Peru+Brazil Trip: Day 7: Part I - Rio de Janeiro - City Tour

Was forced to check in my backpack for this leg, but the cool thing was the luggage came out really quick - in fact, it was already on the belt by the time I got to the carousel. So all in all, so far the bag is still doing good :). My 3 purchases for the trip (bag, sleeping bag, jacket) all making its money's worth! Shortly after, was picked up by our tour guide a short bit after, and off we go!

First stop was to drop off our bags at the hotel and experiencing of Rio rush hour. This is definitely a city - cool part here was that the ambulance drove on the dotted line (and had room to)... with a train of motorcycles tailgating it. Too bad I didn't get a photo here, but it was a sight.

The tour has us hitting quite a few spots today:

Tijuca National Park
Saw a waterfall there - no where near Foz de Iguaçu but was able to try taking some silky waterfall photos. Hopefully they turned out nice.

Christ the Redeemer
This was actually inside Tijuca as it turns out. It was a pretty big statue, though for some reason I was expecting wayyy more here (like maybe some great photo poses where I can stand on its shoulder or something). The view from there is pretty nice - can see all of Rio from there - the slightly sucky part was that it was a hazy and cloudy day, so it wasn't super clear and sparkly the view.

Food
For lunch, we were taken to this place that had a very local feel to it. The food was alright there, nothing too special - 18 reais (includes what amounts to 300ml of beer). Perhaps as our living accommodations improve, our food quality goes down? :D...

Lapa steps
Saw the creator here and took a pic with him. He was dressed like Mario I thought, heh heh. The steps are pretty cool in that basically he did this for free - and the people let him! Actually, supposedly in St. Theresa, there is alot of artists and the graffiti on the walls are actually commissioned. I've heard this before but never actually seen it, but I have to admit, the graffiti is really pretty here.

Metropolitan Cathedral
Pretty nice in that from the outside, definitely didn't look like a church at all. Inside, their were a bunch of stain glass window strips that spanned all the way up to the ceiling. Not quite sure how to describe it other than it's definitely different.

After the cathedral, rain started happening, so no Sugar Loaf. Got the tour guide to take us to a local supermarket, where I stocked up on water. Then went back to hotel to take a nap, in preparation for the soccer match tonight.

Also at the beginning of the ride, we got a little background on the various places we went through such as Leblanc (which is the place for the super rich), Ipanema (where the famous beach is at - supposedly also posh), St. Theresa (oldest neighborhood in Rio), casual mention of a few favellas (though we didn't drive into them) and of course Copacabana (where we are staying). Supposedly the first 3 neighborhoods shouldn't be too bad, and actually, according to the tour guide, having good common sense (stay away from big crowds walking towards you, put away valuables from plain sight, not walk into non pacified favellas, be careful when in crowded areas) should mitigate most of the bad stories that people say about Rio. Hopefully it's true :D

One final note. This hotel apparently we have to pay for WiFi @ 30 cents a minute! Funny in some ways how we were pretty much always able to access WiFi during this trip at the various places I stayed at (or in Aguas Calientes, a few stores down by stealing signal from a restaurant) but the most baller hotel (of the set), WiFi is not complimentary. So the hunt for WiFi I guess begins tomolo.

Also need to see what there is to do the next two days. If the weather stays rainy, then means no beaches or Sugar Loaf... even with that, still have one more day to think of what to do... hmmmm..