Uncategorized

It takes a bit of effort to get to the Pantanal. We had a 7-30am pick up to take us to Rio’s domestic airport..the one we’d seen from Sugar Loaf Mountain. We said our fond farewells to our lovely guide Raquel and got checked in. We then had a wait until our 1 hour LATAM flight to São Paulo, then a 4 hour wait until our next1 hour flight to Campo Grande. This is the nearest place to where we would be staying that you can fly to.

The views on the flights varied between great vistas of Rio itself, the beautiful beaches all down the coast and then vast tracts of agricultural land. The landing in São Paulo was spectacular….flying in amongst the hundreds and hundreds of skyscrapers. It is the 4th largest city in the world with a population of 21.6 million. This places it behind only Tokyo (37.4million), Delhi and Shanghai. New York comes in at No 11 and tiny London is 37th with a population of 9 million.

Unfortunately during this journey we both started to feel rather unwell. Jane had a dodgy tummy and I started feeling incredibly cold and appeared to have a fever. We both felt extremely lethargic and had completely lost our appetites…we couldn’t even face our Premium Economy class snacks on the 2nd flight! Jane’s theory was that it was caused by the 3 Caiprihanas two nights ago. However, I’m of the opinion that it was the fault of the surly pirates and their never-ending plates of meat and fish…although to be honest I’d only had one tiny bit of meat, a piece of sausage and the vegetarian mushroom option.

Whatever, it made the journey a little uncomfortable and we couldn’t wait to get into our hotel in Campo Grande for the overnight stay. Luckily, Campo Grande isn’t the ‘wild west’ town I’d imagined in my head. It really seemed like quite a nice place and our hotel was extremely modern. Phew!

After a good nights sleep we were picked up at 7am for the four hour drive to Caiman Lodge where we were staying. Our driver spoke no English but was a very good driver. The road here is a huge straight line! The road is quiet but every now and then we needed to pass big trucks or at one point a motorbike drive out of about 50 bikes.

We both just slept as still not feeling right and the views out of the window were very monotonous. After 2 hours we stopped at a ‘service station’ for a loo break and a quirky gift shop/cafe. Unfortunately we weren’t really in the mood for souvenir shopping.

Eventually, after another hour and a half, we arrived at a turning onto a red dirt track that said 36 kilometres to Caiman Lodge. Now this was a bit more promising….we bumped along slowly making uncomfortable progress and finally arrived just in time for lunch.

Would it all be worth it?

Ola! It’s been a few days as, as I write this, we have actually moved on to our next destination. More of which later but for now I need to catch up with our last day in Rio.

We woke up to a full on cloudy day and it was 10 degrees cooler at about 21 degrees. Quite a relief..especially after our big night out💃🪩

So…what do you do on a cloudy day in Rio? Well, we decided that we’d get some exercise and take in the sights along the entire length of Copacabana Beach. Our hotel was located at one far end of the beach near to the Fort and today, we walked all the way back to the rock at the other end which is actually an area called ‘Leme. We walked all along the promenade, the other side of the busy Avenue Atlântica. It’s 4km in length and has the famous wave pattern of the Portuguese pavement made in small black and white tiles.

As you walk along there are lots of street vendors selling their wares and today I was in search of a Kanga (or beach wrap). There were lots of colourful ones to choose from and I finally managed to do some excellent bargaining with a guy to get the one I wanted! Poor man looked really fed up and I thought he’d be pleased that I’d gone back to get it, having walked away earlier!

You also pass lots of the volleyball nets but what was mostly being played was a version called FuteVolley where 2 pairs play each other and can kick, head and chest the ball but not use their hands!

There are lots of the beachside kiosks each with their own theme but to pretty much the same design which keeps it quite tasteful. As this was Friday there were several with live music playing …actually I don’t know…they could possibly do that any day of the week.

At the far end, Leme, it got a bit quieter and I wasn’t sure we should carry on but then we saw more ‘normal’ people and so, determined to complete our stroll, we walked to the end. Here the walkway finishes but a smaller path goes along at the base of the giant rock right by the waves. Now this did look a bit dodgy so we didn’t go along there but stopped and admired the view back. As we were doing so there was a bit of a commotion with people running and 2 guys on a moped speeding along the path bipping heir horn and waving people out of the way. I thought it all seemed rather villainous but it turned out they were life guards as the next thing we saw was a jet ski also with 2 lifeguards speeding along to the waves below the rock where they then proceeded to pull 3 young guys out and onto the beach! I think they’d been diving in to surf but then the current was too much. So that was our bit of excitement and we turned and headed back in the other direction.

