The Day With A New Friend

Rio de Janeiro, August 2109

The people here in Brazil are so friendly, we are finding this everywhere we go. The hostel that we were staying at in Copacabana is up a very steep hill and perched on the edge of a Favela. The taxi driver commented as we started up the hill, “oh I don’t like to go up here!” but we walked up and down that hill every day and saw no trouble. There were 4 armed police in a car at the bottom of the hill every day though, so they are a good deterrent. Every day we would see the police up at the top by us at the little padaria (bakery), fully armed with machine guns, hanging around shooting the breeze with their colleagues, just a normal day being fully armed!

My friend from Post, Bruno, put us in touch with Karla, a lovely Brazilian lady who lives in Rio. We met up with her and she took us to a local restaurant where we tried the local traditional Saturday meal of Feijoada. This is pork, all cuts, chops, loin, sausage etc cooked in a stew with black beans, served with rice, kale and orange segments. Karla ordered everything for us including a couple of other traditional dishes. One was made with what they called dried meat – it was just like corned beef, but in a creamy/cheesy sauce, really yummy. The other was Tapioca Dadinho, which looked a bit like crumbed camembert, little bite sized pieces of deliciousness! We also had our first try of Cachaca in the cocktail form which was straight Cachaca with bashed fresh lime and lime juice. We did have a couple of those – pretty strong stuff. Cachaca is a sugar cane spirit. It was so good to have a local order for us, at this point we are still quite out of our depth when it comes to menus! It was a great experience and we would never have tried those things if it wasn’t for Karla.

Right, Cachaca under our belts, lets go to the Christ the Redeemer statue. The statue is built on top of Mount Corcovado, completed in 1931. 30m tall and 26m wide! He is so impressive! We went up by cog railway which was a trip in itself! So steep in places and the track almost passes through peoples houses then hangs over the edge, not for the faint hearted. Once up there it is a short walk to the base of the statue. Quite awe struck with the sight! The weather was not the best this day and we were so high up that the clouds were drifting past, this made it even more spectacular. So many people here! This was a Saturday so very busy, during the week they put mattresses down for people to lie on to take the photos, he is so tall it the only way to get him all in! The view from up here of Rio was outstanding too! The city is built on this amazing rocky terrain, totally fascinating and amazing.