Copacabana – amusemusings

So Brazil. I went from planning to skip it entirely in the months leading up to my trip (it’s so big, I think I was intimidated by its size & while I hadn’t yet read about it, I was really excited about other countries) to deciding a month before leaving that I might as well get a Brazilian visa just in case bc I’m going to be so close to about halfway into my trip, deciding I not only had to go, but I was really excited to go, to ultimately spending the last 6 weeks here. So my excitement level was real high going into Rio, my first stop in Brazil.
But I’m not really sure where to start with Rio. I think Rio gets a bad rap primarily bc of safety stuff & IMHO, it’s total crap. Be smart, be safe, don’t put yourself in bad situations & all will turn out wonderfully most of the time. I freakin loved the city. LOVED. I had planned on 6 nights & ended up staying 8 & didn’t want to leave then. I think it’s my fave big city I’ve visited on this trip. It’s just such a unique combination of massive city laid out on rolling green hills that meet the island-dotted ocean at these insanely long stretches of white sandy beach. Then you toss in the vibe, culture, music, nightlife & the nice beautiful people. There’s interesting & must-see tourist to-do’s but it’s also another city made up of different unique hoods & I had a blast exploring a lot of them. My faves, both with a lot of culture, were Lapa, which had great samba & fun parties in its central square, & Santa Teresa, an artist haven in the hills. I of course spent a lot of time in the Zona Sul which is the south zone home to 16km of sandy beaches including the famous Copacabana & Ipanema. I did a foodie tour, went to a couple local samba fests, visited some not so famous but IMHO much better beaches further south & didn’t even make it to the historical center, which is supposedly a bit dodgy outside of normal weekly business hours but includes some famous murals painted for the Olympics. I documented a lot of this but it’s also the city where both my iphone charger & one of the heroes of my trip, my backup phone battery charger, both died within a day of each other so a couple days of my adventures are not photo documented.
The people? They really are as beautiful as people say. Annoyingly in shape & stunningly beautiful. Although the guys really should stop shaving or waxing or whatever they’re doing do to their chests. The women should be parading around in their thong bikinis bc they look ridiculously amazing. And it’s no wonder. You go to the beach & people aren’t lying around. They’re lifting weights, doing pullups on children’s playground equipment, running, biking, surfing, playing football, volleyball or my fave & seemingly the most popular… footvolley which is just freaking incredible. Oh & they’re super nice too.
The food was great. All of it. I ate Thai twice & sushi once. What can I say? I’ve been traveling for nearly 6 months & I’m in need of a little variety & you get that in a big city. The food tour for me differed from my SE Asian food tours in that it was more about the experience of visiting different hoods & interacting with locals than necessarily the food. You know, experiences like bonding w the local guide (+ grad student + film critic) over drinks & finding out his fave movie is Magnolia which blows your mind bc that’s one of your fave movies of all time & then after more drinks, you two start quoting the movie & discussing plot lines before breaking into Aimee Mann songs (“One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do…”), much to the dismay of everyone else at the table. You know, those experiences?
But I really did love Rio. All but the traffic. The traffic is atrocious. It prompted me to figure out early on how to transition from taxis to the metro system. And I’m a walker so I put some miles in. I left thinking I could probably be happy hanging in Rio for another 2 weeks or quite possibly, the rest of my trip. But like I said, Brazil is big & I needed to do a bit more exploring. However, I will definitely squeeze it into another future trip to Brazil. And I’m fairly certain there will be plenty of those to come.

View of Leblon / Ipanema / Arpoador beach strips from my hotel on its own small beach in Leblon

Small isolated beach in front of hotel – a really nice chill spot frequented only by locals living in the nearby Vidigal favela. The famous beaches get awfully crowded even during low season.

I never tired of this view. This was the best sunrise of all 8 days. And when this is my view, I rarely missed a sunrise… although I may have gone back to bed afterwards.

Vidigal favela w Cristo Redentor statue on the peak in the background

Lapa’s Escadaria Selaron – Selaron Steps. Loved these, gorgeous, just wish I could do something about the hordes of people visiting.

Once word got out what Selaron was doing in Rio, not only were Rio locals providing tiles to assist, but so were folks from all over the world. I managed to find the Chicago tile.

