Our daily program said that the sail-in to Rio could be the best we would ever see, so it advised that we get up around 6AM to watch. We set our alarm for 6 and woke up just before the bell. Whoever wrote that hasn’t sailed into Sydney or New York or Venice or Moorea because it was less than spectacular. The first thing I noticed was a tremendous amount of trash floating in the water. It gave a negative first impression and it took a while for that impression to disappear.
The legendary sun and heat of Rio had eluded us and the day was warm enough but cloudy. We had a tour scheduled that included the highlights of the city and a visit to the newly-elected Wonder of the World, Christ the Redeemer statue high on Corcovado Hill overlooking the city and the water. Our guide was Mike, who was the son of an American father and German mother, and had graduated from Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan which is a school very near Ed’s alma mater. So his English was perfect and he also seemed to know intuitively what we tourists wanted to hear about. His commentary was clear, concise and very interesting.
Rio is a city of contrasts, with 8 million people. The downtown area struck me as being ugly, with streets that were fairly clean but in disrepair, homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, and office buildings that had window air conditioning units protruding from every window. Graffiti marred almost every building and available surface, sometimes even up to 5 stories high. Mike said the graffiti was a very large problem that is hard to combat.
The city seemed to be laid out in a hodge-podge of old, well-restored buildings, tacky newer buildings that had seen better days, and glittering new buildings with mirrored facades that reflected all the others. Many of the structures needed a coat of paint but why bother when the graffiti artists will just creep in and do their work?
Mike assured us that Rio is on an upswing, both economically and socially because, as we all know, they have been chosen to host the 2016 Olympics. They’re also having the 2014 World Cup in Rio so they have to get their act together.
Our first stop on the tour was the Carnaval street. I didn’t know that Carnaval consisted of only one official street but that’s the way it works. There are 12 “schools” which are groups of people who begin around 11 months ahead coming up with a theme, making costumes, building floats and working on all the other details that the project entails. Then during Carnaval they compete for a prize which is around ½ million dollars. People pay approximately $200 for a ticket to sit in one of the seats lining the official Carnaval street and the schools parade their floats through. Over the week or so of Carnaval, the floats are judged and the winner announced. They take a couple of weeks off and start all over again for next year’s event. Parties and other celebrations go on simultaneously around the city, marking the start of Lent and farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.
Lastly, we headed to the Christ the Redeemer statue. Since the structure is about 3000 feet up on top of a hill, getting there can be tricky. The Brazilians have built a two-car train to take visitors up and down the mountain. We were lucky to be on a tour because we had pre-purchased tickets with a specific time to board the train. So we walked right ahead of the hundreds of people waiting in line to purchase tickets. The train ride up to the statue is around 25 minutes and goes through the largest urban national forest in the world. It looked like a thick jungle and periodically we caught glimpses of the magnificent views we were going to have at the top. When we arrived we could opt for an elevator to the statue or walk up 236 steps. We, of course, chose the steps and as we walked up a thick fog started to roll in and we were sure it was going to obscure our view of the statue. Mike had warned us that this could happen because only the day before he had taken a group up there and they couldn’t see a thing. So we tried to outrun the cloud moving in but when we got up Christ’s head was encased in the mist. We looked at the views anyway and took some pictures and suddenly the fog lifted and the statue was clear as a bell. It was pretty exciting. It’s 13 stories high and made of concrete and kind of intimidating. We felt very lucky to have been given the chance to see it so well.
That was the end of our tour and we returned to the ship to rest up for our Night Out in Rio!
The legendary sun and heat of Rio had eluded us and the day was warm enough but cloudy. We had a tour scheduled that included the highlights of the city and a visit to the newly-elected Wonder of the World, Christ the Redeemer statue high on Corcovado Hill overlooking the city and the water. Our guide was Mike, who was the son of an American father and German mother, and had graduated from Andover High School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan which is a school very near Ed’s alma mater. So his English was perfect and he also seemed to know intuitively what we tourists wanted to hear about. His commentary was clear, concise and very interesting.
Rio is a city of contrasts, with 8 million people. The downtown area struck me as being ugly, with streets that were fairly clean but in disrepair, homeless people sleeping on the sidewalks, and office buildings that had window air conditioning units protruding from every window. Graffiti marred almost every building and available surface, sometimes even up to 5 stories high. Mike said the graffiti was a very large problem that is hard to combat.
The city seemed to be laid out in a hodge-podge of old, well-restored buildings, tacky newer buildings that had seen better days, and glittering new buildings with mirrored facades that reflected all the others. Many of the structures needed a coat of paint but why bother when the graffiti artists will just creep in and do their work?
Mike assured us that Rio is on an upswing, both economically and socially because, as we all know, they have been chosen to host the 2016 Olympics. They’re also having the 2014 World Cup in Rio so they have to get their act together.
Our first stop on the tour was the Carnaval street. I didn’t know that Carnaval consisted of only one official street but that’s the way it works. There are 12 “schools” which are groups of people who begin around 11 months ahead coming up with a theme, making costumes, building floats and working on all the other details that the project entails. Then during Carnaval they compete for a prize which is around ½ million dollars. People pay approximately $200 for a ticket to sit in one of the seats lining the official Carnaval street and the schools parade their floats through. Over the week or so of Carnaval, the floats are judged and the winner announced. They take a couple of weeks off and start all over again for next year’s event. Parties and other celebrations go on simultaneously around the city, marking the start of Lent and farewell to the pleasures of the flesh.
Lastly, we headed to the Christ the Redeemer statue. Since the structure is about 3000 feet up on top of a hill, getting there can be tricky. The Brazilians have built a two-car train to take visitors up and down the mountain. We were lucky to be on a tour because we had pre-purchased tickets with a specific time to board the train. So we walked right ahead of the hundreds of people waiting in line to purchase tickets. The train ride up to the statue is around 25 minutes and goes through the largest urban national forest in the world. It looked like a thick jungle and periodically we caught glimpses of the magnificent views we were going to have at the top. When we arrived we could opt for an elevator to the statue or walk up 236 steps. We, of course, chose the steps and as we walked up a thick fog started to roll in and we were sure it was going to obscure our view of the statue. Mike had warned us that this could happen because only the day before he had taken a group up there and they couldn’t see a thing. So we tried to outrun the cloud moving in but when we got up Christ’s head was encased in the mist. We looked at the views anyway and took some pictures and suddenly the fog lifted and the statue was clear as a bell. It was pretty exciting. It’s 13 stories high and made of concrete and kind of intimidating. We felt very lucky to have been given the chance to see it so well.
That was the end of our tour and we returned to the ship to rest up for our Night Out in Rio!
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