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!