Our next trip was up Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf Mountain) another day. We were told the views were better up there than from the more expensive Christ the Redeemer hill so we skipped the latter.
Here’s a nice view of Copacabana beach:
And Jesus peering at us through clouds and scaffolding:
The disappointingly well-built cable car (I firmly believe that rickety cable cars have more soul) offered some views of the mountain and some crazy people climbing to the top.
We also found some monkeys that were much easier to photograph than the ones from my jungle excursion.
The night after our Sugarloaf trip, it rained like I’ve never seen before. My wife almost lost her flip-flops (and subsequently almost got hit by a car saving the flip-flops) in the torrent that raged through the streets outside. It only rained for a couple of hours but it flooded so badly that we had trouble getting between our hostel and the food-by-weight restaurant we’d decided to try. On the positive side, we learned that food-by-weight in Brazil can be an awesome deal, possibly the only truly budget friendly tool at the disposal of backpackers in this country. On the negative side, we found out later in our trip that there were some pretty bad landslides around Rio that night, and a few weeks later as well. The later ones buried more than a hundred people who were living in favelas attached to the cliff sides. We estimated later that the night bus we took out of Rio might have actually gone right past one of the affected neighbourhoods, us asleep, oblivious to the damage of the previous night’s downpour. But I guess that’s one of the facts of life in Rio. There’s a dual reality that’s pretty hard to break through.
Here’s a nice view of Copacabana beach:
And Jesus peering at us through clouds and scaffolding:
The night after our Sugarloaf trip, it rained like I’ve never seen before. My wife almost lost her flip-flops (and subsequently almost got hit by a car saving the flip-flops) in the torrent that raged through the streets outside. It only rained for a couple of hours but it flooded so badly that we had trouble getting between our hostel and the food-by-weight restaurant we’d decided to try. On the positive side, we learned that food-by-weight in Brazil can be an awesome deal, possibly the only truly budget friendly tool at the disposal of backpackers in this country. On the negative side, we found out later in our trip that there were some pretty bad landslides around Rio that night, and a few weeks later as well. The later ones buried more than a hundred people who were living in favelas attached to the cliff sides. We estimated later that the night bus we took out of Rio might have actually gone right past one of the affected neighbourhoods, us asleep, oblivious to the damage of the previous night’s downpour. But I guess that’s one of the facts of life in Rio. There’s a dual reality that’s pretty hard to break through.
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