Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America

I woke up this morning and had a look outside to find that it was an absolutely perfect day! There was not a cloud in the sky, which is exactly what I was hoping for. I text Becky and she was very keen to go see Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer today, so we agreed to meet at 10am. I also got a text from Madalena saying that since it was such a perfect day, she wanted to come along to Sugarloaf, even though she had been a couple of weeks ago.

I got the metro down to Flamengo station and met both of the girls outside the station at 10am. We hopped in a taxi and got to the base of Sugarloaf by about 10:30am. I was thrilled to see that there was no line at all to get tickets. On such a beautiful day I expected it to be a lot busier, but I certainly wasn’t complaining. I was even happier when I saw the number of zig zag lines they have set up, so it shows just how busy this place gets sometimes. It was perfect timing for us.

We grabbed our tickets and just had to wait a few minutes to get the cable car up to Urca hill, which is half way up to Sugarloaf. It’s a nice big cable car that can supposedly fit 65 people, but that would be a very very tight squeeze. We had about 25 people, so it wasn’t so bad. The only annoying this was a group of Russian guys were on the cable car and they were so rude. They kept pushing people out of the way so they could take selfies and get to the window. I hate it when people are so rude. There’s just no need for it.

We got up to Urca and I was very impressed with how nice it was. It looks like quite a new tourist attraction that’s been built here. I’m not sure when this was built, but they certainly do a good job of keeping it up. The view from Urca was pretty impressive, so I was pretty excited to get up to Sugarloaf and see what it was like from the top. We saw that there was about twenty minutes to wait for the next cable car to the top of Sugarloaf, and the Russian guys were all in the line for it, so we decided to get an acai while we waited for the next cable car. I’m absolutely addicted to acai now. It’s so ridiculously expensive everywhere in the world except for in Brazil, so I’ve been taking full advantage and I’m eating as much of it as possible while I’m here.

We finished our acai and headed up to Sugarloaf on a cable car with no Russians in it. Very nice. We got to the top, went down to the viewing platform, and the view was stunning. You could see right down to Copacabana and Ipanema beach, across the whole city, and over to the airport on the east side of the city. And we could not have asked for a better day. I feel so lucky because I have a few friends who came here and had rain almost the whole time they were in Rio, or so many clouds that they couldn’t properly see any view from Sugarloaf. We were up there for about a half hour taking pictures and enjoying the view and the peacefulness of being out of the big city. The fact that there were so few people up there was really nice too. I can imagine that this wouldn’t be so relaxing if it was full of people all trying to push their way to the balcony to take pictures.

We headed back down on both cable cars and got a taxi back to the metro station. Instead of going back to Flamengo, we got off a Largo do Machado, and Madalena pointed us in the direction of the ticket office for Christ the Redeemer. This is the metro station that is just a four minute walk from my apartment, so I knew where I was, but I had no idea that you could get to Christo from here. There was a little temporary ticket office that was set up in front of the church and it was R$53 for the admission to Christo and the van ride up there. This was a pretty good deal considering it was R$61 to get up to Sugarloaf, and Christo is about twice as high. It was about a half hour ride up to the top of the mountain, and it was really high. I couldn’t believe how high it was when we got off there.

We walked up the stairs to Christo and while he was very impressive, at about 90ft high, I was much more impressed with the view of the city. We also got lucky up here that there weren’t too many people at the top. You still had to push your way to the edge for the best view, but it was nothing compared to Iguazu Falls, so I was thrilled. The view was absolutely spectacular from the top. Becky and I stayed at the top for about a half hour, checked out the view from all sides, saw the chapel underneath the statue, and then headed back down in a van.

We got back down to Largo do Machado and went to a nearby cafe called Rico’s for lunch. Since this is only Becky’s second day here in Brazil, she went up and ordered the food as a way to get used to how they do things here. It’s a little different because you go up to a cash register, order and pay for your food, and then give your receipt to someone at the counter who then fills your order. We both got our feijoada meals and some cold drinks and relaxed a bit after a pretty busy morning.

Becky and I split up after lunch and I came back tot he apartment to chill in the A/C for the hottest part of the day. At about 4pm I went down to Flamengo beach to see what it was like, and it was not very nice. It is only about a block away from my apartment, so I was hoping it would be a nice place I could come hang out, but it’s really not. It’s very small, and really busy, so not the right place for me. I’ve spent the rest of the night hanging out here at the apartment, and tomorrow I’m going to go on another free walking tour of the city, but in downtown and Lapa. Fingers crossed I get another nice day like today!