Sunny Brazil: Rio de Janeiro

After a few days spent in Cabo Frio, Sven and I left for our next target: Rio de Janeiro (or simply, "Rio"). The city everybody thinks of when you talk about Brazil: Samba, Sugar Loaf, Copacabana and Ipanema, Favelas and Drugs, Carnival and Plastic Surgery, and all watched by Christ the Redeemer. Cidade maravilhosa (Marvelous city), how its known, where beauty and chaos meet and the result is a unique sort of people, that are either loved or hated by other brazilians! For our German readers: It is the same with Berlin. Everybody outside of it hates it and is complaining about, but the people living there think it is special. But in the case of Rio this is really true!

It used to be the capital of Brazil for about two centuries until Brasilia was built a few decades ago. It's where one of the prettiest carnivals at the Marquês de Sapucaí take place, the beautiful new years fireworks at the Copacabana Beach happen and where Bossa Nova was created.

Coming from the direction of Niterói, we crossed the Rio-Niterói Bridge and from there we could have a blick on what would be ahead of us:

Ponte Rio-Niterói

Arriving at the city bus station, we took a cab to the hostel located at the Ipanema area, one of the best neighbourhoods in Rio. After checking in, we walked directly to the beach. And there at Praia de Ipanema, you can clearly see who's brazilian and who's a gringo (foreigner)!

                      the brazilian                            the "gringo" (obs: with tennis shoes)

Praia de Ipanema

For the next day, we booked a city tour with the hostel people that picked us up early in the morning and the first stop was at the Praia Vermelha ("Red beach") were the guy parked the van and we could hike half of the way up to the famous Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf). At the Sugarloaf, there are basically two mountains and the first one you can go up walking, although most of people prefer taking the cable car. The second part is not possible to be rached without taking the cable car! :)

So you can have an idea, the Sugarloaf's two mountains

    

             Praia Vermelha                Going up on the mountain 

                                                  (a danish belonged to the group)

A stop to drink some water before taking the 

cable car to the second mountain

View from up there: the beaches, Corcovado (Christ the 

Redeemer) and the Guanabara Bay at the right corner

After going down, we went back to the van and the guy drove us around the city center and the Lapa neighbourhood, in which the famous arches (an aqueduct) can be seen:

Arcos da Lapa and the cathedral in the back (the pyramid) 

At the Lapa neighbourhood, the tour guide took us to see the Escadaria Selarón, a world famous set of steps decorated with tiles of all kinds by a chilenian (Jorge Selarón) that decided to make a tribute to the brazilian people. There are tiles from everywhere and we found some from germany as well!

Escadaria Selarón

From the Escadaria Selarón, the guide drove us in the direction of the Christ the Redeemer. In the way to it, we could see one of the famous trams, popular known as the Bonde de Santa Tereza. It was so full that I was happy to be comfy inside of the van with air conditioning!

Parking the car just behind the Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor), Sven met his good friend, the monkey that didn't feel like sharing his banana with him! 

Cristo Redentor

View of Ipanema and Leblon neighbourhoods 
and the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon

View of the Sugarloaf and the Guanabara Bay

The next day we visited other sightseeings around the city, including the beautiful Botanic Garden (Jardim Botânico) which makes you feel like spending hours just by contemplating it!

Sven discovered a new fruit: the "jaca" 

Walking around the Copacabana neighbourhood, we saw one of the many slums of Rio. To be honest, everybody talks a lot about the city violence and we had quite a nice time there, not having to be obsessed with security. I guess you just need to know where to go and where not to go and also keep your belongings closer to you always, not showing cameras off and other stuff too much. With those things in mind, I think it's quite ok, like any other big city.

Favela

Praia de Copacabana

Walking back to the hostel, a quick stop for a 

picture at Ipanema Beach in the evening

After three great days in Rio de Janeiro, it was already time to go back to Belo Horizonte, and we took the bus back for another 10-hour journey. Although long, it was quite comfy!  

If you would like to see a bit more of Rio, there's a small video, I hope you can enjoy it!

