Thusday, Sept 23 - Exploring Rio de Janeiro with Delores!

I was just going to sleep last night when Bob found “30 Rock” on TV so I had to stay up! Managed to get up at 7:30 this morning and stumbled down to good coffee, fresh bread, guava jam, fruit and yogurt. The marmosets didn’t show up, however, which was a disappointment, but considering my mishaps with monkeys in the past it was just as well!


Delores showed up at 9:45 in a open topped VW buggy and we took off to tour the city. Rio consists of a large point of land with a convoluted, citified coast surrounding a large national park, in fact, the first national park in the world (really simply a watershed protector at the time; the park declaration came later- RRZ) . Emperor Pedro II, in 1880,realizing that the growing population of R de J wouldn’t have enough water shortly, bought out/pushed out the rich coffee growers that had covered all the mountains with plantations and re-vegetated them with native trees, so that wherever you are in this enormous city, you have views of forested mountains and views of beautiful coastline! Both the rich and the inhabitants of the favelas (slums) share incredible views.

we also passed by some of the famous and elaborate  grafiti!

We drove up through the park to a heliport pad from where we could see the statue of Christ high on a peak above us. From there we continued until we came to small car park where we had to board a bus to nearly the top of Corcovado peak. From there we took an elevator and two escalators and finally arrived at the foot of the famous statue. Previously one could drive up to the top which created a real log jam, so this complicated routing keeps things a bit more peaceful. Cristo Redentor is a very impressive statue, covered with a fine mosaic of stones from different parts of Brasil and with an arm spread of 30 meters. As Delores pointed out, there is no blood or pain depicted, just a peaceful embrace of the city below. It was formed on site with the head and hands manufactured elsewhere and somehow transported here and installed in 1931. The air had a marine haze so our views of the beautiful coastline weren’t as crisp as I would have liked for photography, but the whole scene was very impressive nevertheless.


We headed south and west through a 2.5 km tunnel - not great breathing air for an open car! - and eventually arrived at the Chinese Pagoda, a concrete structure painted to look like bamboo, from where you could see north to Ipanema beach. A sudden shift in the weather created a fog bank that swooped in and enveloped us - freezing! After a summer of fog in Santa Barbara, I expected hot tropical sun??

We arrived at the long expanse of famous southern beaches and the fog gradually lifted. You can arrive at the beach with nothing but a string bikini and a smile! There are people with beach chairs for rent, snack bars, umbrellas, towels for sale, everything! We were starving, and stopped at a beach shack and got tasty hot cheese and ham rolls and herby empanadas and fruit soda, and then cruised the beaches of Impanema and the even more beautiful Copacobana: a wide white beach backed by a palm-lined boulevard, big hotels and the national park mountains behind. The beaches are free and open to all and have a wonderful happy atmosphere. We passed by a bunch of rather snappy “minimum 4-hour” motels, around a bend and headed back into the city. Delores was very anxious that we not miss anything in the city and stopped by several lovely small cathedrals, a totally tiled, colorful stairway that an artist, Selaron, has been working or for 20 years (rather like the Watts Towers) and finally back to Santa Teresa and our hotel.                        Delores above!

We collapsed for a bit and then as it was five and we really hadn’t eaten much all day, headed across the street for another wonderful meal at Aprazivel. We arrived without a reservation, and managed to get a table, although we didn’t see another soul the two hours we were there. We started with the famous local rum drink: caipirinhas, rather like a mojito, but with a brandy-like rum, lots of lime and no mint. To go with that we ordered a bread basket for two: Wow! Herbed flat bread, cheese popovers, dark bread served with dishes of shell fish in vinaigrette, peppers in oil, and potted eggplant. Bob then had Uruguayan beef rump with shaved manioc with cheese, egg and corn and I had salt-crusted lamb with polenta, another bucket of beer, and finally, a hot chocolate molten cupcake with vanilla ice cream and almonds! We slowly staggered up the forty steps to the street and crossed the street to our bed!