Rio, Day 2

After a lovely breakfast at Mama Shelter we hopped in a pair of Ubers and zipped over to the Parque Nacional da Tijuca for a visit to the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer. Here’s what that sounded like from inside the Uber:

Kath: What a gorgeous day.

Dave: (Dave is looking at his phone)

Holly: I know! It’s so much less humid that I’d have thou...OH JEEESUS CHRIST! (this as we make a turn onto a street that appears to be heading downhill at a 45 degree angle)

Kath: SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! He can’t possibly...
Holly: Ohmygod, ohmygod, I’m going to have a heart attack (this as we make a hard right and start going up a cobblestone street at what appears to be, I don’t know, a 90 degree angle)

Uber driver:

Dave: (Dave is looking at his phone)

Kath: nononononoNONONONONO!! (another car has now turned onto the street and is coming toward us very quickly. There is not room for two cars to pass each other on this street)

Kath and Holly: Whimper ... whimper ... (as the Uber driver, who had to slow way down to get past the oncoming car loses all momentum and begins to drift back down the hill just as another car turns and in an obvious attempt not to lose his own momentum, comes tearing up the hill behind us)

Uber Driver:

You can just re-read that each time I mention an Uber ride in Rio. They all pretty much went the same way. But hey -- at least it was cheap.

To get up to the little park surrounding Christ the Redeemer, you take a very charming old cog railway, which has its own physics/death defying qualities but also provides a handful of spectacular views and a close encounter with lots of gorgeous vegetation and extremely cheerful Brazilians.

The park itself is not much -- just a series of paved steps, generic souvenir/snack pavilions and walkways that zig zag up to the base of the statue. This is the imposing carved Jesus with his arms rigidly outstretched over Rio that you’ve seen in a million establishing shots and airline commercials. He’s actually a lot more impressive from a distance. The statue itself is very simple -- thought certainly massive -- and the plaza around the base is a welter of selfie-taking tourists, including lots of people who lay flat on the ground to snap the looming savior. But the views of Rio are staggering.

While we were up there, massive thunderheads rolled across the city. We went from standing in brilliant sunshine to being cloaked in dense fog and back to sparkling sun in about 5 minutes, all without taking a step. Gorgeous vistas abound -- of the famous beaches (Ipanema and Copacabana), the corrugated landscape surrounding Rio (including the Sugarloaf -- Brazil’s other famous tall lump of rock), the great swaths of city growing from every dip between the hills, and miles and miles of ocean.

Back down on the little railway (slightly less alarming -- we even managed to notice several religious statues tucked into the thick woods along the track) and another Uber adventure and we were back at Mama Shelter to meet up with Andy, who’d flown in from Brasilia to join us.

A quick freshen up and (sigh) another Uber ride took us to lunch. We’d noticed a mysterious glass elevator rising from the street above us during our wanderings the previous day. Turns out this was the way you enter Aprazivel -- a genuinely gorgeous restaurant perched above our neighborhood with a view out to the sea. The place itself was worth the visit -- it shared a vibe with the restaurant at Maison Dalabua in Luang Prabang (which still ranks as the most beautiful place I’ve ever eaten a meal). Lots of interesting corners and pretty decks including space up a spiral staircase (anyone eating at that table better leave a ginormous tip). Beautiful textiles were hung, thrown and draped with casual perfection, plants and flowers filled interesting containers, and colorful artworks were dotted about. Great big tables and chairs made of gnarled logs set with colorful tin and stone tableware made even the ordinary food seem exotic -- but not much of the food was ordinary. While I don’t think any of us will be pining for the acai guacamole, the whole roasted heart of palm was incredibly delicious and surprising. And while we would eat many (many) cheese breads on this trip, none would top the ones at Aprazivel, largely because they were stuffed with shredded pork in delicious sauce. Oh, and the cocktails were amazing -- the most spectacular had a skillfully sliced starfruit cascading in a little chain down the side of the glass -- and came with clever straws made of pasta.

After lunch and yet another Uber ride (the terror slightly blunted by our alcohol intake), we explored Parque das Ruinas, a garden surrounding a ruined mansion. Despite being largely in a state of picturesque decay, the old mansion contains an art gallery, a performance space and a terrifying staircase to a tower platform with a view of the Sugarloaf and Christ the Redeemer facing each other across the horizon. An exhibition of weirdly disturbing dioramas (including one depicting the fire at the Brazilian National Museum and one titled “Trump Thoughts…” that appeared to be a hand giving the finger from a pile of shit and garbage) shared the art space with a performance by local musicians that was a little too much earnest talk about preserving traditions and making safe spaces for many voices and not quite enough, you know, music.

Based on a quick consult with Google maps and an almost overwhelming desire not to get in another Uber, we decided to walk back to Mama Shelter. We strolled through a small but extremely energetic block party and then wound our way along the streets, admiring the spectacular graffiti and street murals, and doing a little shopping because it’s important to start inflating the load of crap you’ll be hauling around Brazil as early in your trip as possible.

More freshening up (Brazil requires a minimum of two showers a day -- don’t even get me started on how fast we were running through the underwear), more caipirinhas on the patio at Mama Shelter, and then of course we had to introduce Andy to Bar Sao Thiago (which was a little less lively than the night before, but the onion rings lived up to our accolades).