Rio de Janeiro: Day Two

Our first day in Rio was exciting, but our second day was just as good, if not better! Having already taken the train up Corcovado Mountain to Cristo Redentor on Day One, on Day Two Claudio and I decided to go up the other famous mountain in the city: Pão de Açúcar, or Sugarloaf Mountain. Unsurprisingly, its name comes from its resemblance to a sugarloaf, and it is one of many mountains with the same name around the world - I know there's a Pan de Azúcar in Chile and a Sugarloaf in Wales (neither of which I've visited yet!) - but this one in Rio is definitely the most famous and the most impressive.

In order to get to the peak of the mountain, you can climb up the vertical rock face, but like most people, we decided to take the cable car! On the way up you can see Praia Vermelha (Red Beach), which is a very picturesque little beach with lots of palm trees.

The cable car's first stop is Morro da Urca, a smaller mountain overlooked by Pão de Açúcar. Here you have some great views over the sights of the city, including Corcovado, Guanabara Bay and the Rio-Niterói Bridge, and of Pão de Açúcar itself.

Then we took the cable car up to the top of Pão de Açúcar, where there were even more amazing views, especially of Praia Vermelha and Copacabana. 

We stayed up there for a while enjoying the views from every angle. We also took the opportunity to try açaí for the first time, a fruit which is supposed to have lots of health benefits. It is served frozen and tastes really nice! 

One interesting thing about the top of Pão de Açúcar is that it has an area of rainforest. There are lots of jackfruits in the trees and there's even a special wishing tree, where you can make a wish as you pass through its two trunks!

We also saw some grand-looking buildings from above, which we decided to walk past once we were back down from the mountain. One of them was a university campus, but I'm not sure what the others were. To be honest, they looked more impressive from above!

Once we'd walked past the buildings, we were in the Botafogo area of the city. We had lunch in a shopping centre nearby, which had a great viewpoint of Botafogo Beach. 

Afterwards, we went for a walk along the beach, which I would actually say was one of the most stunning beaches we visited in Rio, thanks to its position opposite Morro da Urca and Pão de Açúcar. You also have a pretty good view of Cristo Redentor and Corcovado from there. The only downside is that the water is very polluted, so you can't swim or even paddle there. Even so, I would highly recommend going for a walk there, just because it's such a picturesque place.

Our next stop of the day was Ipanema Beach, where we retraced our route from the previous day onto Pedra do Arpoador peninsula, this time with our phones in order to take pictures, and a coconut to drink from!

The peninsula gives you a great viewpoint of the small and paradisiacal Praia do Diabo (Devil's Beach!).

And of course, it also gives you an amazing view of Ipanema and Leblon Beaches, as well as Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers Mountain) and Corcovado. 

Sitting there with Claudio, drinking from our coconut, I really had the feeling that moments like this are what life is all about.

After relaxing on the peninsula, we decided to walk all the way along the stretch of beach, from Ipanema to Leblon. It doesn't look so far on the map, but believe me, it takes a long time when you're walking along the sand!

I think that Leblon was my favourite beach that we visited in Rio. (Though there were many that we didn't have time to go to!) Even though Ipanema is more famous, Leblon is more peaceful and has the advantage of being right next to Dois Irmãos, which makes it a really stunning setting.

We rounded off this amazing day by watching the sunset at Mirante do Leblon, a viewpoint next to the beach. This is actually one factor in which Chile's beaches beat Brazil's - we may get cold water from the Pacific Ocean, but being on the west coast means we get truly stunning sunsets over the sea! All the same, the views from Mirante do Leblon are still pretty spectacular.

We also had fun taking pictures using this machine located at the viewpoint!

All in all, Day Two in Rio really was one to remember. I hope to return to these places, especially Ipanema and Leblon beaches, at some point in the future.

Day Three was mostly a very rainy day, so we decided to focus on sightseeing instead of beaches. We saw lots of really interesting places, and I'm looking forward to writing about them within the coming days!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day One here!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day Three here!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day Four here!

Read about Arraial do Cabo here!

