It was a long old slog getting to Rio – I
was picked up at 4am and dropped at La Paz airport, I was so early I was first
in the queue for the check in –my favourite place to be!! Love being first in
the queue.
My flight was heading via Santa Cruz in
Bolivia where I went through immigration but got back on the same plane to Sao
Paulo and then in Sao Paulo I had to pick up my bag and re check it for my
flight to Rio. I landed in Rio at 630pm
and they are only 2 hours difference from the UK so I had been travelling for
about 12 hours but I suppose that’s not bad considering I took 3 flights! Especially with the chaos at Santa Cruz
airport – they had 3 international flights leaving from the same gate within 10
minutes of each other! I don’t know much
about how airlines work but even Easyjet can’t turn their planes around that
fast! So South American chaos reigned! I have learned you just have to be
patient!
My experience at Sao Paulo was better than my
first experience at the start of my trip but I still got sent into the wrong
queues a couple of times – very frustrating but if I can’t speak their language
what can I expect?!
Once landed in Rio I tried to get a hold of
Mark to make sure he was at the apartment to let me in and help me with my bag,
eventually he called me back and was in the beer shack on the beach (of course
that’s where he was!).
So I got settled in – the apartment is tiny
but is literally one building and a bar away from Copacabana beach – perfect!
We went off to the beach and from the 29th
December until 1st January it’s the Festival of the Goddess of the
Sea – you are supposed to throw a white flower into the water and thank the
Goddess for everything she gave you this year and ask for what you need for the
next.
Here is a pic of me with the statue – am I
really small or is she REALLY big?
We had a couple of beers and a paddle in
the water – it certainly didn’t feel like a warm bath but I imagine during the
day its warmer with the 40 degree sun belting down on you and the water. The waves were huge too, perfect surfing
waves. Mark said there were loads of
surf dudes out earlier struggling with the waves.
Here is a pic of the beach – its dark so
you can’t really see. It certainly won't be this quiet on 31st !!
We were booked on a tour on 30th
Dec so headed off at 8am so a nice early start!
We started at Sugar Loaf Mountain and got
the cable car up to one platform then another cable car to the other. It was quite smoggy in the city so you couldn’t
really see Christ the Redeemer statue in the distance.
It was quite busy with lots of people but
the good thing about being part of a tour group was we were fast tracked for
the cable cars so didn’t have to wait much.
There were a lot of us in the group though which can be a pain in the
arse as the guide tries to keep us all together so lots of shouting from him in
English and Spanish.
Once down from the mountain we had a bit of
a tour of the city but the traffic was soooo bad it took us so long to get
around it was hard to stay away – I think me and Mark both slept through the
Lapa tour which was the area we wanted to see!
After lunch we headed off to get the train
up to Corcovado Mountain which the Mountain that the big Christ statue sits at
the top of. The train goes steadily up
the steep hill through the Tijuana Jungle which is the biggest jungle in a city
in the world. There are monkeys etc in
the jungle but we didn’t see any jungle wildlife just plenty of tourists.
O M G…. this place was like Disney!! It was rammed packed full of tourists. Once you get off the train you can take the
lift but the queue for it was huge and I didn’t really want to walk up all the
stairs to the top as all I have done for the last 3 weeks is walk up hill but
off we went up the stairs being unwilling to wait for the lift.
Once at the top, it was just mental – a
pick pockets paradise! It was HEAVING
with people lying on the floor trying to
get pics of their loved ones and Christ in the same pic! People stepping over them or falling over
them! I hate shit like that and had to
go and find a space where I wasn’t being constantly jostled. We only had about 45 minutes up there before
we had to get back down to get the 5pm train.
It may be a huge statue of Christ but it
wasn’t a spiritual place – we had visited the modern cathedral in the morning
too and that felt the same – too many tourists have passed through that any
spirit has been swept away or just trampled on.
I felt like I was just ticking a box by being there, it really didn’t
mean anything more than that which is a shame – I have seen that Statue in so
many photos and it’s the symbol used on the news if there is a story about Rio
but it’s a bit like the Taj Mahal – amazing looking in photos but just a big
Disney attraction in real life – they would be as well sticking some Mickey
Mouse ears on the statue!!!
I will upload the picture of me and Jesus later - having stupid wifi issues and its costing a $real for every minute I fart about!!
One of the tourists on the bus asked one of
the guides what New Years Eve was going to be like on Copacabana beach and she
said “It will be one big mess”
Brilliant!!! Apparently there are 4 big stages with Brazilian music and
they are expecting more than the 2 million people that attended last year and
if the traffic out there is anything to go by there is about 3 million people
here getting ready for the party!!!
Tomorrow night is going to be an absolute
blast! Will let you know all about it
on the 1st! (well that is if I can get some Wifi - who would have thought Wifi at Macchu Piccu was easier than Copacabana beach!!
suzxxx
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