Around South America in 80 Days

February 24, 2019

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I had a number of items that I wanted to see on my first visit to Rio and the Do Brazil Right (https://www.dobrazilright.com) tour that a number of people on the Cruise Critic roll call were doing covered them all. The tour was just about the same cost as the HAL one but we had smaller numbers on each bus and a longer tour.

We started out at 9:45 with our guide, Renato. On the way to Corcovado he gave us some information about the city. The area of Guanabara Bay was first seen by Portuguese explorers on January 1, 1502, hence the name Janeiro which is Portuguese for January. Since they thought Guanabara Bay was the mouth of a river (rio in Portuguese), they named the area Rio de Janeiro.

Corcovado is one of the many mountains in the city but is most famous because it has the statue of Christ the Redeemer at the top. To get to the top you can go by a narrow winding road, walk (!), or take the Corcovado Rack Railway (which is what we did). It took about 20 minutes to get to the top. There were still a number of steps to get up to the statue or you could take a lift and two escalators. I went up the lift and escalators but walked down to the lift (I have issues with down escalators). The statue is made from soapstone and reinforced concrete and is 98 feet tall on a pedestal that is 26 feet tall.

It was 1 pm by the time we got back on the bus and we headed for Fogo de Chao, a Brazilian steakhouse (where they carve your meet at the table). It is a chain and has restaurants in the US. The food was delicious.

This is the week before Carnival which is the largest pre-Lent celebration in the world with about 2 million people per day celebrating. Trivia fact – 1.8 million gallons of beer were consumed during the 2018 Carnival. There were some people on board who were disappointed because we were not here for Carnival but I was glad we weren’t because it would have been hard or impossible to get to some places in the city.

After lunch we headed to Ipanema Beach. Many will have heard the popular song, “The Girl From Ipanema” which was based on a real woman at this beach in the 1960s. At Ipanema we saw thousands of people who were starting their Carnival festivities early. It was a beautiful (but very hot – 34C, 93F) Sunday and the beach was packed. Many were wearing costumes already and music was being played. The road in front of the beach was closed for revelers. I walked on the beach (sand was hot) and listened to the band before heading back to the meeting place. The bus was late getting back to us because of the traffic.

Our next stop was at the other very famous beach – Copacabana. If you watched the beach volleyball during the 2016 Olympics, you have seen Copacabana Beach. Although there were lots of people here, there was not the party atmosphere that we saw at Ipanema. I walked on the beach and had a nice cold beer in the shade.

The last stop of the day was a trip up Sugarloaf Mountain. It received its name in the 16^th century when sugar cane was a major trade in Brazil. Sugar was placed in conical molds that were very similar in shape to the mountain. The easiest way to get to the top is by two cable cars. The first one takes you to Morro da Urca and from there you take another to the summit of Sugarloaf. The cable car system was opened in 1912 and there have not been any fatalities in its history.

We were timed to be there at sundown so we could see the sun setting by Christ the Redeemer. The view was spectacular and I did not mind the heights only getting in and out of the still swinging cable car. Sherita was kind enough to help me.

We returned to the ship just before 8 pm and found that there was a Name That Tune at 9:00. We were too late to see all of the Samba show onboard so I decided to relax for a bit and then go to trivia since I had missed the other two. We had 23 points but did not win (I forgot to write down what the winning team had).

I returned to my cabin and ordered room service. I was very disappointed that my favorite chocolate cake had been replaced with another that was not tasty.

In the terminal