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From Santa Clara we took a bus back to Havana and stayed a night there to be sure we’d be on time for our flight out of Cuba the following day. At 4pm on Saturday 2 January we saw the coastline of Cuba recede behind us, and a few hours later we landed in Lima, Peru, for an hour’s stopover and change of plane. From the air, Lima seemed to be a huge brightly lit city and we were impressed by its international airport; new, modern and efficient. Sydney could learn a lot from it. Then we were on our way again, landing in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, at 5.30am just before sunrise. We waited until the first light of day before catching an airport bus to the suburb of Lapa just south of the city centre. From there, as Rio began to stir, it was a 15 minute walk to the apartment on Rua Taylor that we had booked for a week on airbnb.
Rio is a naturally very beautiful city and our week there flew. It was hotter and more humid than Cuba and as the days passed we wearied and were happy to spend more time in our cool apartment, and not be out all day every day sweating and pounding the streets under the blazing sun.
Tuesday was beach day. We took the subway to Copacabana and walked for a while on both Leme and Copacabana beaches. It was really hot with not much shade. Had we been swimming or sunbaking, of course we would have hired a beach lounge and umbrella, as thousands of others were doing. But is it just me, or for everyone who turns 60 does the beach remain wonderful in concept only, while the actuality sours – the nuisance of the gritty sand getting everywhere, the unrelenting heat, the messy sun cream, the sunburn, the discomfort of it all? Arggh!
From Copacabana we took a bus a few km to the west and got off at the Sheraton Hotel near where we’d read there was a great lookout over Ipanema Beach. There was. We had a snoop around the hotel and its great pool overlooking the ocean, and we asked if non guests could pay to use the pool. Yes, was the reply, for AUD$190 (that did include the daytime use of one of the hotel’s rooms). We left.
From the Sheraton we walked the full 5km length of wonderful Ipanema beach. Thousands were on the beach; sun tanning, swimming, playing sports and games, cavorting, canoodling, some obviously concentrating on showing off their lithe bodies (with impressive success I must acknowledge). At the end of Ipanema we came to a large rocky outcrop separating it from Copacabana. Here we waited with several thousand others while the sun set over Ipanema, then a subway ride soon had us back in Lapa.
Wednesday and Thursday were mountain lookout days. We first took Bus 497 to Corcovado, boarding the cog train there for the steep ride up the mountainside to Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer), the giant statue that towers over Rio. Actually, Rio is in need of some redemption. It’s not all wonderful here. On the morning of our arrival as we made our way to the apartment we were shocked at how many homeless people were laying or sitting on the streets. Not just a few. Hundreds. Some obviously had mental health issues, and many were clearly affected by drugs, reduced to a zombie-like status that kept them practically comatose, apparently for much of the day. With no simple solutions to such terrible problems, Rio obviously has some difficult social issues to grapple with. Of course it’s not alone in this, but the problem seems to be particularly big here.
But back to Cristo Redentor. There wasn’t much room at the top and space was at a premium to say the least. Lucky it was solid rock beneath the small viewing area; I wouldn’t want to be on a balcony with this lot! But the views speak for themselves.
On Thursday we took a local bus to the nearby suburb of Urca and from there a cable car to the top of Pao de Acucar (‘Sugar Loaf mountain’), visited by many thousands of people daily. There’s only one word to describe the 360 degree views from the peak – spectacular. Nearly all of Rio can be seen from here, including Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches, the city high rise, the vast harbours, and Christ the Redeemer towering over it all.
We spent more than two hours at the top checking out all the lookouts, admiring the views and taking all the photos that were just there begging to be taken. They say that great wine is made in the vineyard – probably a similar rule applies to photography too. With views like these it’d be hard not to take some good photos.
On the slow ride down I daydreamed as the vistas drifted by; some had tiny sandy coves far below festooned with beach umbrellas serenely sheltering slothful slumbering senors and supremely suntanned sexy senoritas, some saucily sipping sugary sodas, some salaciously slurping saccharin-stoked sundaes, I supposed.
At the bottom we walked along some shady residential streets running along the Botafogo marina and a bit further on we tried to go into the Rio de Janeiro Yacht Club (any place with that name must be worth seeing), but were refused entry not because of any lack of sartorial elegance on our part, but because it was members only and we didn’t have the time, or probably bank balance either, to join there and then. So we pressed on past the Botafogo football stadium where we caught Bus 107 back to Gloria just south of our place. It was Thursday market and we stocked up on hot pastels for lunch and fruit for later. Siesta in the cool was then had until 5pm when we climbed the steep streets behind us to the arty bohemian neighbourhood of Santa Teresa. Our day’s activities ended there at Bar do Mineiro with a plate of chicken and ocra, and bottle of Antarctica beer, while outside the sun too gave up on the day.
Just around the corner from our place was one of Rio’s most visited tourist attractions, the Escadaria de Lapa, an impressive 125 metre long tiled staircase containing tiles from all over the world, the creation of obsessive Chilean artist Jorge Selaron. This man was a true artist, emphatically underlining the completion of his beautiful creation by setting himself on fire at the bottom of the staircase in January 2013. Now with infinite time on his hands he’s probably working on a tiled stairway to heaven.
