The Beautiful City of Rio de Jenario

Copacabana Beach in Rio

Rio is beautiful as a city with its long white sandy beach, lush tropical jungle in the heart of the city, and marvellous building architecture and not to mention great city planning. The city was organized, structured but also speckled with colourful but dangerous favela. A too structured city is a boring city and a too disorganized city is a messy city so to be beautiful it had to have a perfect blend of all things.

Christ the Redeemer

Christ the Redeemer - Rio

One of the 7 modern wonder and the third one I have seen so far. Now the Coliseum and Manchu Pichu was fascinating but I have no idea how a sculpture became one of the new modern wonders. Frankly I think Angkor Wat should be one of them instead of this one, no offence to Brazil, still I paid the money and visit it anyway.

More than a week I was in Rio and I could see the Redeemer no more than 2 hours a day. Most times it would be covered in the clouds and for some reason the clouds always forms up at that area even if everywhere else is blue sky. L and I took the tourist train up to the peak which was a nice ride through the city ‘tropical jungle reserve’ of Rio and when we got to the top there was a massive amount of people in the small viewing platform.

Way too many people. I guess it’s popular after all and many people was lying flat on the ground trying to get a good picture of the famous monument. If you wanted a picture of only yourself with the Redeemer, good luck. Being up there thou gives a good overview of Rio from above and one could appreciate how beautifully structured the city was. Snap snap snap ….. going down

One Part of Rio from Above

How I got up Sugar Loaf Mountain for free



Sugar Loaf Mountain - Rio

The sugar loaf was a prominent landmark for hundreds of years and Rio decided to build a cable car system for the tourist. Two peaks like a sugar loaf and the cable car span from the ground to the first and then second. L told me that we could save some money and hike up the first one and take the cable car to the second one.

The hike was a 45 minute though a semi jungle with well guided post and little trail path. It was a pretty steep hike but not a very long hike. We saw these cutes little monkeys and plenty of mosquitos. Soon we were at the first cable car station and was rewarded with stunning view of Rio.

The station had a large viewing platform, a helideck for helicopter tours, some souvenir shops and a few food outlet. Then we were stuck there. Thinking we could get a ticket when we reach the top of the first station to go to the second one we did not stop to think that tickets were only sold at the bottom of the station. What once upon a time was a ticket station on the first stop was no longer operational and the rules were changed.

Rio De Jenario

We were stuck there and the only way out was hiking down that steep trail. L went on a frenzy with a local tourist helper and even tried to bribe … I mean pay him the ticket fare to let us on board the cable car to the second stop. Still amazingly the officer would not accept any of the money but instead told us to wait a moment while he tries to do something.

That something was ingenious. He went to the trail path and waited for people who was walking downhill instead of taking the cable car and asked them if he could have their unwanted tickets. He got us one and was advice that one of us could go downhill, buy a ticket for two people and then come back up to the 1^st station and proceed together to the 2^nd stop. We took the ticket and L pretended to lost the ticket (dropped somewhere) and was eventually let into the cable car heading downwards for free. We ended up with a free ride to the base and never bothered with the second station.