Embracing Rio

After 10 days in Rio de Janeiro there are a few things that I've learned to master.

The beachlife
First and foremost it's the Rio beachlife. Spending the day with good friends on Ipanema beach with a caiprinhia in hand until sunset.




Copacabana beach might be the more internationally famous beach but where the real party is, just the next bay south, is at Ipanema beach, more specifically just past post 8. It is easily signposted with pride flags and the best beach bums in town!


Lapa
But Rio life is more then just the beach life on Copacabana and Ipanema. One of my favourite areas is Lapa - an artsy little neighborhood where the walls of the fairly old buildings are covered in beautiful street art.


Of course, then there is the most famous staircase of Rio, Escadaria Selaron, which is covered in tiles from all over the world - we even found a little piece of Sweden being represented here and it tore a bit on the heart strings. Seeing that I don't really see myself ever ending up back in Sweden again, whenever I see Sweden represented around the world I feel a knot in my stomach of pride over my country and a little smile can't help put to come across my face!




But Lapa is more than just street art and a tiled staircase. At night, or more specifically on Wednesday until Sunday nigths the streets of Lapa comes alive in a big street party. Stalls covering the square surronding the Lapa archway selling food and drinks - caiprinhias of course! And bars with live music and djs welcoming a steady stream of people. Even the gas station (probabaly to much annoyance to the cars trying to get gas) was filled with temporaray bars, music and people dancing.

Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf mountain
Two of the biggest tourist attractions are Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf mountain. We did a half day tour, starting with Sugarloaf mountain in the morning and got to enjoy the views with one of the first cabins to reach the top and it truly was stunning views from the top!



Just before lunch we reached Christ the Redeemer. There is more or less always a queue here so most people recommend to go here with a guide to be able to jump the queues which is what we did, but of course as long as you have the time you can make it here on your own. It was definitely worth it but there were a massive crowd of people which you had to wade your way through to get that perfect picture.


Hang gliding
Back in Ecuador we already spoke about Rio and the one thing we agreed on was that we had to go hang gliding in Rio - and so we did!


I won't hide the fact that my pulse started to raise as we were standing on the edge of the ramp, with my awesome instructor, telling me that no matter what I was not allowed to stop running towards the edge but that I simply had to keep up the pace until the ramp would disappear below my feet and the wind would grab hold of us. I'm also not going to hide the fact that as we dipped down from the ramp I screamed before I could feel the wind catching us. But then there it was, yet another beautiful and spectacular Rio beach that we were flying across before finally landing on the beach.

Tijuca National Park & Pedra da Gavea
They say Rio is the most beautiful city in the world and I couldn't argue after spending all this time up on mountain tops surronding the city. One of the best days was when we embarked on a 5 hour hike through the Tijuca National Park jungle to reach the top of Pedra da Gavea. Now, to be fair I didn't really do much research but simply joined my friends and their research.


The first part of the 844m climb started off perfectly fine, then as we started to reach further heights we came across a few obstacles in the form of steep mountain sides which with the help of nature we managed to climb. The roots of trees and blocks of rocks created natural staircases and only in a few places were there ropes put in to help out.

But then as we were almost at the top we reached a stretch of mountain side that went straight up in to the sky. Other hikers had proper equipment with them for rock climbing, others did not. Of course, we were part of the non-equipment people but decided to give it a go anyways and together, we free climbed up the last challenging section.

As we reached the top the city was covered in clouds but after around 20 minutes the clouds scattered and the city lay beneath our now somewhat sore feet.



The view was stunning and we had such a good laugh, filled with adrenaline from the climb and the amazing views.



It was definitely worth every challening section to reach the top even though I might not recommend it for the faint hearted.

Carnival
It happened to also be pre carnival season in Rio as I was here, which meant the weekends was rehearsal time. We spent Saturday down at Ipanema beach seeing their rehearsal, enjoying a little sample of the costumes and characters that the official Rio carnival holds.


In the evening it was time to explore the Rio post pre carnival nightlife and I don't think I could have ever expected to experience what was waiting for us! We walk in to a huge club with 3 stories and several dance floors. We stand in the middle of one of them, loving the fact that the dj is loving himself and his music when a Brazilian song comes on and all of a sudden everyone in the club, no matter if they were gay or straight, women or men, young and old, put their bums in the air and start twerking.

Then I was glitterized because you can't be at a post pre carnival party without glitter. And then I bumped in to a hairstylist on the dance floor who decided I wasn't Lady Gaga enough and decided to style me in the middle of the dance floor! But then I was finally ready to embrace my inner Brazilian and dance the night away, like no one was watching and like nothing else mattered then the music, the people and the fact that we were all there and of course the quote that will forever sum up my carnival experience "there is just not enough twerking in Sweden"!


The next day it was time for the Copacabana rehearsal and it was with last nights vibes still flowing through my body that I stood on the streets of Copacabana, soaking up the atmosphere once again!


Favela walking tour
During my last day in Rio I decided to see a different side of the city - the one I've heard so many rumours about and unfortunately most of them not good. But I decided to venture out on a walking tour in the hope to see the real favela. We headed up to Rocinha, the biggest favela in South America, with 160 000 inhabitants, and one out of the 786 favelas in Rio. Our guide Carlos having been born and raised there took us around his neighborhood.

I'm not going to lie I was a bit apprehensive at first but then Carlos made a point saying you can walk with your cameras in your hand here without any worries - in fact there is a bigger chance it will be stolen down on Copacabana then up here.


We started walking along the main road, past a few of the over 30 000 little businesses in this favela, that happens to be wedged in between two of the richest neighborhoods in Rio.


Then it was time to visit the areas where over 80 000 of the Rocinha inhabitants lived, the small alleyways wedged between the houses that surronded the main road that goes through this favela.



There were houses surronding both sides of us that were three stories high and with little more then enough space between them for a person to walk through.



The biggest and most important thing that was mentioned was the lack of education in the favelas. Despite the Brazilian economy increasing to the 8th in the world their social development is still far behind and perhaps the social gap is becoming even bigger. Without education the favelas will always remain because the people here are not given the same opportunity to progress as the rest of the country.



But without a doubt - after all these experiences Rio has now got a special place in my heart. Rio definitely has something for everyone and I've loved my time here!

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