Yum. Chilis & peppers in a street market. Too bad I can’t find food w any real good heat to speak of. Anywhere in South America. I’m gonna overload on Vietnamese & Thai food upon my return so be prepared, my Chi crew.

I mean, this cut dude posing perfectly in front of the Lapa hood’s wall mural street art?!?!?? Yes please!

Such a beautiful tranquil understated sunset viewed from the Arpoador Rock with a crowd of people who applaud afterwards. Really. It’s lovely.

I LOVE this pic. This cool ass dude who rents out surfboards built a custom rack for his bike.

View of Leblon & Ipanema from Arpoador rock

Ipanema on 5km walk back from Arpoador to Leblon after sunset. They are LONG beaches.

2 of the main touristy things you have to do in Rio is ascending both Cristo Redentor & Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf) (& first Morro da Urca). You’re looking at Sugarloaf from Urca. I did Cristo first. I prefer Sugarloaf, no question. I prefer the view – you actually get to look at Cristo & I went up for sunset one night & it’s just lovely. Not overly crowded. Plenty of space to camp out for a couple hours & take too many photos of a gorgeous sunset. My experience at Cristo was slightly different. If you have to choose, I think it’s an easy choice. When I return to Rio, I won’t return to Cristo. But I will most definitely do another sunset stop Sugarloaf.

Atop Sugarloaf looking at Urca mountain immediately below, long strip of beach on left is Copacabana & Cristo is on high peak in background. I just think the city is drop dead gorgeous.

These great guys were atop Morro da Urca & at first taking pics for friends & then I asked if I could take one as did all these other folks & they proceeded to take pics for the 30mins I was standing there. It was so great!

Santa Teresa’s Parque das Ruinas was a glorious start to a fun day of wandering the hood. It’s a public garden w great views & centers around ruins of a mansion once home to an heiress & has now been preserved but has this cool indoor/outdoor feel to it. It’s at the top to Santa Teresa & after spending a couple hours here, I wandered down & around the hood all day. This & Lapa are my faves.

Santa Teresa hood pics. ST has Rio’s last electric tram.

Seriously. All the fucking tourists! You take this cog train up Corcovado hill to find this tiny little viewing platform that’s not nearly enough space for all the fucking tourists to do the same pic – arms outstretched mimicking CR. It really is a lovely view but I spent about 15 mins up there, couldn’t leave quick enough & will never do it again.

Lake Titicaca is this gorgeous sapphire blue lake that borders on both Peru & Bolivia & is easily the largest high-altitude body of water in the world. It’s also very sacred Incan land as they believe the sun & the moon were created on Isla Del Sol. Copacabana is the Bolivian town on Lake Titicaca closest to Isla Del Sol & the best spot to explore the lake on the Bolivian side. In general I’d heard the Bolivian side was more charming & less touristy & I specifically read Copacabana was much more alluring with better ambience than its Peruvian counterpart, Puno. So we cruised right through Puno on the way to the Peru-Bolivia land border crossing to access Copacabana & Isla Del Sol, which was certainly the highlight of the Lake Titicaca trip.
As a quick aside… I was a tad nervous hitting the border crossing. If you heed the US State Department’s advice, you MUST have a visa prior to entering Bolivia. I looked into this prior to the trip but it was going to take 2 months & that was time I didn’t have (yes, I’m still a procrastinator). So I did some online research to find that before the rule changed (US citizens apparently used to be able to get visas upon arrival to Bolivia but that changed in 2015), plenty of folks got in just fine. For the life of me, I couldn’t find a single example of someone who successfully crossed after the rule change. So we were rolling the dice a bit. But I wasn’t that worried as I was convinced all they cared about was us paying the $160 visa fee which is a reciprocal fee to what the US charges Bolivian citizens to visit (no one else needs a visa, only Americans bc our government makes it really difficult for foreigners to visit so some countries choose to do the same to US tourists; can’t blame them really). I was (fairly) certain they wouldn’t turn away tourists who not only want to visit their country & spend money but also are willing to pay a hefty sum to enter. So turns out I was right. We gave them some of the documents “required”, didn’t provide them with others (proof of exiting country, hotel res) but they didn’t seem to give a shit. They cared most about closely inspecting those US bills in exchange for a 10yr visa (woot woot!). Thankfully so bc that really would’ve sucked to be rejected at the Bolivian border… or just another adventure.