Today has already been one of the most fantastic days of my life, and there's the small matter of the world's biggest party still to come! My travels take a notable turn today, however, as for the remainder of my journey I will no longer be taking on the world solo - last night I was joined here in Rio by Anna, previously mentioned in Mumbai and various other occasions...
The weekend was passed with Rita and her sister taking me various places that wouldn't be too bad for Anna to miss - beginning with a tour of the legendary Maracanã Stadium. I've seen many a big stadium in my time, and to be honest the Maracanã isn't up to much from the outside. It doesn't have the towering height of the MCG, nor the sheer surface area of Wembley, and looks in many ways similar to the concrete-clad outer face of Twickenham. Through the internal tunnels and changing rooms - all shrines to Brazil's World Cup-winning heroes (all 5 squads of them) - and out pitchside, however, and you realise how this place once held just shy of 200,000 spectators. It is vast. The pitch itself, at 110x75 metres, is a bit longer and a bit wider than average, but for some reason it seems like an eternity from one side to the other - particularly across the width of the pitch. Anyway, I doubt there's ever been a more compulsory place to "Back the Bid".
I sampled the traditional Brazilian feijoada lunch at the Academia da Cachaça in Leblon, including the ubiquitous caipirinha cocktail (savagely strong), and had time for a sunset stroll down Ipanema Beach which, thanks to being arguably the most picture perfect sunset I'll ever see (and anyone who's been reading this blog knows that I've seen my fair share of picture perfect sunsets), brought a degree of wistfullness at my lack of camera. Rio may be one of the most fantastic cities on the planet, but the fact that you aren't safe to take your cameras on the subway metro system is a crying, crying shame. To give you some idea of what it looks like, however, I found the image on the right on Google Images. Anyway, the fall of night saw Rita, her sister and I take on Lapa - the clubbing district - to great aplomb all round. Imagine the thumping alcohol-fuelled revelry of the Greek clubbing islands, mixed with the sheer volume of people and noise seen in Mumbai, but all moving to the samba beat that is just oh so South American. It may have been after midnight, but in Rio that is when the night begins - and how. Thousands upon thousands of people were just everywhere - you move in a throng and go where the crowds take you. Spontaneous al fresco dancefloors and bars appear on streetcorners where locals have rocked up with their cars and are pumping out tunes - and everywhere you look everyone is having the time of their life. We went into Lapa 40, one of Lapa's samba nightclubs, and danced away several hours watching an awesome troupe of samba percussions, singers, and most impressively, dancers strutting their stuff.
That was Saturday, today is Monday, and it wasn't much more than 18 hours ago that Rita and I, after a day* of Copacabana (compulsory visit to the city's most famous beach), Pedro Bonito (watching hang-gliders float down off a massive hill), and Barra (for an unsuccesful attempt to purchase a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt), were in a taxi home from the airport with Anna safely joining us from London. Despite the knowledge of a 7am wake'up alarm, it won't be much of a surprise that "catching up" chit-chat took us well into the early hours.
My first instinct this morning was one that has basically become foreign to me - feeling damn cold. Parked on the mattress underneat the air-con, it was a refreshing change from the unrelenting 40°+ heat of the day that has been standard issue since my arrival. 7am was, admittedly, a struggle, but by 7.30 we were on the road towards Ipanema to meet up with one of Rita's friends, her Canadian boyfriend, and the latter's brother who was visiting Rio as well. A two car convoy, and we were on our way up to Corcavado.
I've already spoken of the magical aura Cristo Redentor provides as it stands above Rio - but one thing you cannot appreciate looking up at it from the city is just how massive a structure it is. Monumental is the word - trying to capture the whole thing in one photograph is tough enough, leave alone trying to take photos of people... and that's just the physics, leave alone the hundreds of tourists rammed around you all trying to take the same snap. Looking down of the city serves incredible views in every direction, but for me it was looking back up at the statue that sent shivers of excitement down my spine - the simplicity but completeness of the facial details; the holes in his palms; even the glow of the stone in the sunlight; all contribute to making this one of the great works of man anywhere in the world.
Back down the other side of the Corcavado, we were pleasantly surprised by how early it still was and decided to make the most of time by tackling Rio's other famous hilltop - the domineering Sugar Loaf on the other side of town. There's a cable car up to the top, but being intrepid adventurers Anna and I took to the path... and 40 hot, dehydrated and very sweaty minutes later, spent a good hour taking many an identical photograph of the stunning views looking back down to the city. We took the cable car back down, which probably says more than enough about the climb...
Anna got to taste the traditional meat-rice-beans feijoada for herself at Academia da Cachaça, but arguably the most memorable part of her first day here in Rio came afterward, with a trip to one of Rita's friends apartments. We were told it would be a brief trip - Rita just wanted to say hi and bye - but as we walked into a penthouse suite, adorned wall to wall with all kinds of fascinating but random crap, and ascended a spiral staircase to a rooftop terrace complete with swimming pool, meat on the BBQ, and ice cold beers being offered to us... well we knew it wasn't going to be a brief visit. About 15 people were up there just loving life - and both Anna and I were in agreement that coming across a place like this will forever make any other fantastic apartment just that little less special. With legs dipped in the cool pool, sipping on an ice cold sud, with beautifully barbecued beef being offered to me every 2 minutes, I looked across the water to smile at Anna, and then just arched my head upward to find - right above us, with nothing else in between - the open arms and solemn smile of Cristo Redentor. All was good.
* after another late start (breakfast after midday), "day" would really be more accurately replaced with "afternoon"
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