Rio de Janeiro - Day 2

This morning started off early with toast for breakfast, meeting our tour guide Neyla and then heading off for our first stop, Christ the Redeemer. When we were heading up there, via the tram service, it looked very cloudy and not too impressive but, when we did get up there the cloud had miraculously disappeared. Also while we were up there we saw the bays bellow and some of the country clubs littered around further inland, it had great views and even when the cloud was there we could see the statue. These are the photos we took,some are cheesy, I know.

This is Copocobana Beach which has lots of volleyball nets, exercise stations, underground changing rooms and sand castles which people build for a living

Christ the Redeemer Statue

Next we headed off to the Maracana Football Stadium to take some photos.  It seats 100,000 people and also hosted the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics,  Then we went on to the very multi-functional runway that is used for Carnaval one of the biggest annual celebrations in Brazil. In the "Off Season" it can be used as a set of classrooms (inside the hollow stands), corporate offices, the list goes on. While we were there we dressed up in typical costumes worn by parade goers, mine was reminiscent of a glittery Uncle Sam, mum's was just gold and glittery and dad's was... I don't know what to call it, you can decide for yourself. Anyway, here are the photos of that excursion.

We then moved on to the Santa Teresa artisan area where we stopped in at a big mansion previously owned by a high society and then an art collector which gave us views of the harbor, bridge and monkeys in the trees above us. We ate traditional cheese bread balls which were delicious and I had a bowl of frozen acai sorbet (which is an amazon rainforest berry full of antioxidants).

Also in this town area were the Escadaria Selaron steps which are famously covered in tiles due to an old man wanting to bring colour to the neighborhood (the other main attraction in Santa Teresa area is the half-hourly tram service the runs around the small town.). Here are the photos we took.

Lunch

Driving down to our next stop we stopped and looked at an optical illusion in a building directly opposite us making a hole in the building look like a cross or a t, if we looked just to the left of it we could see Christ the Redeemer with his arms out in, you guessed it a cross. After a few minutes of driving we reached our next stop. the Metropolitan Cathedral or the Cathedral of St. Sebastian. We went inside and looked at all of the stained glass and then the concrete exterior making it look like a fortress before moving on deeper into downtown Rio.  Here is what we saw.

We walked around downtown Rio stopping in a few open squares before making our way into Confeitaria Colombo (a very old cafe with the interior kept in the same style.) where we ordered some pastries both savory and sweet, thanks to Neyla's connections there were no lines of waiting for us. It was very nice food and it only seemed fitting we walk it off, on our way back to the car we passed through some busy flea markets selling souvenirs and pretty much anything else under the sun. Here are the photos of downtown and the old fashioned cafe.

Colombo Cafe Break

Next was Sugarloaf Mountain. You might have seen it in a James Bond movie where there was a big fight scene on top of the cable car,  We started at the bottom, got tickets to go up the top (My ticket had to be an adult one as I had no Student I.D even though to get an adult ticket you had to be 22 years old, I took it as a compliment). The cable car system was in two parts, from the the ground to the midway point, then from there to Sugarloaf Mountain. Both were fast and at the midway point we were shocked to discover the first type of cable car used to scale the mountain was small and wooden with no windows. Something I wouldn't dare ride. After we took some photos (below) we headed back down and made our way back to the hotel.

View of Copocobana beach

View of Ipanema

It was an amazing day of sightseeing which I didn't expect. If you are ever in Rio (unlikely I know but still) go to Neyla's TripAdviser page here: Link  A bit later we went downstairs to the restaurant on the ground floor of the hotel (Quiteria) which was very nice, headed up and here I am. Tomorrow we do a food tour of Rio de Janeiro which should be interesting, but, until then, goodbye.

Joseph Hewson