Sunny Brazil: Cabo Frio

Olá amigos,

this time I have been condemned to write the next post about Brazil. The second visit to BH (Dec 2008) we decided to take a beach holiday and have a look at the most famous city of Brazil. So we first went from BH to Cabo Frio, a small beach front city almost 600km south from BH. Although my Portuguese book says that distances around 500km are still seen as short range.

We took one of the long range buses, comparable to the ones Germans use to go to Lorett de Mar in Spain. You don't have trains in Brazil, as the automotive industry had already to much influence on the government when the decision was made. Nevertheless the trip is quite comfy, at least as long the bus driver did not switch off the air condition during the night, just a little bit long with around 10 hours. But it was worth the ride...

These are the views from our flat from the morning to evening. 

Cabo Frio (Cold Cape, in English) itself is a 190.000 inhabitant town situated at the state of Rio de Janeiro. It’s a famous get away for lots of people, especially the ones coming from Minas Gerais (that, in most cases, own flats there), during summer time and long holidays. Additionally it is said that during these times, half of Minas Gerais is in Cabo Frio and it is easier to meet someone from BH there than in the City. Therefore, it’s one of these places where it can be quite empty with the lack of visitors during the low season. 


There are nine beaches in Cabo Frio but the main one is called Forte Beach (praia do Forte), named after the fort (Forte de São Mateus) situated in the north rock, built by the Portuguese in 1616 to defend themselves from the French, English and Dutch, that sought pau-brasil, a very desired kind of tree at the time (“Brazil” is named after this species of tree). Anyways, the Forte Beach has 4 km of clean white sand and the ocean water is reaaaally cold! 

Forte Beach - The promenade in the evening

 it was also Christmas time!

Forte de São Mateus

The neighbour village is called Arraial do Cabo and some of the beaches are even prettier than the ones at Cabo Frio. We took the bus and were there in no time. It’s great to spend the day, there were not many tourists when we’ve been there, so we could enjoy the quietness, Sven could enjoy the peace by reading a book and Mitza by trying to get a tan. We enjoyed the opportunity to eat a delicious meal: Fish and chips! Sorry, but this is much better than the ones made in London! :)

Hmmm, Coconut water!

Yachting in Brazil

Fish and Chips, Brazilian style!

"Buggy" - a typical beach car - look at the seats!

 (As soon as the owner noticed that I took a picture he tried to sell it to me!)

After spending a few lovely days in Cabo Frio and region, we headed south, to Rio de Janeiro (city), which you can read about on our next post!

Back to the future

Oi mates,

although folks seem to like posts about past holidays in Brazil more, I will still interrupt the flow and post something about London again. Probably my former Portuguese teacher was right, that Brazilians are sometimes are like (average) Americans and are not so fond of looking beyond there own great country? Lets see if I can provoke some reactions with my bold statement! :)

As all mega-cities London is fighting against traffic congestion in general and pollution in particular, employing hybrid buses, promoting commuting by bike by the introduction of "cycle superhighways" and short term rent bike stations, and the creation of a congestion zone, where you have to pay an extra fee when entering. 

Another weapon used against fuel waste is the G-Wiz electric car:

Source: http://www.thegreencarwebsite.co.uk/blog/index.php/2011/10/06/g-wiz-founder-wins-energy-and-environment-award/

Boy is this car ugly. And no, the picture is not somehow deformed, the car really looks like this! So with all the advantages it might offer in the city, like public chargers over London, it is still no ride to impress in front of your favorite night club. Here in Stratford they probably would chop of the roof and make a supermarket cart out of it! Although the shopping trolley we got lately offers more loading capacity... 

But, don't worry you environmental-friendly pimp, a solution is on the way: The electric Mini - Hummer!

Sorry for the low quality, but just had my mobile with me, and due to my long working hours *ahem* it was already dark, but we are also addressing this issue. But anyways, the company offers MEV offers 2 more versions, one more ridiculous than the other! I did not find out if they are allowed to go on the normal road, I just hope this is not the design of our future mobility!