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Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: February 2019

In February of 2019, I went to Rio de Janeiro for two weeks and stayed in the neighborhood of Leblon. One of my closest friends, Kim, had met a guy from Rio de Janeiro named Silas on a train in Peru the year before. I was coming to Rio with her mom, brother and her brother’s boyfriend to help them celebrate their engagement!

I flew with her mom and when we arrived, we got some food and then went straight to the beach. It was February and mid-summer in Brazil. The temperatures were in the 80s and some days it rained but it was a warm tropical rain and didn’t last long. It had rained uncharacteristically heavy the night before and the day we arrived it was a still a little grey.

In the background is the rock formation Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers Hill). It is located in the neighborhood of Vidigal and is 533 meters (1750 feet) high which is higher than the other famous peak in Rio called Pão de Açúcar (or Sugar Loaf in English) which is 395 meters (1295 feet) above sea level.

You can also see the unique black and white tile geometric wave design on the boardwalk which is famously associated with Rio and runs along the city’s main beach, called Prainha, from the neighborhoods of Leblon to Ipanema to Copacabana.

Later in the week, the guys hiked to the top of Morro Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers Hill).

The next day was beautiful and lots of people were enjoying the beach. Kim’s brother Michael and his boyfriend Tyler arrived from snowy New York and were very happy for the warm weather.

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One evening we went to a Beethoven Festival performed by the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra of Rio de Janeiro.

We also visited the Tijuca National Park in Rio.

And we went to Rio’s Botanical Gardens.

We went to Pão de Açúcar (Sugar Loaf) which sits at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. But before taking the gondola lift to the top of the peak, we had a delicious lunch in a restaurant overlooking Sugar Loaf and the bay.

Then we took the gondola to the top of Sugar Loaf.

The name Sugarloaf was coined in the 16th century by the Portuguese during the heyday of sugar cane trade in Brazil. According to historian Vieira Fazenda, blocks of sugar were placed in conical molds made of clay to be transported on ships. The form of the peak reminded them of the well-known resulting “sugarloaf” shape, and the nickname has since been extended to be a general descriptor for formations of this kind.

To reach the summit, passengers take two cable cars. The first ascends to the shorter Morro da Urca, 220 m (722 ft) high. The second car ascends to Pão de Açúcar. The Swiss-made bubble-shaped cars offer passengers 360-degree views of the surrounding city. The ascent takes three minutes from start to finish.

Another day we rented bikes and rode around a beautiful lake.

Some Rio street art

As we drove up the moutain to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue that overlooks Rio, we stopped and took pictures of the sweeping city views. In the foreground is a favela.

A favela is a unique, low and middle-income, and unregulated neighborhood in Brazil that has experienced historical governmental neglect. The first favela, now known as Providência in the center of Rio de Janeiro, appeared in the late 19th century, built by soldiers who had nowhere to live following the Canudos War. Some of the first settlements were called bairros africanos (African neighborhoods). Over the years, many former enslaved Africans moved in. The most modern favelas appeared in the 1970s due to rural exodus, when many people left rural areas of Brazil and moved to cities. Unable to find places to live, many people found themselves in favelas. Census data released in December 2011 by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed that in 2010, about 6 percent (11.25 million) of the Brazilian population lived in slums.

Another look out point with sweeping city views on the way up to Christ the Redeemer.

Christ the Redeemer (Cristo Redentor): Constructed between 1922 and 1931, the statue is 30 metres (98 ft) high, excluding its 8-metre (26 ft) pedestal. The arms stretch 28 metres (92 ft) wide.

The statue weighs 635 metric tons (625 long, 700 short tons), and is located at the peak of the 700-metre (2,300 ft) Corcovado mountain in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio de Janeiro. A symbol of Christianity across the world, the statue has also become a cultural icon of both Rio de Janeiro and Brazil and is listed as one of the New 7 7 Wonders of the World. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone.

We visited Fort Copacabana, a military base on a headland at the south end of the Copacabana beach. The base is open to the public and contains the Museu Histórico do Exército (Army Historical Museum) and a coastal defense fort that is the actual Fort Copacabana.

In 1908 the Brazilian army started to build a modern coastal defense fort on the headland to protect both the beach of Copacabana and the entrance to the harbour of Rio de Janeiro. The fort, completed in 1914, consists of two armored cupolas, one holding a pair of 305 mm (12 in) Krupp cannons, and the other a pair of 190 mm (7 ¹⁄₂ in) Krupp cannons.

The name of the turret with the 305mm guns is "Duque de Caxias", and the guns are named "Barroso" and "Osório". This cupola is behind and above that of the 190 mm guns so that it can fire over them. The 305 mm Krupp guns could fire a shell of some 445 kg (981 lb) a distance of up to 23 km (14 mi). The name of the cupola with the 190 mm guns is "André Vidal". These guns could fire from 200 m (220 yd) to 18.2 km (11.3 mi).

And we had a few meet-the-family events as well as Kim and Sila’s engagement party.

And we went to the Aquário Marinho do Rio de Janeiro, Rio’s Marine Aquarium. It is considered the largest marine aquarium in South America. The building occupied by AquaRio has a total of 5 floors and 28 tanks with various types of fish. AquaRio brings together about 8,000 animals from 350 different species from all oceans.

And on our last day, we walked around and checked out some impressive large-scale murals. Rio is a beautiful place full of surprises.