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Visiting Brazil 7
Visiting Rio de Janeiro (in the state of Rio de Janeiro)
Rio de Janeiro
What did I know about Brazil up until a few years ago without ever having learned or studied more than what I remember from sophomore geography than its 1) name, 2) location, 3) it had the Amazon River & was covered with jungles (I thought), 4) lots of its forests were being cut down in the past decades which was said to cause air/ozone damage (forests?? I thought it was all jungles.), 5) that it was the only Portuguese-speaking country in South America, & 6) the "Jesus statue" was in Rio de Janeiro.
But hopefully if you've gotten this far in this Visiting Brazil series of my photographic letter, you, too, will have had an enjoyable way to expand your view of some of our neighbors to the south, & can also visit someday :), especially, if you have a connection of knowing someone who lives in this (or any) foreign country.
Arriving "after dark" is not first choice, but our son had been here before, so he knew the layout, & the hotel was booked. It was Easter weekend & he had a 4-day weekend. Flying Wed. night was the best for time efficiency.
Out the window of our hotel (inside the block) ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ One thing I LOVED about your room key is that you need it as a security in order to use the elevator. What a tremendous idea! I hope that the U.S. "elevator" buildings will catch on to this. ----->
<---Hotel posters of popular excursions ~ hopefully all the young people who come have researched to have an itinerary before they get here.
A sand castle - a bit of a blur, but it was at 30-40 mph!
Copacabana (& Ipanema) Beaches
With a granola bar or something packed in our bag for breakfast, along with bottled water we could buy in the hotel lobby the night before, we were headed off on our son's itinerary for our day. And what surprises because very rarely have I ever traveled without having spent loads of research time as to where we'd go, what we'd stop to see, & why it was important. Therefore, I knew about some history of all the places ahead of time. But before this trip, I only had some photos in mind from the past 3 years which our son sent by text.
So to realize Copacabana & Ipanema Beaches were HERE was a surprise! So why were those names familiar? Because of Frank Sinatra singing songs about both them (& the Copacabana nightclub in New York City) ~ ~ ~ "The Girl from Ipanema," (not to be confused with the WWII island of Iwo Jima).
P.S. If you don't know who Frank Sinatra was . . . well, today you've got Youtube.com :) . . . history at the touch of a button! Wow, because that "encyclopedia" even comes with moving pictures & sound!! What more could you ask for?!?
Getting our bearings w/a map!
If you're OLD SCHOOL like me, I was so thankful during a guided tour of the Christ the Redeemer Statue & Sugar Loaf Mountain, when on a sidewalk a tourist office person was handing out Rio city maps! Turns out they're no cost. I took one back to the hotel (who had no maps when I asked the first night) & advised them to always have some on hand for tourists. They were familiar with them, free & all, but had none! I did some internet research on my cell of places to see & wanted to know the locations so, by an Uber, we'd go in a linear line for time & $ efficiency. Now with a map, I could see the entire city & get directional bearings in my head.
<--- Left & below left, you have the layout of Rio which goes north/south along the left side of a bay, while the beach area is along the Atlantic. Our hotel was in the Copacabana area (lower left & #1 on the 3rd map below), 2 blocks from the beach, a grocery store, McD's, a bakery, & a pickup point for a guided tour. The airport juts out in the upper right, just below that island. (30-minute, $10 Uber ride to the hotel.) Closeup #4 on map, below right.
Our 1st day, Easter/Holy Thursday, included #s 6 (steps) & 7 (cathedral) on the map, below right, along with the slave market site, library, Colombo's lunch, & an inner city trolley (between #6-7) which disappointingly closed early by an hour! We saw dozens of people also surprised as we sat & wandered what to do next.
On Good Friday we went to #s 2 & 5. I wanted to see at least a couple churches. There were so many!
Also on the map, lower right, on Holy Saturday forenoon, there wasn't a soul throughout the downtown streets until we got to the #1 Aquarium (Uber $9.40; admission $20 each), walked southeast along the mural boulevard, went to #3 the History Museum (Uber $3.40; Admission: They asked, "English?" We said, "Yes." They smiled & said, "No cost!."), & then to a Lebanese restaurant (Uber $5.80; dinner $20 each).
(Scroll down to the 3rd-horizontal map to continue.)
Used to traveling on our own without a travel guide, our son advised us of the value of going to the "Jesus Statue" and Sugar Loaf Mountain on a "booked tour," & what a blessing that turned out to be (even if $110/person). It was Good Friday ~ if that even made a difference to most tourists, but rain was forecast from noon on, and our son said that when rain is forecast in Brazil, you can bet it will happen (which it did). Also, the seasons are reversed from the U.S., so summer has ended & late March-May is generally the rainy season.
First of all, our pickup point, of 4 stops, was at 7:15 a.m. which was great in order to get as early of a start as possible because you're planning to be at the two highest elevation points in this area, and forecasting rain means cloud cover! (More of that as we travel to these 2 places.) Also, the benefits of a guide were 1) getting your tickets (about $30/pp for each place) which meant no standing/waiting in lines (remember, 80° temps), 2) being able to get to the head of lines for elevators, cable cars, etc., 3) not having to walk from Uber/taxi drop-off points, 4) having "tour guide commentary/info" as we traveled by/to places, 5) & a few other pluses. So the convenience was definitely worth it for my physical well-being & challenges of walking these days!
The route was #1 hotel area, #3 Christ the Redeemer, #4 Sugar Loaf Mountain, #2 a car tunnel, #1 hotel area.
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