On the way, we passed the restaurant that we’d booked to eat at later that day. It was called ‘Marius’ and looked very flamboyant even in the daytime! I’ll let Jane tell you about that later….

We tried to pop into the very grand Copacabana Palace Hotel. However, the top-hatted doorman was having none of it and we got shooed into the next door ‘Momo’s Cafe’ where we had a coffee and delicious ice cream. I tried avocado flavour which was a delicious revelation! Jane had all things banana!

Despite not being very accessible the Belmond Copacabana Beach Hotel is indeed, very grand and has been voted the top hotel in South America several times. It was finally finished in 1923 and celebrating its centenary this year. Over the years it has hosted many famous celebrities including Walt Disney, Brigitte Bardot, Paul McCartney, Mick Jagger, Madonna and Princess Diana. But they wouldn’t even let us use their loo.

In a slight huff we mooched back along to our end of the the beach and walked on to the Fort where there was an interactive Frieda Kahlo show. We decided we didn’t need to bother with that or the Fort itself so went back to our favourite kiosk opposite our hotel where the guy had previously tried to rip us off for 4 beers. The bill should have been £6.50 and he tried to charge Jane £18.33 which she politely corrected having realised his mistake. Recognising us today, he greeted us like old friends!

Needless to say we slept pretty well after all of yesterday’s excitement. Bizarrely today seemed almost tame in comparison! Even so , we were off to see one of the New Seven Wonders of the World…Christ the Redeemer.

This iconic symbol of Rio had already been seen of course, on yesterday’s helicopter ride but today we would be two of the ants crawling all around the base!

We were collected at 9am and joined the usual rush hour traffic as we headed through now familiar neighbourhoods of Copacabana, Leme, Botafogo, Flamengo, Lagoa and then into Tijuca. We were dropped at the bottom of the funicular railway which is the easiest way to get to the top of Corcovado. Today we had v strict instructions from Rachel not to be so British and to follow her exactly where and when she went. This basically meant that we casually pushed in the long queue to get on the train all the while adopting what she told us was ‘landscape face’. You know the one….where you pull that totally innocent , rather vague look, as if to say ‘who me?’. It worked a treat and we were soon on the train in the best seats!! Rachel explained that there was ‘no line’ here so it was all perfectly acceptable.

The ride up is very steep obviously and there are some amazing views both of the Tijuca forest itself and then views to the coast. The forest is lush and wild with huge tall trees and it made me wonder how on earth anyone ever started clearing it! Nowadays it’s not allowed for development to take place in the park but sometimes creep does take place from the favelas and there is not much anyone can do about it.

At the top we piled out and it was incredibly hot…maybe 31 degrees. Of course it’s a very busy spot and important to keep your hands on your belongings. However, although it felt too cosy at times everyone was being very patient and polite with each other.

Your main aim here is to get that Insta perfect photo but sadly it’s unlikely to happen because of the crowds. So we all pose with our arms up or out, hovering over a camera to make our hands join up even lying on the ground to get a better angle. It’s madness and when we look back through them later we look hot and sweaty and I’ve cut half of Jesus out with my hat!!

However, photos aside the place is incredible. They’re mending Jesus at the moment …which involves abseiling down him and replacing some of the thousands of soapstone mosaic pieces which cover the whole statue. It is a beautiful statue and the views below are yet again incredible.

The statue is 98 feet tall and the arm span is 92 feet. It was the winning design in a competition for a grand monument to celebrate Brazil’s independence and was inaugurated in 1931. It was designed by Brazilian Heitor da Silva Costa and inspired by Leonardo da Vinci’s famous study of the human body.

On the way down in the funicular we made friends with Lakshmi and Stephania and made arrangements to meet up with them in Buenos Aires…their home city. We’d taken their photo earlier and now we were planning to meet up and eat steak and drink Malbec!!

Once back on the ground and in the cool air con of our car, a little extension to our tour was made so that we could see two of the other iconic beaches of Rio, Leblon and Ipanema. We stopped at a great viewpoint where the sea was an incredible milky blue and the Sheraton stood proud right in front of an enormous favela.

Rachel and Raphael dropped us of at the Garota da Ipanema where famously the duo of Vinicius de Moraes and Antonio Carlos Jobim were inspired, by a young girl in a bikini walking to the beach, to write the ‘Girl from Ipanema’ song. Here we enjoyed some cold beverages and some scrumptious Natas fresh out of the oven!

