Rio de Janeiro - The Rio Experience - Part I

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We all have preconceived ideas about certain places and countries, do the following test if you don't believe me, think about Brazil. What is the first thing that springs to mind?

Probably the Carnival, people dancing Samba in the streets, or the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. I bet the sun is a given in your fantasy. :-)

Well I am sure the sun shines in Rio, but certainly not when we visited. I must be the only tourist in the whole world that went to see Ipanema and Copacabana in the summer and found them completely deserted.

That was disappointing, and we couldn't visit the "Corcovado" either, because it was so cloudy that the views from the top would be a waste of time but despite of all this I have to say that we really enjoyed Rio and now I have yet another excuse to visit it again on a sunny day. :-)

María, Susana and I are the kind of tourists who enjoy visiting places during the day and make the most out of the daylight, whereas Javier is the kind of person who likes the nightlife so thanks to him that kept pushing us to go out at night we got to see quite a lot of the night life in Rio as well.

Unfortunately, all the visiting during the day plus enjoying what the nightlife had to offer didn't leave much time to sleep so one of the things I remember the most from that trip to Rio was how tired I was due to sleep deprivation. Nonetheless, I also remember having a great time and enjoying every day so I'm not complaining, it's just an observation. :-)

This is Susana and Javier waiting at the airport in Fortaleza on our way to Rio.

When it came to choose accommodation we opted for something a bit exotic instead of getting a hotel room by the beach as most tourists do. We decided to go to "Santa Teresa" which is a neighbourhood that preserves most of the buildings from the colonial era. It turned out to be quite a nice and peaceful place.

Our accommodation was a newly refurbished colonial house. If I recall correctly the name was "O castelinho" ("the little castle") which was quite appropriate as it really felt like one. Clean, good service, amazing views, and breakfast included. :-) Although it is a Brazilian breakfast so if you are on a diet you may not want to try it, if you are not... you have not other choice but to enjoy the freshly baked cakes and the tropical fruit with your tea, coffee or milk. Yes, I know...it's hard to be a tourist sometimes. :-)

Below you can see "O castelinho" with one of our models posing for the ocasion

As I said earlier, the views were fantastic, imagine breakfast with these views

Not bad, uh!

There was a park nearby so we decided to go and have a look.

Many people wonder what the famous favelas are and it's hard not to come across any favelas in Rio. These are the closest favelas to Santa Teresa.

You were probably expecting some dodgy wooden planks put together, but no, as you can see they look like normal houses, most have electricity and running water (the lower you live on the hill the better). Some even have satellite tv and as you can see how all those houses put together form a neighbourhood. The problem is that the favelas are governed by drug dealers, there is no police. If someone steals from you, you go and talk to the drug dealer who may decide to help you or not and justice sometimes can be brutal as there is no jury of your peers and due process.
   It seems things are changing now and the army is taking back those neighbourhoods at gun point one by one but it may take several years until they get control of all the favelas.

The downside to living in Santa Teresa is that you are not in the centre so you are always either taking a taxi or taking the yellow tram (which locals call "o bondinho").

In my opinion o bondinho is one of the 'must do' things in Rio. It's cheap as chips and if you choose to stand instead of taking a seat, it's free, although I must warn you that hanging from the little tram while it goes down the hill towards the centre it's not as romantic as it may seem... it is a sure way to add some veggies to your diet as the trail has many high plants on the sides and you always end up eating some on the way down.

 

We liked the "bondinho" so much that we decided to pay a visit to the train museum in Santa Teresa. There is where we got one of my favourite pictures of all times.

We also took some classy photos like below

Also another good thing about "o bondinho" is that you get quite a good view of the centre of town form it.

We managed to take some good photos of the town on the first day

Over the following days we did a little bit more exploring within the centre and we visited the more touristy areas.