Rio de Janeiro, a tourist trap, yes, but still amazing

I think many Europeans who have visited Brazil have been to Rio de Janeiro and only there. Who can blame them? When you are down in the city’s streets, you can feel like you are in any large city. But, all the mountain tops dotted around the city, and all the sandy beaches are also very present; you have to get gobsmacked. It is first when you get up in the hights you can see how unique the location of this city is. Rio de Janeiro was my last stop on more than four weeks of travel around Brazil.

Arriving very early

I arrived by bus from Ouro Preto at 04:30 a.m. This is not my favourite hour to come to a new city. First, it is all dark; there are primarily homeless people hanging around, and, of course, the taxi drivers are very pushy. On Google Maps, there were several options to get to the place where I was going to stay; it was just that the options constantly changed, and bus stops were not too easy to find and had no information at the stop. I ended up taking a street tram, and then later the underground and got to my destination for the next few days.

Where to start in Rio?

It is not difficult to find things to do in Rio. Of course, all the beaches are there, but I understood from the locals that there are big differences between the beaches, but as a tourist, this takes some time to discover. For me, the beaches are not a draw in the first place. Before arriving in Rio, I had booked a hike to one of the more unknown tops. It would start at the bottom of a favela; the guide was a local guy living there.

It was a hike to remember.

The tricky part was that the start time was at six in the morning, so first, I had to get there that early and then stand alone on the outskirts of the favela. A young American arrived soon after me, and we were the only two doing the hike. One man approached me and tried to get me into a corner, where he probably was hoping to rob me. However, some motorbike cab guys saw this and said we should wait for our guide closer to them. The trip was as follows: we rode on the motorbikes up through the favela and then hiked the rest up to the mountain top.

This morning’s hike was very nice and not too hard. The guide was very knowledgeable, and it is nice to pay your money to local people rather than large tourist companies. As the guide lived in the favela, he said they did not want to go through the favela as a safari. Therefore, both up and down through the favela was done on a motorbike, which was an experience just by driving these curved, steep roads. This was an excellent start to my stay in Rio, and I got a superb overview of the city.

The Instagram route

Certain things are always included in the typical touristic Instagram route. Escadaria Selarón (Lapa steps)is one of them. . I am not trying to pretend that the trends do not influence me, so I went up early in the morning to see these stairs before all the tourist buses arrived. It was a perfect sunny morning. There are 215 steps covered in over 2000 tiles collected from over 60 countries worldwide. Selarón, the artist, considered the work “never complete” and claimed, “This crazy and unique dream will only end on the day of my death”.

There is always a church.

Of course, I also had to visit a church in Rio, and this time, the Catedral. It is from the 60s, and on the outside, it looks like the Mayan architectural style of pyramids. The outside does not feel too appealing, but when you get inside, you are impressed by its large scale, without any collums, and the glass mosaic windows are fantastic. And it can seat 5000 people.

I was staying close to the beach.

I was staying just 150 metres from Copacabana Beach. Since beaching is something I do very rarely, I mostly just strolled along it both in the daytime and in the evening. As you can see, the beach is quite deep from the sidewalk down to the ocean. I suppose the beach area is lit up all night to make it safer. It can look dramatic, with the light and the sky in the background. Before heading for the airport the last morning, I quickly dipped in the sea to say I had swum at Copacabana Beach.

A Night at the Opera

I tried booking a ticket for the opera one night while in Rio. Unfortunately, it wasn’t easy to book from my mobile, so I had to go to the box office the day before to get tickets. And by now, there were only bad seats left. Anyway, I have been able to visit this magnificent opera house since the beginning of the last century, inspired by the opera house in Paris. The performance this evening was Puccinis Il Trittico. Three short operas, a bit predictable productions, but still enjoyable.

Trendy museums

In recent years, many countries have been trending towards building very modern museums, especially close to lakes or seas. I must say Oslo has been fighting the trends here, haha. It has created a giant concrete block hidden behind an old station, the National Museum, and a less charming high tower for Munch. In Rio, they have the Museu do Amanhã, the Museum of Tomorrow—futuristic architecture. It is an exciting exhibition, free for seniors above 60, but primarily aimed at children.

The last night (but not at the Proms).

My final evening on this more than four-week journey through Brazil was spent in a theatre. I saw the musical Hairspray. I had never seen the musical before, but I have seen both the films it is based on. So, even if it was sung in Portuguese, I knew the plot, could follow the story, and enjoyed the fantastic dance and singing.

So, there you have it. It has become eight posts from Brazil altogether. I had a fantastic time. I would gladly return to their country, but knowing me, there are more countries to discover. In Rio, I did visit the Sugar Loaf but gave Christ a miss.