Rio De Janeiro: A line or align?

Hang on to your purses and take your anxiety medication, we’re going to Rio De Janeiro!

Don’t get me wrong, Rio is a grand, attractive, top destination and all the other fluffy words that other tourism or travel related blogs preach of it. And for good reason.

But, it’s also chaotic.

Seeing Christ the Redeemer statue is easily the most unorganized tourist attraction I’ve ever been to. Herding cattle, but worse.

We didn’t buy tickets in advance. This was mistake number one. We were told from friends that had been before to prepare to wait for hours. So we did, we prepared. Only to show up and find out we grab a ticket, with a ticket time, and come back later. We arrived at 11 am, and the earliest ticket time we could confirm was 2pm.

We made it work by going to a nearby park. Luckily Uber rides were super cheap so it wasn’t a big loss for us. Plus, the park was on our list to go anyway.

Parque Lage - MONKEYS. Monkeys galore. It astounds me that this incredible park with great vegetation is free.

I recently read a book “Where the Forest Meets the Stars”. In the story, a young girl has to find 5 miracles, and 2 of them end up being newborn birds, and newborn kittens. In a world where I needed 5 miracles, one of mine would be baby monkeys. They were a real treat- I had no idea they were so tiny! We spotted them on the back of a mama monkey by chance because they blend in so well. At first we thought the monkey was just a little mangey. But when we took a photo and zoomed in we could see the babies clinging on.

When you don’t plan in advance, you have to be flexible with what you get. Sometimes not preparing is the best because the surprises (like the baby monkeys) are SO REWARDING. Being able to enjoy our time walking around the park with no expectations helped ease the stress from Christ the Redeemer.

Fast forward to 1:45pm- we arrive back to the chaos. As soon as we exit the Uber there are people smashed on every square inch of space, and half of them are just trying to sell you things.

“There’s no line, there’s no line!” Then 5 minutes later there is magically a line and we’re somehow pushed to the back even though we’re the ones that listened. This happened AT LEAST THREE TIMES.

Oh, by the way. You came at your scheduled ticket time? Great. The person standing right behind you JUST purchased their ticket to come at 5pm, but they’re being let through anyway.

sense the tone

Let’s get away from the anxiety inducing 40 minutes it took to get to the top.

Cue the fast forward sound

Fog.

A very thick, heavy fog. A fog so heavy, that the statue could not be seen. Not even standing 2 feet from touching it, head tilted to the sky as high as it could.

Some would’ve said this tampered their whole day. They want the picture perfect clear day. Not me! I think I got images that stood out and are unique. Notice how I focused on the PHOTO? And not the EXPERIENCE? That’s because that’s what everyone did there.

Because of the dense fog, the people just stood waiting for a clearing to try and get a photo / see the iconic statue.

This meant that more and more people kept coming up the mountain, but no people were LEAVING because everyone was waiting.

That being said, I seriously loved the experience more with it being foggy. Everyone waiting for it to clear up, cheering when it did. Like we had to WORK for it. But, it was like people didn’t even look at the statue with their eyes. Instead they looked at the statue through their phone while they took a photo of it, never looking up again.

It was 4 pm by the time we finished, and the last cable car up to sugarloaf mountain was at 6:30. We decided to go 2/2 on the top popular things to see in Rio on the first day. Our Uber driver (the first and only one all day to have ac) timed things just right- even though we didn’t plan it- and we thought we might get lucky and be on the top of sugarloaf at sunset.

Sugarloaf cable cars was 10/10 more organized than Christ the redeemer. Incredible how an established line and clear communication can make things run so much smoother.

We made it for sunset! It was beautiful. Like Rio was a gift and the sunset was a bow to tie the chaotic day all together. But a Jack in the box is the gift so when you untie the ribbon you’re in for a shocking, make you pee in your pants a little bit, surprise.

When taking the cable car, it goes from mainland to the first tall pointed island peak. Here there are some food shops, clothing stores, and even a flash tattoo shop!

Then there is another cable car from this peak to the second, even higher, peak. Here you can see views of the bay, the never ending mountains in the distance, and Christ the Redeemer.

As I continue traveling I realize so many places have been glorified through tourism. Simply places that charge you a lot of money, to take a picture, and post it on social media. For example the pool/cafe at the Parque Lage… While we had been admiring the monkeys we saw a building with loads of people waiting outside, and a man taking names at the entrance. Thanks to the help of someone who was able o help us translate, there’s a cafe on the inside that you book in advance. When you google the park, this famous image of a pool pops up. This pool just so happens to be inside the building, where you can only get in by visiting the cafe and paying money.

