of us at all which was interesting, apparently not an overly popular activity to do in the city but it was an enjoyable walking tour. The guide was a bit unfriendly but to get some history about Brazil, which had finally deviated from San Martin & Bolivar, was very interesting.
In summary the Portuguese royalty fled Portugal due to Napoleon, settled in Rio with some other rich kids and the city prospered. The king was forced back to Portugal or would lose his throne, leaving behind his son who continued to try to develop Brazil. In reality all the gold kept going back to Portugal so to appease the peeps a friendly independency was declared by the son, styling himself emperor. The sons son then took over, pissed off the rich kids and a military junta took over in the late 1800’s and as such Brazil was independent.
Municipal Theater of Rio de Janeiro
Câmara Municipal do Rio de Janeiro
Petrobras building - big oil company in Brazil and voted one of the ugliest buildings in a poll a number of years back
Before and after Rio pictures - Rio had 4 big hills that were demolished to flatten the city and then used that earth to reclaim land from the sea. About 33% of the city was extended out.
Colombo bakery - claimed to be the oldest bakery in town but apparently this isn’t true, there was a small shop around the corner that is. But this one was much nicer and we got some delicious coxinhas, fried papas balls stuffed with chicken and cheese.
Some other monuments by the waterfront
Igreja de Nossa Senhora da Lapa dos Mercadores
With the walking tour over we strolled over to the Museu do Amanhã.
Strange water castle
Pira Olímpica
The Museu do Amanhã, aka the museum of tomorrow, was a nice enough exhibit to Earth things. Didn’t blow our minds but the astronomy style show theatre gave us a wonderful 5 minute lie down on some bean bags.
In the distance was a complex called the Centro de Instrução Almirante Wandenkolk, which looked like a load of fancy floating colonial housing.
Back at the Airbnb Luke cooked a curry that would last for 3 days, and Nicola didn’t even like it that much. Luke conversely very much enjoyed it. The bean element had to be put on pause because he didn’t understand that the dry bean pack purchased would need a good 4 hour + soaking before cooking. Woops.
Thursday 11th January - Day 464
It was a lovely sunny day again and to make the most of the views, we went to Sugarloaf Mountain. It was easy enough to get a bus there and walk but Nicola wasn’t coping with the heat much and vetoed the same on the way back.
It was a bit spenny at £30pp but the cable car network was pretty efficient and we had timed it early enough that we’d miss a mad rush that existed when we left a few hours later.
Nicola had the appearance of dying in the sunny queue for tickets and didn’t much like her choice in T-shirt for the day so ended up adopting a style more akin to Rio, whipping out the jebs without remorse. Bikini- clad women and shirtless men are more common than jeans. A sit down in the shade while Luke sorted tickets also helped her out somewhat.
There were two viewing platforms, connected by two cable car rides. The queues for both for us were pretty minimal which was great.
The first was nice and breezy so we spent a bit of time sauntering around, cooling down while looking over the city.
In the distance the Christ the redeemer statue could be seen.
The next ride took us to Meatloaf mound.
More panoramic views were appreciated and also a quick browse of potential coxinha snacks but we refrained.
There was a really nice, albeit very short, ‘jungle’ area where we had a nice sit down.
Our patience meant we were rewarded with very small monkeys running around.
The Uber was a much more comfortable option to get back to Copacabana beach where we stopped off for lunch at a very average cafe.
Walking back to the airbnb we went via Copacabana beach and Ipanema beach. Both were heaving with people but we didn’t have much desire to relax on them ourselves. The beaches were super close to our airbnb but they didn’t seem all that nice and the threat of robbery didn’t appeal all that much.
Friday 12th January - Day 465
Chile was a bit of a pain for cash and we had left the country with a lot of pesos. Rio was the first sensible place we had got to where we could potentially exchange into a useful currency (Argentinian pesos were not useful) and the Western Union around the corner was easy to get to.
We made quite a savage loss but we were going to anyway if we did it in the UK, so we just sucked up the cost with a little tear in our eyes.
It was quite a bit later in the morning by the time we got to the Christ the Redeemer statue. The queue for the funicular was very long and we were standing around for over an hour to get on the train (£20pp).
It was very busy at the top with not a whole lot of room to manoeuvre. It was hilariously chaotic and made more so by people trying to do the most stupid poses in front of the statue without so much as an inch of space.
But we got our views of the statue easily enough, considering it’s massive.
At the end of the platform there were some nice views over Rio, Copacabana and Ipanema.
It just took a lot to get over to this point.
It was nice again to stand around the edges overlooking Rio where it was a bit calmer.
Last of the tour was to check out Jesus’ ass.
Before heading down we had a lunch snack at a lower platform before retreating when the rain started to hit.
Once back in Ipanema we had some baked snacks at a cafe in Ipanema before walking around and grabbing a cheesy magnet. Luke also cleaned Nicola's dutty wine bag
Saturday 13th January - Day 466
The sunny weather had changed quite dramatically with an impending storm hitting later in the day. We had more or less run out of Rio activities so this didn’t bother us all that much and for the morning went to the Botanical Garden of Rio de Janeiro.
What should have been an easy bus to the gardens, ended up being a much more confusing and strange event as a minibus stopped and made us get in. They confirmed they were going to the gardens and we could even pay by Riocard but it was a very odd experience, the driver and assistant laughing quite a lot based on our blank confused expressions whenever they spoke Portuguese to us and the driver even started randomly filming us. All this while the driver ran every red light that he approached.
The minivan dropped us off a healthy walk away from the gardens as well but we got there in the end safe and sound.
The gardens cost R$73 each in cash only and we had a much calmer few hours strolling around.
There were plenty of monkeys running around as well.
The gardens had a number of greenhouse areas housing orchids and other plants.
Ultimately the best views were in the open, the juicy Brazilian climate really helping the garden pop.
One of the more interesting parts was a small beehive section that had a number of different species in each hidey hole.
It did rain a fair amount while we walked around but it ended up being quite pleasant compared to the prior day's heat and sun.
Retreating back to the airbnb we managed to get the actual bus back we expected on the way out.
Luke chose a nearby falafel food bar for lunch which took his fancy and Nicola didn’t enjoy much. Luke would perhaps regret his choice after Nicola became an egg machine, blaming the array of pickled veg she had just consumed.
We had a very slow afternoon and evening not doing a whole lot as the weather got worse and a storm hit overnight.
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