Next destination was Rio de Janeiro. The fist impression I got from that city when I got out of the hotel was a police car driving up, cops jumping out of the car with their weapons drawn and searching an adolescent with a back bag. I’ve heard stories about Rio but I didn’t expect to see it the first minute I got out of the hotel. But it wasn’t representative, it got quieter after that and there were no more such incidents. I did feel pretty safe in Rio.
I had high expectations in that place and the greater was my disappointment when it didn’t stop raining for 3 days and temperatures were very low. On the first day I managed to walk an abandoned Copacabana and Praja Iracema. It was nothing at all like the images of crowd packed beaches that I had in mind. On the second day I was walking the huge botanical garden in pure rainfall. It’s something you shouldn’t miss in Rio, the Imperial Palm Trees are very impressive. When it finally stopped raining I wrongly assumed that the next day would be even clearer, so I decided to visit the main attractions, the Corcovado with the statue of Christ and the Pao de Acucar the next day and use this day to take the subway to the center and then walk back towards Copacabana. I found Rio to be a town that you can easily find your way. It has lots of landmarks you can use to orientate yourself, furthermore they have very good free tourist maps that you can pick up and use to find the subway stations or busses you need. I think I was walking for about 6 hours that day and ended up very tired and with blisters on my feet in the evening.
Waking up the next morning and seeing that the weather had turned bad again was horrible. I was tired of the rain and tired of waiting so I decided that this was to be my last day in Rio. First I wanted to skip the Corcovado and the Pao de Acucar but then I told myself I might as well do it in the rain knowing exactly that I would see nothing but gray. And that’s all I saw when I got to the peek of Corcovado. It had started to rain heavily the exact moment I got into the train (made in Switzerland). I was completely covered in clouds; I could see nothing; sometimes you couldn’t even see the head of the statue. I decided to wait up there for the impossible since I didn’t know anyway what else to do in the rain, but after about 2 hours even I got tired and I decided to take a last walk around the statue and then head down. Then it happened, at first I didn’t even realize it, one sector opened up and only seconds later the whole scenery appeared in front of me. It was an incredible experience, first all you could see was gray, and then within seconds, like a curtain that is being lifted the whole spectacular scenery appeared. You could see the cloud which only moments before covered everything in gray move away behind the statue. Then there was hectic; everybody up there (including me) taking out their cameras, shooting pictures of everything in a hurry, people grouping up in front of the statue, thinking that the moment would only last for seconds until the next cloud takes it away again. The cloud came but only a small one, after that it stayed clear, still covered with higher flying clouds, but so that you could see everything. I was happy and very exited because after all I got to see it, I was lucky this time. Sometimes a little patience pays out and the reward is even greater then. After filling my self up with impressions I headed down and then with the bus to the Pao de Acucar. It is a similar view from there, only from the opposite side. I think that most people in their excitement don’t notice that on the middle station there is a track that you can walk with natural forest, very nice, don’t miss it. I think eventually it goes down all the way to the city, but I turned around after a while because it was already getting dark.
The longer you travel the harder it gets for things to impress you. Sometimes you get to places very touristy and you wonder why, because there really doesn’t seem to be much there, but I have to admit that Rio being a tourist attraction is fully justified. There is so much to see there that you can easily fill a week, the scenery is incredible, there is beautiful architecture to see and the city has some of the best city beaches in the world. Copacabana and Iracema are very clean and have nice waves. My favorite place was on the rocks that are between Copacabana and Iracema.