I decided to do a city tour today…initially I wanted to do this early on (obviously makes more sense) but the weather sucked…Unfortunately the weather sucked again today, so it was all for nothing. With that said, I still had a good time.

We first went up to see the Christ Redeemer statue. This is the statue seen in all the postcards such as this-

Anyways, we saw a monkey on the way up-

Here was a fancy hotel that went out of business…soccer players used to stay here after matches and were the primary guests. It was abandoned in the 50s? (Mightve been earlier) and the government owns it now-

The view up there was fantastic, and you could see a full 360 degree view around the city…though, you couldn’t see the west side (which has the City of God favela, more on this later) due to mountains.

We went to Santa Theresa, an old neighborhood that features alot of art. It was occupied by many French and Portuguese immigrants, and the architecture shows it.

here was a funny painting -

The story is this- Adriano is a famous player from Brazil who also plays/has played in European club teams in the past. He had the opportunity to play on the current national team for the upcoming world cup this June but rejected it, mainly due to his constant partying. The picture shows Adriano riding a bike, away from the national team. He recently bought two very nice bikes; one for himself and the other for a childhood friend from his favela, who is now a drug lord. This raised alot of controversy in current news. I believe he’s going back to Italy to play, though, I could be wrong.

Afterwords we went to the Lapa steps in Santa Theresa. These are the work of Selaron, a Chilean artist who is famous around the world. He has a bizarre infatuation with a black pregnant woman, and she is in every piece of his art.

Here is me and the crazy looking artist, Selaron (I bought a $5 tile and had him sign it, pretty cool)-

After driving around some more and seeing other parts of the city (Centro, etc), we went to the waterfalls in Tijuca National Park.

The waterfalls are pretty cool there-

We saw another mountain…I can’t recall it’s name. There was a gorilla face on it and it was named as such-

The stories and anecdotes were very interesting. City of God (popular from the movie) was an area in the west where the government provided electricity and water. They said “Come here! Come here!” and the people did. The government did not hold up their end of the bargain however, and the people suffered. From the start of its existence, the City of God was a favela, a slum.

The police are really cracking down these days on the favelas. They are just occupying the areas completely, cracking down on the gangs and violence. Our driver said that the average number of muggings is very low now in Copacabana, the area next to mine (ipanema). They want this city much cleaner than it currently is (crime wise) for the upcoming World Cup and Olympics, in 2014 and 2016, respectively.

Not sure what I’ll be doing the next few days. I’m tentatively planning on climbing on Thursday…I also want to scuba dive once but reading the prices here it seems like they rip you off. Whatever…not sure how much longer I’ll be in rio…maybe until Sunday?

Haven’t updated in a few days, just been chilling out. The beach is really nice here, but I have no pictures because I don’t want my camera to get stolen. I’ll probably end up bringing my bag today and take a few photos.

I decided to go rock climbing with a guide on Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio. This is one of the two main tourist attractions, with the Christ.

The climb itself was pretty easy…I made the decision to do the easier climb (something like a 5.7-5.8 for the most part) instead of doing the intense one (5.10+). This was the first time I’ve done a multi-pitch climb and I’m lucky that I was with a guide (I don’t know nearly enough with regards to tying knots, etc). I paid ~$60 (USD) for the day and he picked me up around 1 in the afternoon. The mountain is very cool and offers many hikes/treks/climbs, as well as an excellent view of the city.

Some of the shrubbery bouldering-

First pitch-

I was actually able to lead this one, my first lead outdoors. It was pretty easy, probably a 5.7 or something…also very short:

From the top view of Sugar Loaf-

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Last night I decided I wanted to see a soccer (football) match. I haven’t ever seen one in person and I enjoy sports, so I was quite excited. The two teams were Flamengo and another that escapes me…I don’t think that either team is tremendously popular and the game itself was fairly one sided (Flamengo seemed like the much better team, always attacking, always on offense).

The stadium wasn’t really filled at all. Here is a pre-game shot-

Anyways, Flamengo won the game 3-1, scoring two goals off penalty kicks. During half time there was this old dude who dribbled the ball like a billion times…impressive stuff.

Overall, pretty fun. I’m excited that I’ll be down here for the world cup…definitely going to rep U.S.A. (america, fuck yeah)…not that we’ll make it very far. I think I’ll probably do a city tour tomorrow, climb the next day, rest the day after, and then do scuba diving the day after that. That is the general plan (I think)…?

Really loving Rio so far…favorite city on this trip. Not even sure how long I’ll end up staying…maybe 1.5 weeks or something. I also think I’ve gained like 5 pounds since I’ve been here, wrecking whatever progress I made in Bolivia with regards to losing weight/cutting body fat %.

Here is a cool Nike World Cup commercial as well.

I traveled all night from Santa Cruz, Bolivia towards my destination of Rio. My flight was at 4:40 a.m. and I slept in the hotel lobby until about 1…The flight to Sao Paulo lasted about 5 hours and I periodically slept throughout the day for 1-3 hours at a time.

Some background on Rio

I didn’t get into Rio until about 4 p.m. the next day, a 12 hour journey. I probably got ripped off at the airport for a taxi, paying about $30 for my ride to ipanema, the touristy area of town. For reference, about $2 Reais (Brazilian currency) = $1 USD (approximately). My area has many stores/shops around and seems very modernized. I think it’s probably going to be fairly safe all around. I ate subway for dinner and was actually somewhat craving a decently made sandwich (it was excellent…I’m so pathetic).

Rio is an incredibly beautiful city. It’s surrounded by mountains, and has a ton of lakes/beach areas throughout. I know there is a ton to do here and the city offers alot- great night life, tons of outdoors stuff, relaxing at the beach, etc.

