Corcovado is the mountain, the statue is Christo Redemptor, Christ the Redeemer. Oh my, how much cooler could it be? The drive up is steep and winding with breathtaking views from each cliffside. There's quite a hike up the stairway to get to the statue, and unlike Sao Paulo, it's plenty warm here, steamy too. So, I'm all sweaty. The statue is fantastic, if you look up at it and there's clouds moving, it makes you dizzy, looks like Christ is spinning, or swaying. Spectacular workmanship, phenomenal experience. We got back down and boarded our bus again and drove down the mountain to the big soccer stadium - Maracana stadium.
I guess that Rio hosted the World Cup here in 1950, and then they've been picked to host again in 2014. And then Rio has bid to host for 2016 games, along with Madrid, Chicago, Tokyo and probably a couple of other places? We didn't want to pay R$20 to visit both the museum and the stadium, so we played for a little bit in the footsteps of all of the great players. Then our next stop was a square that was built in the 1900s, just to blow time and allow Rodrigo to finish his meeting. Have I said that juice (sucos) are everywhere in Brazil? Sucos vitamina are fruit juices with milk (leite - pronouced the same as "milk" in spanish, leche, but spelled completely differently) or you can get fruit juice mixed with Naranja (O.J.), so we had melon/mango juice in the square.
Next was to meet Rodrigo downtown. He had us standing in line somewhere, and wouldn't tell us what it was. Turns out that there's this really old trolley car that runs on rails up one of the mountains, it's R$0.25 apiece, so really inexpensive. It's only one car, and we had a group of 14, and we were only a fraction of the amount of people that they crammed on this poor little car. We had people in our group hanging off the sides and clutching the rails. There were 2 points along the way that these hangers had to be really careful or get scraped off of the side of the car. And we were going through neighborhoods that aren't very nice. In Brazil, the poverty stricken areas are higher up on the mountains and hills are are called Favelas. So we had to tuck all bags and cameras well inside the car, I guess that some of the poor little boys run along-side the trolley and try to knock off sunglasses and they'll grab any bag or camera. We didn't see any of them. At the top of the trolley, we got off in the neighborhood of Santa Teresa, which is a artist community, so lots of arts and crafts for sale. We ate lunch at a very local, highly recommended cafe, and had the local favorite dish - Fejoada (Fay-juu-ahda), which is just black beans and rice. It's a slave dish and the beans and stew has pieces of the cheapest cuts of meats, although now for people who pay, they use the nicer cuts. It's served with collard greens. It's good, really salty, but I love salt, so really good. Then we rode the trolley back down, not as crowded where we walked to the center of downtown Rio. Rodrigo had to run off a teenaged boy who was trying to engage us. R thought that the boy was waiting for one of us to turn away and he'd grab a bag or backpack from us abruptly and run away. We went to an emporium for sweets, a chocolate lovers paradise! It's decorated like an old-fashioned brass and wood icecream parlor, but much bigger. We each ordered some creamy delight. The specialty is brigadeiro, it's like the center of a truffle, a really creamy decadent ball of chocolate that's rolled in jimmies. A small ball of only 1 1/2 inches is almost TOO much chocolate - can that be? But it was getting late, and we had to skip one of the plans because we were supposed to be at SugarLoaf (the gigantic, odd shaped rock that juts out of the ocean) for sunset and it was getting close. Rodrigo got us on our bus and said goodbye, he had a couple more things to complete. Then we drove to Pao de Acucar (SugarLoaf), or the parking lot at the bottom of the funicular (tram). We thought that we might miss sunset cuz it looked as though there was a big line, but a gentleman came back and asked if we were going up, we said yes, and he led us to another line with no wait. We all paid our way through, and walked up to the tram and entered. There's actually 2 funiculars, one to the top of the first mountain, it's bigger and has restaurants and gardens. Then there's the next tram to actual Pao de Acucar, which it turns out that we wouldn't be able to do. The tram is under some service project and no one is allowed to go forward. Too bad. So we got to the top and took up positions along the railing to watch the sunset. There's a heli-pad up there, and people pay enormous amounts of money to have a 10 minute tour, so we got to see the helicopter arrive and land a couple of times. And the sun set and it was all that it is supposed to be - Really, really sensational. We stayed around for awhile, found a corner to sit in and chatted and took lots of photos. The asian boys have several expensive cameras apiece, it's astonishing! Jumpei even has several expanding tripods and whips them out to get team pictures here and there. Santosh has a really fantastic 'bells and whistles' camera, so I'm sure that even my nice camera didn't capture the images that they got. I might have to borrow them and claim them as my own? Rio is SO BEAUTIFUL by night and especially from that vantage point.
We descended and sent our poor bus driver home after a 10 hour day, one which largely he did nothing. We were fairly full still of chocolate, and some of the partyers wanted to catch a nap before the next round of parties began. But some of the team missed out on the churrascuria the night before, so we ended up BACK at the meat place, for more MEAT!!! Oh boy. I bowed out of another round of partying in Lapa. The gang ended up at a Brazilian rock concert and got home at 3am again. Those younguns.
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