A 4 ½ hour flight takes us west to east, from Santiago to Rio de Janeiro. We’re staying at the Copacabana Praia Hotel http://www.copacabanapraiahotel.com.br/
located right between Copocabana and Ipanema beaches and instead of the hotel room we were expecting, we find ourselves in a spacious 2 bedroom apartment. Not bad for £55 per night, including breakfast, thanks to the deal on wotif.com.
Our first day is spent soaking up the sun and the atmosphere on Copocabana beach next to which sits Sugar Loaf mountain. It’s not at all what we were expecting. For a start, the Brazilian women here are NOT hot! This may be in no small part due to the fact that they eat all day long. In complete contrast to Australia where everyone lugs huge cool boxes to the beach, Brazilians go to the beach in their (extremely skimpy) swimwear, already sun creamed-up, carrying enough cash for their food and drink for the day (although I have no idea where they put it because there doesn’t seem to be room in the men’s trunks for anything other than the budgie that most of them seem to be smuggling down the front). Hire your deckchair and umbrella, order your caipiroska (for £2) and sit there whilst hawkers constantly walk up and down the beach selling iced matte tea, empanadas, grilled cheese (they actually walk up and down in the boiling sun with a little charcoal grill in their hands), corn on the cobs, prawns, sandwiches, ice creams…and the Brazilians just eat and eat and eat. I’m happy with a sweet corn and we drink and drink and drink. We don’t manage to do much swimming as the waves are huge and literally knock you off your feet, so it’s as much as we can do to keep our balance, let alone swim. In fact, one particular wave wiped me out so badly that I thought I’d maybe burst my eardrum and couldn’t clear my ears for 2 days.
We delighted to discover that Ipanema is much trendier and the scenery is much better too. It’s a younger, more beautiful crowd and Will’s delighted when a trio of lovelies parade in front of him in their thong bikinis. A real postcard shot.
Talking of which, the oft photographed Sugar Loaf mountain is calling our name so we venture onto the cable car and up to the first station, where we manage to steal a view of the surrounding scenery through the passing clouds. Up to the second station, through the clouds….and now we can’t see a bloody thing except loads of large, black birds (which Will insists are birds of prey but I think they look more like crows. The jury’s still out) soaring in the thermal currents. We manage to just sneak a few peaks through the clouds at the beaches stretching out below us before we head down for lunch at the very nice restaurant below us. Will blows out on a meat feast of steak, lamb chops, pork and sausage and I get….a salad, just for a change.
The other much-photographed site here is Corcovado atop of which stands the arms-outstretched statue of Christ The Redeemer. An hour or so outside of town, our driver Elias drives up and up the mountain until we are allowed no further. Cars get left behind and we transfer into mini buses for the final 1km to the top. Along the way we are allowed to jump out and watch a 3-toed sloth make its way very, very slowly across the road. I was expecting to climb up to the statue, but no. There, at the top of the mountain, is an escalator! Finally, we get the aerial view that we missed out on the other day as well as getting a close up view of one of the most photographed statues in the world.
On the way back, we stop in Santa Theresa, formerly home to Great Train Robber Ronnie Biggs and his young Brazilian wife. Very cute, with cobbled streets and a tram passing through with people hanging off the sides and a great restaurant called Asia where the kids scoffed on Peking Duck whilst I enjoyed the view. We also drive past the favelas; Brazilian shanty towns built high into the hill, the houses made from old bricks, sheet metal or any other material that may have been left lying around. Ironically, the poor residents of the favelas enjoy the best of the sea views and the breeze, although they do live in fear of potentially catastrophic landslides.
Final stop is at the Carnival museum. Not a museum at all, but a shop displaying some of the costumes worn in last years Carnival, located just to one side of the route. For about £1, we can choose a costume, put it on and parade outside, just in front of the stand where the tickets sell for approximately £300 each. Harley's given something that makes him look like Oliver Twist with a hat so big it falls down over his eyes and Will looks like a gay centurian, which gives me an idea for my next birthday party....The weight of these things, especially the head-dress, is unbelievable and I have no idea how they parade for hours in the heat.
There’s one other thing worth mentioning about this section of our trip. We went for dinner at a restaurant called Jobi which does tapas sized meals and lots of different flavoured Caiporoskas, resulting in a rather shocking bill for 300 Brazilian Real (about £100, or £20 more than the price of a private car and driver for an 8 hour return journey...). Attempting to pay the damage with the Visa, we discover that credit cards are not accepted here at which point we look around and see it written everywhere! Great. We have about £10 in cash, no bank card and no other way of paying. The manager is contemplating calling the police, or at least taking us hostage, when Carlos, a local metals trader, kindly steps in and tells him to let us go back and get cash from our apartment (a 10 minute cab ride away) and, if we fail to come back with the cash, he’ll pay our bill. So we dash back, grab the cash and Will returns to settle the bill and buy Carlos a beer, except Carlos has left so Will orders himself a Courvoisier in the hope that the manager will say it’s on him. No such luck and he’s now got an additional £8 to pay for his brandy! Like all bad criminals, we return to the scene of the crime a few days later and discover Carlos nursing his after-work beer and discover that the reason behind his generous offer to cover for us is that he once had exactly the same experience in a restaurant in Italy where a local offered to do the same for him. See. Goes around comes around. Told you so!