After this we walked back to our hotel on Copacabana. The beach of Ipanema was very very crowded. We started at Post 9 and had to get back to Post 5. These stations are way markers aswell as lifeguard stations and appear to have a hierarchy of status. On Ipanema the prime spot to put your towel is Post 9. On Copacabana they tend to indicate where different communities hang out so there are different areas for retired Carioca (people from Rio), footballers, fishermen, favella kids, gay people etc. It was very very hot but we made it to the end of Ipanema and then needed to cut through a park before rejoining the road along Copacabana. It was here that I felt rather uncomfortable for the first time…there weren’t many tourists and there were large groups of boys heading to the beach. Anyway we were fine as I was ready to Ninja pounce on anyone who looked at me slightly sideways. Yeeeeeehaaaaa!

Needless to say they were all too scared and we made it back to our hotel without hitch. It was here that Jane also point out that there were 4 police on horseback in the park so it was highly unlikely that anything would happen!

After a cooling dip in the hotel pool we headed off to dinner and stumbled into the fantastic beachside cafe called Tropik where we went Greek for the evening. It was lovely sitting watching beach life still going on into the warm evening. Very pleasant indeed.

Wow what a day we have had! Some people might say we peaked too soon yesterday (Amanda) but boy oh boy , today was incredible!

After a night in, eating pizza in the hotel lobby bar, we managed to get a good nights sleep. That is until Jane woke at about 3-30 am mithering about the day ahead. She had a list of mithers ….a) could we put all the phones and cameras on charge, b) what shoes should we wear to go on our Sugar Loaf trip and c) exactly what did our trip entail. Anyway, these matters were sorted and back to sleep we went.

We were picked up by Rachel and Raphael at about 9am and off we headed through the rush hour traffic to the base of the Sugar Loaf cable car ride. This takes place in two parts. First stop is the top of Urca, after a look round here you then get another cable car upto the top of Sugar Loaf Mountain itself. Both are these huge outlier rocks made of granite and there are loads more all around.

We loved the views from Urca as you can see all around the magnificent city of Rio de Janeiro. This includes the whole of Guanabara Bay, Niteroi- the city on the other side , Downtown Rio, the vast mountain ridges in the distance and the domestic airport right in the middle of the bay. we watched several planes come into land here.

But once you get to the top of Sugar Loaf you can then see the entire stretch of Copacabana Beach as well as loads of other amazing looking beaches and now even clearer views of Christ the Redeemer in the distance. We absolutely loved it and enjoyed a bit of wildlife too seeing Black Vultures and even a tiny Marmoset in the park at the very top!

But this wasn’t the end of our trip…next up we caught our Helicopter flight and after a bit of sorting we got to fly with three other people right from Urca Helipad over the beaches and round Christ the Redeemer twice before heading back over the length of the beaches. Thanks to some brilliant persuading by our fantastic guide, Rachel, Jane got the prime seat next to the lady pilot and I was in the back with our fellow passengers. It was huge fun….we were also so excited to be doing this and we screamed with laughter every time the pilot did a slightly tight turn. Incredible! It only lasted a total of 10 minutes but has to rank as one of the best things I’ve ever experienced. My mouth was open in awe practically the whole way!!!

When we landed Jane was in tears so I guessed that she’d enjoyed it too although I was just laughing my head off!

Back on ground Jane and I really just wanted to celebrate with a cold one but Rachel wanted to take us to a bohemian area called Santa Teresa. It’s up very windy cobble streets where an old yellow tram still runs. We stopped in the grounds of a beautiful art museum (closed) to admire the views but really they weren’t a patch on what we’d just experienced. However, the drive through the park and lush vegetation was interesting as such a contrast to everywhere we’d been yesterday.

After this we came back to the hotel and got ready to go to the beach. We had a couple of celebratory beers at the cafe on the front before getting our hotel seats down on the sand. The beach seemed really busy today and very distracting. I went in the water but the waves are huge and crashy and there’s a red flag so I didn’t swim. The crashing water felt lovely though. Meanwhile we got chatted up by some Argentinian fellows playing football with local kids in front of us. They seemed to like our blue eyes and the fact that we come from where Peaky Blinders is based!

To end the day, and after a breather in our room, we went for dinner at the Marina Restaurant in the Fairmont Hotel. We were able to safely walk there and back and the meal and Caipirinha were fabulous. The things they can do with a coconut.

So all in all a pretty good day and Amanda you’re right….we may well now have peaked too soon!!