What in the world is this, you ask? Our wakeup song. Quite extraordinary, but it worked well, even at 6am. We had a long day ahead of us, 27 hours to be accurate.
First of all, we ran down and back the whole Copacabana beach at sunrise. Going back and seeing the sun rise above the sugar loaf (Pao de Acucar) was a breathtaking sight. To all of you who doubt if it's the right time to go running: it always is. We almost didn't go, and we would've missed something I will remember for a long time. Jumping into the waves right after definitely was the right thing to do aswell. We stayed a little too long, so we were behind of our schedule, but screw schedules -- if you can do great things, just do them. You can always worry about other stuff later.
A shower and an excessive breakfast later, we dropped off our baggage at Tino's, checked out and headed to the metro in order to pay a visit to Jesus. By that, I do not mean going to church. You can always see churches in Europe. By that I mean Cristo at Corcovado, the statue of Christ looking all above Rio de Janeiro. That's him:
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| Jesus is the guy in the middle .. no, not the one with the camera |
We went up there by metro, public bus, private van and another private van. It took a while, but it included a stop at a platform with a view all across Rio before heading up to the Cristo himself, where the view was great too, but it was a little too crowded. Río de Janeiro from above is simply beautiful, seeing landmarks, beaches and favelas. Take a look yourself:
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| all of Rio in one picture |
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| Pao de Acucar |
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| a surprisingly large lagoon right in the city |
On the way back we accidentally took the wrong bus, but luckily it went by a metro station so we could back in time. Because the sun sets so early, time was limited and we wanted to spend that at the beach. Everything took forever (getting back, getting dressed, getting food), but eventually we set out once more for Ipanema beach, hoping to catch the sunset this time. We did, and it was great. Crashing the waves with the sun going down between the "dois irmaos" (two brothers, they are two mountains next to each other) was beautiful.
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| sunset at Ipanema beach |
Going back, we grabbed a slice of pizza with catupiry-filled crust. Catupiry is a local "cheese", but to me its looks and consistency are more like mashed potatoes. The taste is cheesy indeed though. Since our flight to Iguazú left at 5am, we still had plenty of time left, so we decided to check out the real Río nightlife.
First of all, we went to a really small bar, where you could just help yourself at the fridge and then pay to the owner who was playing cards outside. Live music was starting later aswell. That's also where we met Roxi and her two friends, who would spend the rest of the night with us. And no, Roxi wasn't -- contrary to her name -- a stripper, but a really nice girl from Ecuador.
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| that's how it's done! |
We took the metro to Lapa, which is sort of the Ehrenfeld of Río de Janeiro. It used to be sort of a favela, but became gentrified. To me, it looked sketchy, but it was totally safe. A guy on the street was selling caipirinhas, and for 5R$ we just couldn't say no. He told us that he's been doing this for 10 years now, and that he drinks a couple of them every night as well. Yeah, that's that. They tasted great anyway. Afterwards, we enjoyed some Funk and Samba music at different bars and had an amazing time.
Normally, you don't want to end amazing nights, but tonight we had to -- we had a plane to catch. Taxi back to Tino's, get luggage, go to the airport. We arrived way too early of course, so we had a decent chat with the employees of the airline who didn't have anything to do either. Pretty cool. Eventually, the plane to Iguazú arrived.
Next thing I can recall is the landing above Iguazú. Trees everywhere, everything looked the same. Oh god, where are we, there is NOTHING here. I started to feel sad to have left Rio, this city still has so much to offer. The airport itself was probably the smallest airport I have seen so far, even smaller than Kigali International Airport in Rwanda. The average train station of a small town in Germany is bigger.
After getting our passport checked (which took forever, because one of the employees there decided to not wanna work today), we went to the city with Carlos, our taxi driver, who would accompany us on later trips as well. All we wanted was a bed. We had already booked the hostel and were able to get a room right away, so it wasn't a problem. The hostel itself is very basic, but our three bed room is clean, quiet and has an own bathroom. Can't ask for much more.
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