Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

On Friday 6th July, as soon as Term 2 finished, Will and I flew out to Rio de Janeiro. Will had a conference there (WCCI, or World Congress on Computational Intelligence for the uninitiated!). The timing couldn't have worked out better with my holidays, with the added bonus of this one being a 3-week holiday for me. My plan was to spend a few days in Rio with him, then head out and explore more of Brazil by myself.

The trip didn't get off to the best of starts with a delay out of Auckland due to engineering problems. This meant that our direct flight from Auckland to Buenos Aires was several hours late getting in, which subsequently meant that we missed our connection from BA to Rio. Air New Zealand put us up in a hotel for the night (which ended up being right in the city centre of BA, about 45 minutes drive from the airport!) and then booked us onto a flight to Rio leaving early the following morning. It meant we only ended up getting about 4 hours sleep. This wasn't exactly ideal coming off a busy term followed by a 13 hour flight, but there wasn't anything that could be done about it. It was worse for Will because he was actually working, so had to be fairly with it. We were staying in the conference hotel, the Windsor Oceânico Hotel in Barra da Tijuca, about a half hour drive from central Rio. It was a lovely quiet spot on an amazing stretch of beach. Below is the view from the rooftop pool terrace. 

Once we arrived at the hotel we went for a walk to a local shopping centre to get Brazilian sim cards. It's usually the first thing I do when travelling, once I have data I can do most of my planning and organising from my phone. The shopping centre had a very cool food truck area, so we grabbed a bite. Breakfast, lunch, dinner -who knows what meal our bodies thought they were meant to be having!

We were in the country during the football world cup, but unfortunately Brazil had just been eliminated. It was a shame, because it would have been amazing to have been there if they had managed to win the thing! The country is football-mad and there were flags and bunting all over the place.

Will could afford to give me one morning to do the tourist thing together, so we decided to head up Sugarloaf mountain. 

It takes two cable-cars to get to the top, and once there, the views are absolutely stunning. Rio is a spectacularly gorgeous city, and looks amazing viewed from above.

 

 

Will the engineer was most interested in the cable-car mechanism...

I had to make the most of getting some holiday pics together while I could!

 

 

 

We then took an Uber back to the hotel, and Will headed off to his conference while I had a chilled afternoon hanging out at the hotel and exploring the surrounds. When I travel I usually do so super cheaply, mostly choosing to stay at backpackers. It was a real treat being in a 'proper' hotel for a few nights. The supplied breakfast was amazing! It ended up being my main meal of the day... I did develop a weakness for the Brazilian 'cheese bread' which is a breakfast staple. The breakfast buffet had bread/pastry stations, loads of cooked options, cereals, as well as incredible fresh fruit. I made sure I made the most of it!

Every conference Will attends he comes back with a 'gift' and this one was very appropriate to Brazil! I bought the first (of what would turn out to be several!) pairs of Havaianas in Rio as well.

On Monday I had a big day of doing the tourist thing. After Ubering into the city centre I took the train up Corcovado Mountain to visit Christ the Redeemer.

 This was, quite simply, AWESOME! It is over 30m high, on top of an 8m or so plinth. You don't really get an idea of the scale until you see it with people at the bottom of the statue.

It was the most perfect day, and I'm so glad that it lived up to expectation. There is always the worry when you visit some of these super-iconic places that they won't deliver.

The views from the top were pretty special as well. It was cool to look back to Sugarloaf mountain where we had been the previous day.

 

Heading back to the train, there was a group of people looking up into a tree. It turns out there was a sloth up there. I LOVE sloths, but unfortunately didn't have my proper SLR camera on me, as I didn't think it would be sensible to wander around central Rio with it by myself. I had to make do with a couple of pics on my phone... You can just about see it below!

 

Once I was back at the train station at the bottom, I decided to walk to the nearest metro station. The route was along busy main roads, plus it was lunchtime with lots of people out and about, so I felt perfectly safe. From there I took a metro train to Copacabana Beach and had a nice wander, before taking another metro train back to Barra da Tijuca where there was a station about 20 minutes walk from the hotel.  

 

On Tuesday I had a leisurely get-up, before an even more leisurely breakfast. I then spent a very chilled morning in the local area. Will came back up to our room during lunchtime so I got to say goodbye to him, before taking an Uber to the airport, ready for my flight to Salvador and the start of my adventures by myself. Will had a couple more nights in Rio before he then headed to Kyoto, Japan for a week for yet another conference.