We started our day like any other — at a massive buffet with limited tongs available, so many were just using their hands. #thanksbolsonaro At least, as a diamond member, Nicole (and me by proxy) were allotted our own separate breakfast area away from most of the chaos. We didn’t have too many items on our itinerary for the day, which turned out to be a good thing as we would soon discover. Our morning was spent with an easy stroll along the Copacabana beach walk. The black and white mosaic patterns on the path were very reminiscent of recently visited Madeira.
Even at a relatively early hour, the beach was quite active with beach soccer, loungers, vendors, and all sorts of people trying to get their exercise in. We walked maybe a mile or so down the path before turning around. Copacabana beach is quite long you see. Our next plan was to go visit some botanical gardens. It took about 30 minutes to get there in an Uber ride which very abruptly ended when our driver simply said, “Tchau.” I guess that was our queue.
Unfortunately for us, and many other people in the vicinity of the botanical gardens, they are randomly closed on Wednesday, or maybe just this Wednesday? Unclear. There were obviously a large number of people that were operating under the assumption that the gardens wouldn’t be closed on . . .a Wednesday. The website seemed perfectly ok with people using a credit card to pay for tickets in advance. Luckily, I didn’t actually pay ahead of time, but we did waste about 90 mins to two hours just sitting in traffic going to and from the the not-very-open botanical gardens. All we got out of it was an encounter with this obviously haunted looking house.
The driver took us on a possibly longer, but maybe more scenic route along Ipanema beach, as referenced in “The Girl From Ipanema.” It was perhaps even busier than Copacabana. Feeling somewhat exhausted from a morning of failure and riding around in Ubers, we retired for a lunch on the rooftop of the Hilton, where we split a cheese and tomato sandwich and I had a brownie because I was good.
The rooftop offered good views in the direction of Pão Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain). Riding gondolas to the top of the hill is a popular tourist activity for the area, but Nicole and I didn’t see any appeal to this. After all, I think it is the hill itself that is photogenic and it is quite difficult to see it, if you are on it. Also of interest is the rapid progression of beachfront high rises to apartments in tight quarters just a block or two back, followed by working-class multi family dwellings crammed into the hill-side just beyond. In the past, these neighborhoods would have been called “favelas,” but that term is becoming a bit controversial as it has a very charged connotation of crime and inferior status.
It was all very interesting to see nonetheless. While we sat there eating our lunch, we plotted to book our tickets for the cog train up Corcovado, the mountain that hosts Cristo Redentor (Christ, the Redeemer). We had read it gets quite crowded, so we booked our tickets for 4:00pm, an hour before the very last train goes to the summit. Cristo Redentor is one of the seven new wonders of the world, a fact which is riddled with shadiness and much controversy. More on that shortly.
Given the issues with traffic we had been having, and our tickets telling us to get there 30 minutes before our scheduled train, we found ourselves heading down to catch another Uber much sooner than we originally thought. Our driver was not super friendly, but given the language barrier, we couldn’t really tell what he was so cranky about. Maybe he was just sick of driving in traffic. #thanksbolsonaro The directions were a little bit confusing to get to the train stop. One cannot just put “Cristo Redentor” into maps as it will result in driving up the side of a mountain, though I’m not convinced our driver wouldn’t have given it a shot. There is also, as it turns out, more than one train station to get up to the top.
We had entered the other one into Uber. I noticed a sign for a train to Corcovado (the right one) and we spent the next 2 km trying to tell the driver to stop. We said, “Excuse me!,” “Stop!,” and at one point I was gesturing to the piece of paper/ticket that showed the station name. None of this had any effect. It’s like he was completely oblivious. “Great, we’re being kidnapped,” I said out loud. Eventually Nicole looked up the Portuguese word for “stop.” “PARE!,” she exclaimed and he finally responded. I realize that there is a language issue, but I would have thought gesturing while saying fairly common English words like, “Stop” or “Excuse me” would have gotten through faster. Luckily we weren’t kidnapped in the end, or at least only briefly. We got to the station in time to get our tickets and board the 4:00 cog train to the summit.
Our train had a fair amount of open seats, but it is evidently common to fill up many hours in advance during “high season.” With that being said, we most definitely did not have Cristo to ourselves. Following the 20 minute cog train ride, we walked up a series of stairs until we caught our first glimpses of Jesus’s back side. Most people were naturally on the other side taking selfies in a big way.
While Cristo is big up close, it’s not like impressively big. At the risk of sounding unappreciative, it has no business sharing the stage with other wonders like the Great Wall of China, Macchu Picchu, or the Coliseum in Rome. Those landmarks were built hundreds if not thousands of years ago with basic technology and are impressive for a multitude of reasons whether it be the scale, ambition, or architectural brilliance that was centuries ahead of its time. The Cristo Redentor statue isn’t even a century old.
Nicole did some research on this mysterious selection, and it turns out there was a bit of corruption involved in its inclusion. There was a vote in the early 2000s on what the new wonders should be. While the other six have definite claims to their titles, Brazil ran a massive campaign to include Cristo Redentor. The votes were online or by phone and there was virtually no way to prevent repeat votes back then. Brazil is a nation of 200 million people and they were encouraged heavily to “vote for Christ.” And because of that, the world’s THIRD largest Jesus statue is now sharing its title with the Taj Mahal, Chichen Itza, and Petra. #thanksbolsonaro
I mean, I’m glad we saw it. We had to. It’s basically the symbol of Rio. And now I can claim that I’ve seen all seven new wonders of the world. But the point is that it’s just a bit . . .overrated. We all know that the moai on Rapa Nui should have that seventh spot, or maybe Angkor Wat, or really anything that showed some skill beyond the era that it was built in. Big Jeebus is a fairly basic design/structure built in the 20th century using modern tools and technology.
Because everyone coming down the cog train had called for an Uber at the same time, there were no Ubers to be had. I eventually hailed a cab that took us back to the Copacabana. He was a lot friendlier than the driver that brought us to Jesus. He appeared to be listening to some sort of talk radio that was criticizing Bolsonaro as being anti-democratic. This is based solely on my ability to pick out key words in Portuguese during the broadcast. In any event, we hit up the Executive Suite happy hour (thanks to Nicole’s Hilton Honors Diamond status) before going for a stroll on the beach path.
We had a late dinner (or early if you’re Brazilian) on the rooftop. We each had a pizza which I chased with a rich Brazilian dessert called Brigadeiro. All in all, Rio was more pleasant than either of us expected despite all the traffic and craziness. Tomorrow we head out, and not on a redeye! The non-redeye options are quite limited, and it will be a long day, but hopefully this is better for our body clocks. Tchau.
passports & pepto bismol 