I plan on rock climbing, scuba diving, maybe some other stuff. I wanted to take the city tour the first day I was here (today), but the weather kindve sucks. I’ll probably end up doing a city tour later on in the week, hopefully when it is a bit nicer outside. Unfortunately, the weather is probably going to suck for most of my duration in Rio, as I saw mostly cloudy skies as a weekly forecast.

Today I decided I wanted to do a Favela tour. It cost $R 65 and lasted about 3 hours. We went into Rocinha, the largest favela in South America, home to 200,000 people.

We parked our van outside of the favela and rode on the backs of motor bikers up the hill. We walked down throughout the favela.

A favela is defined as a ‘slum’ or ‘ghetto’ in English terms. The area is very poor, with a mix of both regular trades (shop, restaurant owners, other commodities such as internet cafes or pastries) as well as the drug trade. The primary drug of choice is cocaine, which is imported from Bolivia and Colombia. Brazil does not grow cocaine and has minimal marijuana growth as well. Both are imported into the favelas, who then export various drugs both within the favela and outside.

The drug business is profitable, bringing in about $1 million + a month. The area that we visited was ran by ADA, or Amigos dos Amigos.

The most dangerous times were “all day” our guide said. The worst cases are when the police come into the favelas on drug raids, oftentimes early in the morning (5-6 a.m.). He said that the drug dealers don’t want to be caught (obviously) and use a variety of weapons to elude capture (rocket launchers, machine guns, grenades).

We walked by one drug dealer who had a gun in his pants. We were assured that everything was safe and cool, as long as we were with our guide. These tours are actually quite popular with tourists and our proceeds help fund some of the day cares within the favela.

We met with local shop owners and ate some home made pastries. We also heard some local kids making street music, using metal bins and other tools as drums. We tipped the kids after. Our guide urged us not to give any of the street kids free money, even with them knowing 3 words in English- “Money”, “hi”, and another word that escapes me. He wanted to teach them to learn how to do stuff for money, be it make music, paintings, or other jobs.

He told us an interesting story: Some favela guys stole a crate of machine guns from the army head quarters, hiding them within the favela. Within hours the army stormed in, bringing hundreds of soldiers, tanks, and armed vehicles within the favela. He said it was a demonstration of power and sent the message to “not fuck with the army”. Even though the drug lords fought with the local police (who are highly specialized in urban warfare), they didn’t fuck with the army. The army got a local call from someone within the favela telling them where the guns were located and the army vacated shortly after.

The tour lasted about 3 hours round trip and was well worth it. It didn’t seem tremendously dangerous, as the residents were friendly and the mood being pretty nice overall…that said, I’m sure that we saw the tamer areas with fewer drug dealers.

This made me think about some of the nasty areas in the U.S., places like New Orleans, Baltimore, Compton, etc…I wonder how they compare?

Probably going to spend tomorrow rock climbing and then going to the beach. Need to find a bathing suit. Rio is looking to be pretty fun…

Sitting in Santa Cruz, Bolivia right now, fairly bored. This city is the main hub for Brazil and the largest city in Bolivia. That said, there isn’t a ton of touristy stuff to do around here, so I’m spending today and tomorrow relaxing.

Some random thoughts-

-Make sure you have $ when you go to the airport when flying out- all travel areas (bus stations/airports/etc) have some sort of tax. Along the same notion, having change in your pocket is also very useful (in many of these countries, $1 is in a coin…and also the cost for bathrooms or other facilities).

-Bringing a day pack around with you with lonelyplanet (or enter guide here) is useful. This should be obvious in most cases…but it’s also very easy to just forget and go out into the city without a map/plan/idea of what and where you want to go. It’s also good to bring a pack to hold any printed handouts/copies you make or other shit (books, sweater, etc).

-Etiquette wise, things are different here…pedestrians don’t have the right of way like in the states. Hurry your ass up when crossing the street because these people stop for noone. Tipping is not really standard either and servers don’t expect it (I still leave some obviously). When in restaurants you need to ask for the bill…servers won’t just bring it out to you.

-Be observant of your surroundings…make note of buildings and shops around your hostel or other important areas. Bring a pen with you and make sure you are able to write shit down on maps or make a note.

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I bought a $300 ticket today to Rio…I was planning on doing the Pantanal, a region in western central Brazil…but I decided against it. It just sounded way too much of what I just did in Rurrenabaque- swimming with Cayman, piranhas, etc…meh. I think I made the right decision.

Here is a map of Brazil for reference-

My plan is to go to fly into Rio and then head south. I would have liked to go up north a bit, but that will have to wait. I will probably travel primarily by bus, heading south to Sao Paulo, Florianapolis, and probably Porto Alegre. I have about 1.5 months left to travel, so I’m trying to think about how much time I want to spend in Brazil and Argentina (between the two). After Porto Alegre, I plan on going up to Iguazu Falls, shared by both Argentina and Brazil. I’ll then head into Argentina by bus and go from there.

I still haven’t decided where I’ll be going in Argentina yet. To be frank, I haven’t read much at all about it. I’m fairly sure that I won’t have enough time to do Patagonia, which is disappointing. Maybe I’ll do it next time.

I have decided that I’ll be doing Vegas this year…can’t recall if I wrote that here yet or not. I’ll be going June 30th-July 11th (with a short camping trip in Zion after). I wasn’t planning on doing it initially but changed my mind…I want to see some friends as well as eat some good food.

After that? Not sure. I know I want to stay in the states during cfb season. I also haven’t decided which UF game I’ll be going to, just that I know I want to go to at least one.

Next stop: Rio!