Our South America Adventure - Day 12 Rio De Janeiro

Today was all about exploring Rio. We started at 8am and headed to Christ the Redeemer. This monument was the main reason we visited Rio. We couldn’t wait to see it. 

Sunrise from our hotel room

We drove through the city to a train station where we caught a train up the mountain. The train ride is nice - it goes through the rainforest and it takes ~20 minutes. You could also hike, but that can take hours, and given our limited times in Rio we were glad to be on the train. 

Train selfie

We arrived at the Christ the Redeemer statue and snapped a few pictures. It was very crowded and very windy on the platform by the statue. Still, we took some time to take in the statue and enjoy the panoramic city views. This is a nice monument. Honestly, Alison and I both agreed it was our least favorite of the 7 wonders of the modern world, but we were glad we finally made it here. We have now visited all 7 wonders of the modern world! What an accomplishment. 

We took the train back down the mountain and continued with our day. Our next stop was Escadaria Selarón, also known as the Selaron Steps, a famous staircase made of tile. An artist, Jorge Selarón, designed and built them as a tribute to the people of Brazil. Rafael, our guide told us all about the artist and pointed out many interesting tiles.

Then we stopped at a nearby shop to sample a local drink. Since they were so hospitable we bought a small souvenir. 

Our next stop was the Rio Cathedral. Our tour guides assured us we have never seen a cathedral quite like this one and they were right. This cathedral has a really unique design. It was built to resemble the Apollo space capsule. Inside there are four large stained glass windows. These windows are abstract works of art depicting important themes for the Catholic faith. The Cathedral was huge. We wandered around and looked at some of the artwork and talked about religion in Brazil. 

We loved that this baby Jesus was depicted in the Christ the Redeemer pose

We headed to the city center For lunch. Our tour guides asked us what type of food we were looking for and we expressed interest in trying local food. The place we went was a beautiful restaurant. Alison and I both ate the same thing. We had a local fish served over puréed sweet potatoes with an açaí sauce. It was tasty. 

After lunch, we went to the Carnival experience. This was an optional add-on that we chose to do last minute. We were originally planning to hike in the rainforest at the center of Rio and see a small waterfall, but since we spent the past three days at Iguazu we realized this might be a bit of a letdown. Instead, we got to learn about Carnival and samba. It was a really cool experience. 

We visited the samba school area. This is where they build and design the floats and costumes, as well as train the dancers. Carnival was about a month ago so they had the floats from the most recent one on display. They were in the process of dismantling them - they reuse as much as possible. In the coming months, they will begin building the floats for the 2023 Carnival. After we looked at the floats they showed us the costumes. They will have around 2,500 people dancing with their floats so they have to create a lot of costumes. We even got to try on a few of the costumes - Alison loved it. Then one of the samba dancers came and taught us how to do samba dance. Alison was a natural, her footwork was in point. After this experience, we kind of want to come back to Rio and go to Carnival. It seems like it would be a lot of fun. 

We saved the best experience for last. We went to Sugarloaf to watch the sunset. It could not have been a more perfect day. It was beautiful and clear. We had skip-the-line passes, which was very convenient. We arrived and headed right onto the cable car and up to the first mountain. From here we had panoramic views of Rio and nice views of sugarloaf. As sunset approached we took the second cable car to sugarloaf. Here the views were even better. Rafael was so excited to show us the view of Copacabana, which was breathtaking. Then we found a spot and watched the sunset. It was a great sunset and the perfect way to end our day in Rio. 

View from our room at night