chupacabra

rio de janeiro, brazil
the second day was a tourists dream, completely packed with brazilian experiences, candelária church, corcovado, sugarloaf, copacabana beach and churrasco (or chupacabra, as v kept accidentally calling it).

the church was our first destination. we'd tried to go the day before but arrived just at closing time. like many catholic spaces, it was lovely.

from the helipad

from there we caught the metro and a bus to get to the base of corcovado. we were told the tram wasn't running and we could take a bus service for just $8 more. since we were in a time crunch, we opted to just believe the lady who may have been hustling us. the mini bus takes you up to a viewing point, you take some pictures from the helipad,  and then you continue up to a place where you wait in line for 30 minutes. finally you get to begin the climb.

 

christo is lovely. everything i wanted him to be. and by the time you get to the top of the mountain, hot and thirsty, you have a lovely cafe that offers fruity refreshment.




v wanted to go to sugarloaf, and while i wasn’t very enthusiastic, i agreed to at least consider going. we got to the base and i thought the price a bit steep, but i told myself to just be a tourist and pay it. as it turned out it was my favorite part of rio. you take a cable car to the first mountain, wander a little then take another cable car to the second mountain. everything was lush, green and pretty. the views of christo were fabulous. the rest of city looked rather pretty too.

monkey or lemur?

the trails were sort of intimate and crawling with bugs, birds and monkeys (or maybe they were some sort of lemur, i don’t know, but they were cute with creepy eyes, my favorite combination!).

red curtain made of ropes

there was a neat museum about the history of tourism on sugar loaf, and we had fun taking pictures of the red curtain that was more like an art installation.
as we were getting ready to go in search of the churrascaria we were treated to an excellent lightning storm.
we eventually managed to be on the right bus to get to copacabana beach and the restaurant that had come highly recommended. dinner was okay. not great, but not bad, and not too expensive. i wasn’t feeling as churlish as i had been the day before. and while i wasn’t sad about leaving, i was no longer feeling the need to run away screaming either.
we went for a short walk along the beach and watched the moon rise,

then went to the supermarket to get rations for the morning bus ride that would take us to paraty. so long rio.

artful corn, street food