rio..cont...
Apr. 20th, 2009 12:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
smittenbyuWe then planned to head to Santa Teresa. It's supposed to be the one hill that is not overtaken by favelas and is still serviced by the tram. So, of course, it's a big tourist spot. The street car goes over these arches.
I didn't hang out from the sides! Stood in the back though as all the seats were taken up! We rode all the way up to the top. We should have gotten off earlier but then we didn't really do our research. I guess we expected big signs for Santa Teresa and a touristy area. Well, no such thing. We got off at the last stop and walked back down the hill that would make for a nice walk and give nice views of Rio. This tram driver was the same one who had taken us up and saw him come up again. We waved a hello, he hesitated at first and waved back! :)
Nice colourful houses dotted the side of the streets. You can see me below giving a thumbs up. Initially we thought it was just us trying to communicate with others who didn't speak English. We then noticed that it was a very common hand gesture amongst the locals! We had a great time with it!
We saw a lot of graffiti as well. Many of them had some story to tell of the social issues seen in the city.
And in case you forget the VW beetles were once manufactured in Brazil.... you are reminded with many of their products. old and new... we were more infatuated with the older ones! :)
And this VW van owner really wanted the bug...
We did have a lot of trouble finding a place to eat... There were many German places, European places, and finally we found one place with two vegetarian choices...oh and it was good! We found the vegetarian version of the Portuguese ever famous stew!
and we had a local species of a monkey join us as well!
We finally reached the bottom again and headed to go up Sugar Loaf Mountain to see the sunset view of the city. well, it got very cloudy and even started raining as we went up! :S
So, we waited. We sat in the park up above and waited along other tourists that were also there for the clouds to clear and the rain to stop. The rain did stop but the clouds took more than half hour to clear. We had the time, and so we waited. And got a beautiful view of Rio...
1 April 2009
We spent an hour in the morning at the beach. Got back showered and went shopping for a bottle or two of Cachaça. We asked the front desk about our luggage. We found that they did get the right luggage back and would drop it off by 1:30pm! phew. We also asked them the brands of Cachaça and also the music that they listened to. So, we went to the store and had a fun experience with the sales guy. He just talked and talked... in Portuguese with us! Somehow we managed to understand each other. And came home with two bottles. we bought some fun music that we liked as well. The funny thing was the CD store was in a Americanised mall (the mall was also called Mall America ...or something). One of the jewelry stores we passed by had an interesting display. Again the infatuation with Indian things...
Over our stay, a lot of the people kept talking about this show they watch in Portuguese that showcases Indian culture/customs through a soap-opera style of story telling! So many people would describe it to us. Even the cook at the hostel we stayed at in Rio. So, on Sunday night, when the TV was free, we actually watched the show for some time. The show seems to be filmed in India, but the actors are all Portuguese. It's called Caminho das Indias! I shared this with mom and she laughed pleasantly. She remembers stopping traffic when she wore saris - literally, when we lived back in Brazil in the early 80s! For the first time she had worn pants and t-shirts!! And once when I went about walking on my own, I saw a local lady wearing a sari!
It started late morning and continued on the whole day! We had lunch at a nicer version of the Kilogram place - it had so many more options for us to try! yum! In between we went back to meet the Real Bus and collect our luggage! yay! Enjoyed a nice walk down the beach side and a last caipirnhas and caught the cab to head to the airport and back to the USA. sigh.
I didn't hang out from the sides! Stood in the back though as all the seats were taken up! We rode all the way up to the top. We should have gotten off earlier but then we didn't really do our research. I guess we expected big signs for Santa Teresa and a touristy area. Well, no such thing. We got off at the last stop and walked back down the hill that would make for a nice walk and give nice views of Rio. This tram driver was the same one who had taken us up and saw him come up again. We waved a hello, he hesitated at first and waved back! :)
Nice colourful houses dotted the side of the streets. You can see me below giving a thumbs up. Initially we thought it was just us trying to communicate with others who didn't speak English. We then noticed that it was a very common hand gesture amongst the locals! We had a great time with it!
We saw a lot of graffiti as well. Many of them had some story to tell of the social issues seen in the city.
And in case you forget the VW beetles were once manufactured in Brazil.... you are reminded with many of their products. old and new... we were more infatuated with the older ones! :)
And this VW van owner really wanted the bug...
We did have a lot of trouble finding a place to eat... There were many German places, European places, and finally we found one place with two vegetarian choices...oh and it was good! We found the vegetarian version of the Portuguese ever famous stew!
and we had a local species of a monkey join us as well!
We finally reached the bottom again and headed to go up Sugar Loaf Mountain to see the sunset view of the city. well, it got very cloudy and even started raining as we went up! :S
So, we waited. We sat in the park up above and waited along other tourists that were also there for the clouds to clear and the rain to stop. The rain did stop but the clouds took more than half hour to clear. We had the time, and so we waited. And got a beautiful view of Rio...
1 April 2009
We spent an hour in the morning at the beach. Got back showered and went shopping for a bottle or two of Cachaça. We asked the front desk about our luggage. We found that they did get the right luggage back and would drop it off by 1:30pm! phew. We also asked them the brands of Cachaça and also the music that they listened to. So, we went to the store and had a fun experience with the sales guy. He just talked and talked... in Portuguese with us! Somehow we managed to understand each other. And came home with two bottles. we bought some fun music that we liked as well. The funny thing was the CD store was in a Americanised mall (the mall was also called Mall America ...or something). One of the jewelry stores we passed by had an interesting display. Again the infatuation with Indian things...
Over our stay, a lot of the people kept talking about this show they watch in Portuguese that showcases Indian culture/customs through a soap-opera style of story telling! So many people would describe it to us. Even the cook at the hostel we stayed at in Rio. So, on Sunday night, when the TV was free, we actually watched the show for some time. The show seems to be filmed in India, but the actors are all Portuguese. It's called Caminho das Indias! I shared this with mom and she laughed pleasantly. She remembers stopping traffic when she wore saris - literally, when we lived back in Brazil in the early 80s! For the first time she had worn pants and t-shirts!! And once when I went about walking on my own, I saw a local lady wearing a sari!
It started late morning and continued on the whole day! We had lunch at a nicer version of the Kilogram place - it had so many more options for us to try! yum! In between we went back to meet the Real Bus and collect our luggage! yay! Enjoyed a nice walk down the beach side and a last caipirnhas and caught the cab to head to the airport and back to the USA. sigh.
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 03:05 pm (UTC)oh yeah plus the road has two way traffic! So, in some cases the people hanging out really had to squeeze in to avoid being hit by oncoming traffic or a light pole!
no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 02:41 pm (UTC)What is favelas?
Beautiful murals! Wow...a VW/Bug...Cool!
LOL! They put the necklaces as headbands in the jewelry picture. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 03:06 pm (UTC)we chuckled at the jewelry too....
no subject
Date: 2009-04-21 03:29 pm (UTC)