14.11.2013Stopover in Rio de Janeiro

After our beach “vacation” in Fernando de Noronha we once again arrived in Rio and Whei-Oh was waiting for us with one of her great Filet-Mignon dinners.

The next day we finally managed to visit the famous “Pao de Acucar”, the Sugar Loaf mountain. The early Portuguese explorers who discovered Rio de Janeiro gave it that name, due to its resemblance to a sugar-loaf cone. A sugar-loaf was the traditional form in which refined sugar was produced and sold until the late 19th century when granulated and cube sugars were introduced. As you will see, Rio’s iconic 396 m mountain offers fabulous views over the city.

We first took the cable car to Morro da Urca (215m):

And enjoyed the view over the city relaxing in deckchairs:

We had one of the typical Acai frozen drinks:

And there were also some monkeys (real monkeys Diego!) hopping around on the platforms begging for food. This one looks a bit scary on the picture, but took off as soon as we got close 🙂

After that intermediate stop we continued on to the top of the Sugar Loaf by cable car. This is also the one that appears in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979) in which the villainous henchman Jaws attempts to kill 007 and his ally, Dr. Holly Goodhead on the cable car! Of course Bond manages to escape and Jaws collides with the building at the bottom of the cable car route, demolishing the building but escaping unscathed.

Once we reached the top we had a great view over the city and the harbour:

The only villains on sugar loaf mountain nowadays are about half a meter long lizards one can watch from the platform…

On the way down, we stopped at the Morro da Urca station and the upcoming sunset turned the city in a beautiful light:

In the evening we went to a Mexican bar for food and drinks:

As a dessert we had mini churros with ice cream. Unfortunately we had to find out, that the ones sold from street booths are still the best.

Since Whei-Oh received a surprise visit from her daughter during our second stay, she organized us a stay with her friend Betse De Paula, a film director from Rio. While it was very kind of Betse to let us stay with her, it was also very interesting to get to know her and her family. Of course we also got to watch her latest movie “Buy or Rent (Vendo ou Alugo)” which is pretty funny and humor wise similar to Woody Allen movies. Her place happened to be located just under the statue of Christo Redentor:

Before we left Rio the next day, we strolled around in the neighbourhood and along the shore of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, which lies in the middle of the city:

And in one of the many juice stores…

… we had our very last pure and fresh Brazilian-mango juice!

On the way back home we passed by the hippodrome,

where we watched some horse jumping tournament:

And as we left Rio for good to catch the bus to Foz de Iguacu it almost seemed as if Christo Blanco was waving us goodbye 🙂