A day tour of Rio - part 2 : Sugarloaf mountain

The previous post on this series is here..

After lunch we were picked up and the smaller group went to Sugarloaf mountain as part of the afternoon Viator all day Rio trip.

There is a stop in between from the ground level at another mountain called Urca hill with a visitor center in it. This place had some amazing shops with art work and some nice places to eat.

The views from the cable cars were amazing. We met a total of 9 desis on this entire trip, an all time low for our international travels to date! 

It was two different cable car rides, one to the hill and from hill to mountain.

Given the dark clouds, our guide took us straight to the top and said we could always spend time in the first stop on the way back. Urca hill is full of jack fruit trees!!!! San just went nuts seeing them!

Luckily the clouds disappeared and we got to spend a good 45 minutes there, eat ice cream and take more photos. 

We got spectacular views of Rio from both the vista points and the cable car ride was great! Apparently we went on the third generation cable car. The first two cars used were on display at Urca hill

 Vaugely remember the Yellow Santa being there on Urca hill in one of the Panetone bread stores.. Some pictures are already missing from my phone! Yet another reason to blog right after a trip! Summer Christmas in the southern hemisphere is interesting.. Almost 100 degree heat on Christmas eve is a different experience.

Then we were back down to a monument where we waited for our van and were dropped off near our hotel.

San and the kids decided to try a place called Que Quieres en route to our Airbnb..

They were very happy with the food. I steered clear off it for fear of allergies and made and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and thachchi mummum in the Airbnb and we called it a night!

A video of the afternoon tour..

We still had two days, two more beaches to see and nothing else to do.. but we decided to have those last two days as relaxing days. We had done a lot with this all day tour, thanks to Viator!

A day tour of Rio - part 1 : Christ the Redeemer

The previous post in this series is here..

We had signed up for an all day tour of Rio with Viator and it was a good decision. It was in a large van with 15 people. We drove along the beach to pick up folks from different hotels and went to see Christ the Redeemer. We did stop at the visitor center. A different bus takes us to the top from the center through the Tijuca forest.

We were given 45 minutes to climb the steps, take pictures and get back to the bus. Our guide was waiting for us at the base of the steps. 

(that was someone else walking with an umbrella behind us!). This picture is from the visitor center..

It was a zoo out there with  a whole bunch of families waiting to get their kids baptized in the small single room chapel below the statue in 100+ degree heat! Getting clear photos was almost out of the question. We were also sweating profusely and just wanted to get back down to the shade.

Christ statue is majestic. However you cannot get good pictures as the ledge in front of Christ is very short. You can get great shots of his back from most of Rio! Don't think they thought this through when facing him that way.. at least from a photographers point of view..

Once we came down, they sell the pictures taken in front of a poster of the statue.. we were about to pay when we heard someone else bargain.. immediately the entire family jumped in to bargain! The girls have definitely inherited the "bargaining gene" from Madras thatha, which is a good thing!

Someday, will take a better photo of this photo.. this one is a keeper.. might frame it!

After this we visited the Santa Teresa neighborhood and saw the Favelas, got a view of the city and came down to see the area where samba parades are done.

Then we got to see the Maracana stadium for 10 minutes, which meant no time to go in.. we saw it from outside.

This was followed by a trip to the San Sebastian Church which resembles a football stadium more than a church. 

That is the Church building in the shape of a pyramid! Reminded me of churches in Kerala that have dwajasthambams to lure in locals.

The last stop before lunch was the painted steps, which was even more crowded than the Christ statue.. it was impossible to get a clean shot of folks.. even my method to have a frozen smile and take 4-5 shots and average them on Photoshop leaves too many ghosts..

After this the group was dropped off at a place for lunch. We didn't pay or order the lunch but were on the all day tour. A bunch of folks were only on a 1/2 day tour and split. We had packed our leftovers. So the guide and driver were kind enough to drop us off close to the lagoon where the afternoon tour would start.

We sat on the wall near the lagoon and ate under the shade of the trees. It was nice and breezy and we had a great view. 

Right after we finished and took some photos, we were picked up and went the afternoon's trip.

A highlight reel video of the mornings trip..

That post follows..

From waterfalls to beaches

The previous post on this series is here..

We moved on from Buenos Aires to Rio. We got scammed right outside the airport where a fake Uber showed up to pick us up... after some tense moments once in the car, we did get out close to where we needed and after the local Airbnb lady negotiated in Portugese we got out. 

Brazil is a sharp contrast to Argentina. You cannot trust folks on the road. Scammers everywhere. Everything is expensive and the locals are not exactly the welcoming type.

The Airbnb itself was very good. A walking distance from the Ipanema beach and close enough to grocery stores. 

The kids had had enough and decided to stay in after doing groceries. San and me decided to go to the beach for a short time to see the sunset. There was so much fog that we didn't really get orange hues that day and it just started drizzling when we made it back to cook dinner!

We called it a night.. there were a lot of interesting art books in the Airbnb and we just decided to crash early after watching Rebel moon on Netflix!

The next day was going to be spent touring Rio!

We already got a glimpse of the Redeemer statue on the way from the airport. The plan was to see him up close the next day!