Day 6 - February 10, 2015:
We pre-arranged for a city tour which picked us up at the hotel. The bus circled around the city toward pricey beach hotels. While waiting for the cable car to Sugarloaf (Pao de Acucar) we saw two technical climbers scaling a mountainside. This area is noted for mountain climbing.
We caught the glass-walled cable car that holds 65. It was installed in 2008. Due to the distance and span it takes two cable car rides to reach the top. On the first stop we were soon looking down upon the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula into the Atlantic and panoramic views which were postcard perfect. One could not help but take one photo after another.
We pre-arranged for a city tour which picked us up at the hotel. The bus circled around the city toward pricey beach hotels. While waiting for the cable car to Sugarloaf (Pao de Acucar) we saw two technical climbers scaling a mountainside. This area is noted for mountain climbing.
We caught the glass-walled cable car that holds 65. It was installed in 2008. Due to the distance and span it takes two cable car rides to reach the top. On the first stop we were soon looking down upon the mouth of Guanabara Bay on a peninsula into the Atlantic and panoramic views which were postcard perfect. One could not help but take one photo after another.
Pao du Acucar - Sugarloaf
Corcovado - Christ the Redeemer
Christ the Redeemer sits atop Corcovado mountain (2,300 ft) in the Tijuca Forest National Park overlooking the city of Rio. It is visible from a great distance. It sits atop a viewing platform and stands 125 feet high and its arm stretch 92 feet wide. Wikipedia states that the Art Deco statue was created by French sculptor Paul Landowski and built by the Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, in collaboration with the French engineer Albert Caquot. The statue weighs 635 metric tons. As a symbol of Brazilian Christianity, the statue has become an icon for Rio de Janeiro and Brazil. It is made of reinforced concrete and soapstone, and was constructed between 1922 and 1931.
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A stop at the Maracana soccer stadium
Sambodromo
The following is a rather long explanation of the Sambodromo, however since that was one of the main focuses of traveling to Rio at this time I have included it. The information was taken from Rio-carnival.net. "The Sambodromo is the "stadium" of samba. It consists of the Parading Avenue (the samba runway) and several independent concrete structures for the spectators (the bleachers) both sides along the Parading Avenue. The Sambodromo was designed by Brazil's world-famous architect, the modernist Oscar Niemeyer. It was purpose-built for the Samba Parade and was inaugurated in 1984. Made of concrete, it seems a bit dated for today's post-modern eyes. It feels derelict if not ugly, surrounded only by favelas during the year, when it serves smaller cultural events. However, it is transformed and comes to life during Carneval. It becomes truly magnificent and overpowering, lit up with special effects on Samba Parade nights, filled with thousands of cheering spectators and surrounded by many other thousands who could not get in. It has recently been reconstructed according to Niemeyer's original design to hold around 72,000 spectators from 2012 Carnival onwards, to accommodate the ever-growing Rio Carneval Parade and for the opening ceremonies of the 2016 Olympic Games."
Here we saw the stadium and empty bleachers where we would be returned on the crowded opening night of Carnevale. The entrance fee compare to the SuperBowl prices. As a side note we often saw the hillside Favelas throughout the city and there is one directly in sight of the Sambadromo.
Here we saw the stadium and empty bleachers where we would be returned on the crowded opening night of Carnevale. The entrance fee compare to the SuperBowl prices. As a side note we often saw the hillside Favelas throughout the city and there is one directly in sight of the Sambadromo.
Another delicious buffet
Petrobras office building
Petrobras petroleum has been receiving plenty of bad press of late. On February 10th we saw protests against the company which claims to have lost account (misappropriated) billions of dollars. It's a corruption and graft scandal to hit more than 40 in Brazil's political class. Prior to our trip to Rio several senior managers and many executives in the business class had already been implicated. Stay tuned.
An outdoor cafe - including construction
We reminisced about the sights we had seen over local beer and cashews, and solved the world's problems on a corner cafe next to our hotel while construction for the light rail came to a halt for the day.