One thing about travelling is that you get to learn things that you never thought about before. For example, I never thought about the name of this city or why it was called January River. Our tour guide explained that the city got it's name because it was 'discovered' by the Europeans on January 1st . They also mistook the wide bay for a river (which it is not).
We arrived in Rio (pronounced He owe) under overcast skies and warm temperatures. As a result, these pictures are not going to look like the nice, blue picture postcards that you will see in the guide books.
The first stop on my city tour was to Maracana stadium. This 125,000 seat soccer stadium has hosted the World Cup and it is preparing to host the games again in 2014. In the lobby, you can see the footprints from some of the sports most famous players, like Pele.
What are the chances that I could leave Toronto, travel thousands of miles to the other side of the world, visit a Samba dance school and run into someone from the neighborhood? Pretty good actually. Meet Allen from Scarborough!
Like most places in South America, Rio has a big poverty problem. You can see the favelas (slums) running up all the hills and mountain sides. What is totally weird about all this is that right across the street (and I do mean right across the street) are multi-million dollar mansions! On our drive up to the Christ statue, we drove up one street that had all mansions on the right side and all slums on the left. Unreal!
For some reason, I expected the Christ the Redeemer statue to be bigger. It was large, but it wasn't the humongous monument that I thought it would be. I also didn't expect there to be a very, very small chapel at the back of the statue.
Word to the wise – if you are planning to make a visit to Christ the Redeemer or Sugarloaf mountain, then use a tour guide. Usually I explore a place on my own, but I wouldn't recommend it here unless you love spending hours and hours waiting in the hot sun. Buses, elevators and escalators have replaced steps for getting up and down to these two sites. Tour groups have priority over regular tourists. We didn't have stand in line so we were able to bypass the hundreds and hundreds of people waiting to get in. As a result, we didn't have to wait for more than one minute to get into either of these attractions.
However, it was a zoo when we got to the top. Everyone was pushing and shoving to get their picture taken with Christ in the background. Helicopters buzz by you as those with lots of money take flights over the statue. Here's what Rio looks like from the statue. That's Sugarloaf mountain in the top left hand corner of the photo.
Rio is famous for it's beaches and here is what Copacabana looks like on a hot Saturday afternoon during summer holidays. Not what you expected huh? Where are the people? Where are the skimpy bathing suits? We practically had the beach to ourselves.
Ipanema beach had a few more people, but it still wasn't awash with beautiful people in tight speedos. One of my friends did see a bunch of babes go by in little more than string, but they were models advertising a beer product. As I walked up and down the beach all I saw were regular people in regular swimsuits. Now I will admit, I saw fewer pregnant men and fewer women overflowing their sandals than on other beaches. But it appears that the scantily clad super models that you see in the vacation ads are just that – models.
Another thing that I found disarming was the temperature of the water. While I didn't expect it to be as hot as bath water, I was surprised to find that it was rather chilly. In fact, even though it was hot (
One thing that is true about the beach area is that it has beautiful mosaic stonework. This wave design runs all along the beach front.
After looking at the beach, we boarded a gondola and headed to the top of Sugarloaf mountain. You actually have to ride two gondolas to get all the way to the top. Just like at Christ the Redeemer, we bypassed the line and went straight to the top.
From this photo, you can really see how the city snakes it's way around the mountains.
Later that evening, a samba group came onboard the ship and put on a samba show for us. There were very few empty seats at this show!
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