Day 42: Rio de Janeiro

Today, we (Bianca, myself, and two other Australian guys Bianca travelled with) went into Rio de Janeiro (the city) for a bit of sightseeing. From Niterói you can either drive, take a taxi, take the bus, or take the ferry. From the hotel we took a bus to the dock and then took the ferry across to Rio (R$ 2,30 one way).

Lots of people going on the ferry

Ride across is about 20 minutes and it leaves every half hour

View of Rio from the ferry

Part of the Ponte Rio-Niterói, also the longest bridge in Brasil

They say you haven't been to Rio until you've seen Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), so that's where we headed first. From the ferry terminal Praça XV, we took a taxi to the area of Corcovado Mountain, where you can take vans to the ticketing station. We decided to do some sightseeing today since there were no games, but it seems everyone had the same idea. There was a long line to get to the vans that take you to Cosmo Velho (where tickets are sold), and an even longer line to buy tickets.

The loooong line to buy tickets

From Cosmo Velho you take another van to go up Corcovado Mountain where the Christ is. Round trip van ride is include in the ticket, which cost us about R$ 32 each, but I think it was a special more expensive price for the World Cup.

The van takes you to the top, and then you have to climb 220 steps to the statue (the climb is nothing, really). There are also escalators but we opted to climb and see the small shops and cafés on the way up. Unfortunately as we were buying tickets we were warned that there was no visibility, and true enough, as we were nearing the Christ, it looked something like this...

It really was very cloudy. Most of the time, you couldn't see the Christ at all, but every 5-10 minutes, the sky would clear a bit, and everybody would quickly snap a picture.

Since it was very cloudy, we also didn't have a view of the city. We stayed for a couple of minutes trying to get some pictures of the statue, then just decided to head back down. It was still worth the trip to see the famous statue.

Yep, that's us with Cristo Redentor. Haha

No visibility? No worries. Photoshop to the rescue. Haha.

We also found out that if there's no visibility, your ticket will be stamped with "no visibility" and you can actually try your luck and come back the next day to visit for free.

More long lines for the van ride back down

On the way back down our driver stopped at a spot with a clearer view so we could take some pictures of the city.

The city

The lagoon

After, we headed to Boulangerie Guerin, which I found the other day on Buzzfeed's 25 Bakeries Around the World You Have to See Before You Die.

B and I shared a strawberry tart, pain du chocolat and vanilla and chocolate éclairs. So good!

After the sweet treat we headed towards Copacabana to walk along the beach.

Street art on the way to Copacabana

It was a bit late in the afternoon, but there were several people hanging out, playing football and volleyball, exercising, jogging, and just chilling around.