The two main landmarks that you see and what Rio is known for are the statue of Christ the Redeemer, high on the hill and the Sugar Loaf Mountain, which marks the bay. Yesterday was Christ the Redeemer and our tour today was a visit to Sugar Loaf Mountain. There are two cable cars that take you to the top of Urca Hill (at 215 meters). You do a bit of a hop skip to get to the top, each cable car rides only last a few minutes but takes you along some pretty breathtaking scenery. Views from the top include Guanabara Bay with all its islands, the Rio-Niteroi Bridge, Niteroi Beaches and of course, Corcovado Mountain, the home of Christ the Redeemer. After our visit to the amazing Sugar Loaf Mountain we headed over to Selaron Stairways in the Old Downtown of Rio. This older area of town was becoming quite run down and starting in the 1990’s turned into a major tourist site with the adding of many different types of over 2,000 tiles from over 60 countries up or down the 215 steps leading from Escadaria Selaron’s house. Fun find - For me, these stairs also include a number of the Holland America tiles, a bit hard to find but I was able to locate them. From here we headed to the Grande Rio Samba School, one of the main Samba schools in Rio de Janeiro. This Samba school is the home of the top 6 schools for the Carnival parade and celebration. Each school has it own building, each containing four floors of activity pertaining to putting on the best performance for Carnival. This first three floors (stairs on one end but no ceilings) contains all the cars (formerly known as floats) with all the wood, steel, styrofoam and fabric - amazing but we were not allowed to photo as it is Carnival next month and these cars are well under way to being constructed - the main reason is sponsorship infringement and the element of surprise. The fourth floor contains the area where all the costumes are being made, a hive of activity as final preparations are well under way. After learning some great history and seeing and photographing past costumes we were escorted into a room and were invited to try on some of the actual costumes. It was amazing to see how the workers here could size you up with what would look good on you - very fun. We then enjoyed some Caipirinha drinks as we wrapped up. This was an excellent way to end our two days here in Rio de Janeiro.
Lunch back at the ship and then a wonderful commentary as we sailed out of this amazing port - one of the best sail ins and outs in the world. A word about the tour operators, DoBrazilRight. Very professional, well organized with great smaller buses with great guides. If you are looking for any tours in Brazil, I would highly recommend the good people at DoBrazilRight. I will definitely be posting a review on trip advisor. Our day wrapped up with the incredible piano playing of Tim Abel. Here are a few pic of our amazing day here in Rio, hope you enjoy…
Quote of the day - “ I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality” - Martin Luther King Jr.
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