Rio de Janeiro: Day One

It had been a dream of mine for many years to visit Brazil, and in particular the city of Rio de Janeiro. In fact, I remember that during the 2012 Olympics in the UK, I came up with the plan of going to Rio for the 2016 Olympics, and perhaps making that part of a longer South American trip. But as it happened, I ended up in Germany during the Rio Olympics, and I would eventually visit Rio over 6 years later than originally planned. But it was definitely worth the wait!

Although the weather for most of our trip wasn't the best, and we had 2 days of non-stop rain - something we hadn't expected when booking the trip - I found that I loved the city even more than I thought I would. The days we spent there were really a trip of a lifetime, and it was particularly special to go to one of my dream destinations with Claudio.

We started our first morning in Rio with a trip on the train up Corcovado mountain to the most iconic sight in the city; Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer in English. The train ride takes you through Tijuca National Park, a beautiful area of rainforest, and is the most scenic and relaxing way to arrive at the monument (you can also go by van or hike up there). During the short journey, we saw lots of huge jackfruits hanging from the trees in the forest, and I even caught a glimpse of a toucan!

We definitely did not have the best weather for our visit to Cristo Redentor, and at times the statue disappeared completely behind the clouds! We also couldn't see any views of the city below. However, in the moments when the statue was clearly visible, it was very impressive to see. It is 30 metres tall (38 with the pedestal included), and it really does look huge when you see it in real life.

The area around the monument has several cafés and gift shops, which came in useful when it started raining heavily. We bought white plastic raincoats, which kind of made us look like we were dressed as Jesus in front of his statue, haha! (It turned out we'd be using them quite a lot over the coming days...)

Claudio actually has an interesting story about Cristo Redentor - he went to see him when he first went to Brazil in 2015. At the time, his dog Jack had gone missing for a few months, so he asked Cristo Redentor to bring him back. And luckily, Jack did come back shortly afterwards! For this reason, Claudio always wanted to return to Rio to say thank you to Cristo Redentor, and he was very happy to get to do this 7 years later.

I hope that both of us can come back to see Cristo Redentor in the future (hopefully on a clearer day!). Overall, it was a really amazing experience to visit this Wonder of the World.

After taking the train back down the mountain, it was time for us to visit one of Rio's other iconic sights: Copacabana Beach. (Fortunately, the weather down there was much warmer and drier than it was up on Corcovado!) This huge beach is a very vibrant place, filled with people selling traditional Brazilian drinks and snacks, and with great views of the mountains, including Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain), which we would visit the following day.

We had a bit of a walk along the beach, and then we had lunch in a nice vegan café, and watched some of the World Cup final there. It felt like quite an experience to watch a big football match in Brazil - everyone in the streets was getting really involved!

Afterwards, we went to the hotel to get our swimming things, and then we came back to the beach to swim. Even though it was a cloudy day, the water was warmer than a swimming pool, which was quite strange to experience after having only swum at beaches in England and Chile (where the water is notoriously cold) in recent years! The ocean in Copacabana is very shallow, so you can't really swim properly there, but it was still a lot of fun to ride the waves.

Once we'd finished swimming, we went for a walk over to the Pedra do Arpoador peninsula between Copacabana and Ipanema, and sat for a while enjoying the amazing views over Ipanema and Leblon beaches. (We liked this place so much that we decided to come back the following day to take some photos!)

We finished off our beach trip by buying caipirinhas (Brazil's most famous cocktail) to drink while sitting on the sand on Copacabana. It's a very nice-tasting drink made with lime and sugar, but it also contains an incredible amount of alcohol, and I found that the effects were too strong for my liking! But it's still something I think you have to try at least once during a trip to Brazil!

To sum up, our first day in Rio was a fantastic start to our trip, and it was a dream come true to visit Cristo Redentor and Copacabana Beach. Our second day was also really memorable, as we visited Pão de Açúcar, and Botafogo, Ipanema and Leblon beaches. I'll be writing about it very soon!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day Two here!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day Three here!

Read about Rio de Janeiro: Day Four here!

Read about Arraial do Cabo here!