Tag: Ipanema

A Day of Tourism

On our final day in Brazil, Peter and I felt that we should ‘see the sights’. We didn’t want to leave Brazil without a taste of the experiences most people come here for, although we had been a little bit preoccupied with Carnival for the entire week. As it had been very cloudy, it was our final, and only, chance to head up to the Christ the Redeemer statue which towers over Rio de Janeiro. We caught the bus to the bottom of the mountain and luckily ran into some people from our guest house to share a taxi with. We picked the best time of the day to head up, and although the clouds still covered everything we did manage to see the statue in full view for about five minutes before the clouds engulfed its torso. The thing is enormous! I really did not expect a statue of that size. It looks so small from down below! I do wonder why they didn’t just build it at a lower vantage point slightly smaller…at least it wouldn’t always be covered in a layer of clouds then? Maybe they just don’t want it to be clearly visible from the city so that they can charge an entry fee…

When we had seen enough of the cloud covered Christ, we continued our tourist adventure to Sugarloaf Mountain – accessed by a Gondola. At the top of the mountain are beautiful views of the entire city, and either the weather had begun to clear up or we were just a lot lower down, but we could see for miles. Up the top of the mountain was a little cluster of shops..not souvenirs as such but a shop selling jewelry and one selling Havaianas. This was a little strange.

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Later in the afternoon, we headed to Ipanema for one last look – I was adamant that we had to go to the ‘A Garota de Ipanema’ bar before we left Brazil, although it is a total tourist trap. This is the bar in which the song ‘Girl from Ipanema’ was written. The name has been changed to attract the tourists and everything on the menu was horribly overpriced but I was still glad we went and I happily sang the Girl from Ipanema under my breath the entire time that we were there.

For dinner, we had McDonald’s delivered…Peter and I figured that this could be considered a cultural experience because we had never heard of McDonald’s doing deliveries before. Does McDonald’s deliver where you are from? We don’t suggest it starts up in New Zealand as we waited an hour for our food and it was cold when it arrived.

Until Next Time,
Erika xx

Overwhelming Rio

After a long sleep in, we woke up just in time for dinner: tonight, we tried a ‘per-kilo’ buffet – an entirely new experience for me! The meal was charged at whatever the weight of your plate was once piled with food. I of course took this as a challenge to figure out which types of food would be the lightest, and to eat mostly these foods…

The next morning, we were entertained by the cat before we had even left the hostel. It went absolutely crazy, its eyes were rolling into  the back of its head and it was running into tables and everything. I think It has been drinking the spa water – poor thing. Other than the crazy cat show, our morning was incredibly unsuccessful. We attempted to find a pretty neighbourhood called Sant Theresa to walk around and have lunch at, but unfortunately got a little lost and ended up walking right into the outskirts of a favela (a brazilian slum). In case you did not know this, going anywhere near a slum in Brazil is probably not a good idea. After realising we had no idea how to walk around the favela, we headed into the center of town to visit the museum and art gallery – both of which were closed. At least we got the hang of the transport systems, had a great time seeing the city, and met a very friendly brazilian in a Robin Hood costume!

We spent the afternoon in Ipanema with some friends from the hostel. We visited the gorgeous beach, purchased souvineirs from the hippie market and gawked at the crazy costumed people walking around and the street party going on. I would recommend the neighbourhood of Ipanema to EVERYONE. After having a bit of a boogie and using up the last of our money, we were starving and needed to find an ATM. Unfortunately, this was more difficult than we thought it would be. Luckily, we found one when I was about to faint with starvation, and sat down to eat meat on a stick at a street stall, washed down with a cold beer. Trying to get home was a nightmare due to the street party, there was no way we were getting a taxi or a bus! So we walked home around the lake, which was a gorgeous walk but took us a bit over an hour. Oh well, what did we expect?? ITS CARNIVALE!! (can you tell I’m a tiny bit excited?).

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Until next time,
Erika xx