All of these people, plastered in makeup and high heels and trendy clothes were literally paying money to take a picture of a pool.

Two things should be noted here.

1: While I try not to judge others for their wants, I would never pay money to do that.

2: While everyone else was looking fashionable I was happily sweating my ass off in my messy bun, sensible walking shoes, and Life is Good T-shirt.

I pondered on this at the last national park I was at. Why am I paying to be around a bunch of tourists at a lake, when I can find myself secluded by a lake equally if not more beautiful, for free? But, I’m a hypocrite. Because here I sit, writing, glorifying places to visit.

Also, Rio is probably not the place to just go with the flow like we usually do. It worked out for us, but we got lucky somehow. EVERYTHING needed a ticket, and almost everyone was already with a tour or had purchase ahead of time, so we had a fairly long wait time.

Rio Day 2

Escaping the sweltering uncomfortable heat that made me stick to my clothes was a disaster. I try really hard to make the most out of moments, especially by not letting forces out of my control bother me. But Rio did not mess around today with a 93 degree Fahrenheit PLUS humidity- for a feel like of 102…

Walking through the city streets you quickly learn that it’s impossible to visit here without seeing a church.

“ABC, another bloody church,” someone told me earlier this year on the Grand World Cruise.

I have to admit, there are so many churches… every place you go. Yet somehow I always find myself going into one to appreciate what it has to offer. Sometimes they blend together. But! The Cathedral in Rio certainly stands out.

Close your eyes and picture any church in the world. What are you seeing? A steeple? A cross? A clock at the top of the tower?

The Cathedral in Rio is none of these things. It’s shaped like a pyramid, reminiscent to me of the Inca or Maya empire.

Another notable place from day two was the Portuguese reading room.

There are so many skeptics out there. People who have never traveled because of what they THINK is out there. They THINK that it’s dangerous, or dirty, or crowded, or “xyz” excuse to be scared to explore new and foreign places. Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to be cautious, but if you’ve been reading my blogs or talking to me for long, you know that I help encourage travel and showcase the beauty to it, trying to “debunk” the terrors that come with it.

Rio has been a dream of mine ever since I watched the Twilight movies with my mom and Bella and Edward honeymooned there. It just looked so vibrant and full of life. And my experience was very different than what I could’ve imagined. So I felt this blog post would be dedicated to some of the stressors and negative possibilities that come with traveling, but still taking the time to express my love for the experience.

Cheers,

Tay

P.S.

I had a poor experience in Salvador, Brazil a few days after Rio. While I didn’t want to make an exclusive blog post for it, I still wanted to share the readers digest version.

We were only out for 3 hours because of the homeless, sketchiness, and overall trash littering the streets.

We had not one but TWO different people come OUT OF THEIR WAY to stop us from going down a road because it wasn’t safe.

One was an elderly local woman just going about her day. She adamantly stopped us, despite the language barrier, and redirected us a safer route.

The other was a store owner on the phone when we walked by his shop. He stopped his phone conversation and got our attention to stop us from going the street we were on.

Fast forward to getting back on the ship, we’ve heard at least half a dozen stories of guests on board that had belongings stolen in broad daylight. It happened to some in the middle of the city center, while it happened to others just steps away from the cruise port. Anything from jewelry/accessories to phones being snatched at the snap of a finger right out of someone’s hand.

Yes, we were told to be careful, but some paid the price for not keeping a gauge of their surroundings, a mentality that the ship doesn’t need, but in a foreign city with strangers, the invisible wall of what you know and don’t know about that’s going on all around, is a tall one to climb. A hard pill to swallow when your expensive cell phone is stolen and the local police standing next to you turns a blind eye.

On top of being a busy city, it was also a weekend with a festival. People lined the streets, playing the drums down cobblestone, doing body paintings, and having a good time.

I was interested in getting some of the simple but cultural body art done. But the process was horrible. Not because it was difficult, but the opposite. People were essentially running up to you, trying to put paint on you without your permission, and then charge you for it.

I tried having a conversation with a teenage looking boy, who had not only painted himself but was painting others. I tried asking him how much it was, but because I had simply given him attention he started painting on me without permission. Then he tried asking for a large amount of money. Stubborn, I pulled out a few dollars (willing to give something), but he argued with me wanting more. We argued back and forth for a few minutes, until finally he dropped it and left. I would have no problem giving some cash, but it was the fact that he had done it in a shady, manipulative way that I wasn't going to just recede for him.

Rough note to end on... but

Cheers anyway!

Tay