Month: October 2015

Great (lazy) day on Ipanema today.

We rented two beach chairs and bought some drinks of a vendor. You will find a number of them on the beach selling everything you need (and things you don’t need).

A vendor selling bikinis from a lager collection than I’ve seen in Sweden for 6€. Score. And I didn’t need to move from my chair.
In retrospective we should have bought some sunblock (we have three excellent from ACO that we left in the apartment). I feel a bit sorry for Jon this evening.

To cheer him up we went to the excellent sushi place once again. 48 pieces later we ended this good lazy day.

It’s warm but not so sunny here the last couple of days (Jon edit: the last week) so we decided to visit one of the seven wonders. The only problem was that Jon is a little afraid of heights and the statue is 700m above the sea. After a deliberation with himself we took the bus to the wonder.

After one hour of waiting for the train to the top, spent at Bob’s burger, we could finally get on and begin our trip up to Cristo.

 Jon was a little quiet on the way (he told me later that he was thinking about the best way to escape if the train would break).

An amazing view from the top. This was great because you would not get your money back if you got up there and didn’t see a thing. We where more than satisfied with this view.

And here we go. No selfie-stick needed.

After a while we had around 1000 pictures of the statue, the view and a little souvenir. Jon had noticed that the train was made in Switzerland and was a bit calmer.

I was a bit skeptical to go (overrated and something like Big Ben, the Eiffel Tower) but it was more than worth €10. So if you go to Rio this is in fact a “must-see”.

The same evening we had one of our best meals so far. A sushi place in the neighborhood but more about that later. (Yes, we took the camera but left the memory card in the computer).

We are staying in Rio in an apartment that we found on airbnb on Rua Costa Bastos which is right inbetween the old neighborhoods of Santa Teresa that cover the mountainside, Centro which is the downtown finance districs and finally Lapa which is known for its many clubs.

One day we decided to take a walk from Lapa up to Santa Teresa, and what better way to do this than by the beautiful stairs of Escadaria Selarón. This is a staircase that has been created by local artist Jorge Selarón who began repairing the stairs with colorful tiles and eventually covered it all in tiles from all over the world.

This place of course attracts hoards of tourists and the ubiquitous vendors selling mixed junk to the tourists. Even so it is rather enjoyable to walk up the beautiful stairs and take in the view.

Some of the more political pictures in the work reminds me of street art, which the whole staircase more or less can be said to be.

When we reached the top of the stairs we took a minute to rest before continuing on upwards to find a place where the Bonde stops. Being both clever and lazy we took a shortcut down a small alley staircase and found a sign that said the tram would stop there.

Confirming our cleverness the tram did stop there to pick up passengers, but the fact that it is more or less only a tourist attraction makes sure it is always very tightly packed. It stopped and let us know that there is one seat left, we both didnt want to part and leave the other one at the stop so we passed on that offer. Hmm, not so clever after all. We now had to walk all the way up the tracks to catch the next tram.

It was quite far, but we did catch the one after the next! Below is a view from the bridge over Lapa which the tram passes, the big pyramid is actually Catedral Metropolitana de São Sebastião.

We went home early after a good street-food dinner out on saturday night. A bit tired from the day before and a lot of walking during the day (thank you mum for the running shoes, Converse is not to be recommended). Jon fell asleep and I watched the FIS worldcup opening (yey- it worked outside of Sweden!).

After a good nights sleep and a lunch nearby we took the bus for todays goal – Jardim Botânico. A confusing thing about the busses here – they all have numbers and an end destination visible (so far, so good) but all the stations between are not specified. We went a little bit too far but it was totally worth it when we found it.

 At the entrance. The palms are over 200 years old.

Thematic gardens in the park. Our favorite was the one with cacti (I guess the desert would be more of the right name). Compare to the Amazonas part it is no risk for dengue or malaria fever either. Hehe.

We ended the visit the same way we started: with some questions about the bus.

A bit hungover from the day before (we found a club with free beer!) we set out to make something of the day a short moment after lunchtime. Linn remembered that our airbnb host had written about a farmers market right outside our building that was held on saturdays. It only took us a few moments to find it on Rua Tadeau Kosciusco and continuing on to Rua Carlos Sampaio.

The market was, as is most things here in Rio, full of people! There was an amazing selection of fruits, vegetables, meat and fish, everything seemingly very fresh, although one wonders how long the meat stays that way in the heat!

Just walking up and down the market was a great experience, all the vendors approach you with free samples. If you look a bit confused and point at a fruit you can be sure that someone will be there soon to cut a piece to serve you, hoping that you will buy something.

We bought some strange fruits that were really delicious, and a too large bag of strawberries, owing to our lacking portuguese skills, we wanted the strawberries, but not that many!