Rio de Janeiro was quite exciting - long post!

Ruhy and I arrived in Rio de Janeiro on Monday night, after a short hour and a half flight. The flight was originally supposed to be over two hours, but I'm not going to complain that it was so short. We went to the hostel in Copacabana, which was a completely different experience from the Timbó Posada in Argentina. First, you could feel that it was a business as the people at the reception were not very nice--or they were overly friendly. Secondly, when your bed is next to the only female bathroom in the entire building, you don't get very much sleep.

However, one good thing about the hostel you meet a lot of people from all over world. In our room the first night, there was a woman from Argentina, one from the New Hampshire, and two Brazilians. We eventually met people from Venezuela, Ecuador, Israel, Germany, and a lot a lot of Colombians. It certainly was a mix of cultures and languages. I remember having to say the same thing three times in Spanish, Portuguese, and English for people to understand.

Day 1 - Tuesday
The first day we were planning to go to the center of the city and to the Christ the Redeemer statue in the afternoon. But since it was a beautiful day in the morning, we decided to go to the Christ statue first. We waited in line for about half an hour only to realize that the train that we needed to take to the top of the mountain wasn't for another two hours. Of course, to pass the time, we went to look for food (what else, really?). We found a churrascaria close by, and we ate there. All I can say about that place is that don't judge a restaurant by its looks from the outside. Between Ruhy and me, we probably ate twice our weight in meat, so it was a good thing we walked a lot afterward! Eventually, it was our train up to the statue, and we took way too many touristy pictures there.

View of Rio de Janeiro from the Statue of Christ the Redeemer

Christ the Redeemer

After exploring the Christ statue, we headed to the center of town and walked around the little streets. There were way too many cafés/confeitarias, and we legitimately wanted to stop in every single one. After taking the afternoon cafezinho, we walked tried to find the famous Praça XV de Novembro in Rio de Janeiro. At the time, I didn't know what it was, but I thought it was really cool since the Lonely Planet book kept on mentioning Praça XV. I later found out that it was the plaza where the two emperors of Brasil were crowned. In Rio, there are police officers on nearly every block, so I literally asked the officer(s) on every corner "onde está praça quinze?" I don't think any of them knew where the plaza was because I kept on getting different directions each time.

Very accurately sums up the city of Rio de Janeiro --
fruit stands and police on every corner

In the end, we gave up and found ourselves by the port of Rio. We saw that there were boat trips (in reality they were ferries to bring people to/from work) for R$3 and really wanted to go. However, it was 16:57 and people were legitimately running to the port. We thought about what Paraguay being dangerous after 15:00 and decided it was probably best to go home.

At the hostel we met up with Natalia and began to plan what to do the next day. Unfortunately the weather forecast predicted rain all day, and therefore we had to plan accordingly. As a side note, finding (touristy) things to do in Rio de Janeiro is very difficult, and we spent two hours searching for things to do without any real success.

Day 2 - Wednesday
We originally were going to go to the lake located in the middle of the city but decided that it wasn't worth it if it would be raining all day. So instead, we found a tour of several favelas. Going to favelas was one thing that I really wanted to do in Rio de Janeiro as it pertains to what I'm studying, and I wanted to see first hand what it was like. Unfortunately the tour that we went on was designed for people who had no clue of what a favela was (and in my opinion, had never seen poverty before). The people on the tour were rich Europeans. Anyway, we only went to the outside of Rochinha, one of the largest favelas in Rio and walked inside another that had been pacified, meaning that the government is taking an active part in improving conditions there.

Favela Rochinha

The tour as a whole was an interesting experience. I can't say that I learned too much after those three hours of bizarre and completely unrelated questions, but it did give me another perspective on favelas. I didn't realize that there was such a sense of community in the favelas. I'm sure that this isn't the case with all favelas--many of Rio's 950 favelas are still run by drug gangs or the militia, and the tour obviously was designed to shed light on the misconception that all favelas are slums without any electricity, water, etc. After visiting the favelas, I think that given the current situation, there is no way to remove them from the city. The only way is to integrate them and help the favelas develop infrastructure in order for the city to prosper.

Ruhy and me at the Corinthians x Flamengo
game

At night, we went to a Flamengo versus Corinthians football game at Estádio Olímpico João Havelange, the stadium where the 2016 Olympics will be held. They say that normally games are held at Estádio Maracaná, but it's under renovation now in preparation for the 2014 World Cup. For me, I was rooting for Corinthians, but I didn't want to show it there, since all of the Flamengo fans were so scary. For those who don't know, the Flamengo-Corinthians rivalry is equivalent to the Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. I now know why they don't serve alcohol at many football games in Brazil. So I just sat quietly in my seat, quietly cheering every time Corinthians scored a goal. The score was 3-0 Corinthians.




Day 3 - Thursday
On Thursday, we tried to go to the famous "Escadaria Selarón," a tiled-stair case made by a Chilean dedicated to Brasil in Rio, but didn't end up finding it. So we went to the center of the city to find "Confeitaria Colombo," a cafe that, as Natalia said, "we must have to go to." Unfortunately, it was packed, so we kept on walking around the center and found a Starbucks, where we just lounged for the rest of the afternoon. After enjoying a nice hot mocha, something I hadn't had in weeks/months, we went to the dock and just relaxed there, watching the boats pass by. As the day was clearing, we decided to head back to the beach in Copacabana and just relax there.

Day 4 - Friday
Friday was the first and only day when the weather was clear all day. That meant that we must had to go to "Pão de Açúcar," otherwise known as "Sugarloaf" in English. It is a famous hill in Rio de Janeiro where you take cable cars to the top of the mountain and can have a great view of the entire city. Like the waterfalls of Iguazu, you just need to see the pictures (below).

View of Rio from Pão de Açúcar with cable car

View of Rio de Janeiro from Pão de Açúcar

Pão de Açúcar

Since we were again economizing and didn't want to pay more money to stay one more night in a not-so-great hostel, we took a 2:30 bus from Rio de Janeiro to São Paulo. However, since we didn't need to be at the bus station until 2 in the morning, we decided to go to Lapa, where Carnaval is held, and stay there until it was time to head to the bus station. We had gone there on Thursday, but it didn't seem that exciting. However, on Friday night, it seemed as if the entire city was there and ready to have fun. There were people of all ages, children included, in the streets eating, drinking, and dancing.

Despite the unfavorable weather, Rio de Janeiro is a beautiful city that I would very much like to go back to and get to know better. The culture in Rio is completely different than the culture in the south of Brazil. That being said, I'm also really glad that I was first in Joinville because it's a quieter city in which the people only speak Portuguese. If I had gone directly to Rio, I probably would have been lost, and might not have picked up Portugese as quickly as I did in Santa Catarina. I guess now I'm ready to tackle the North of Brasil!