September 8, 2018

September 8, 2018

Rio’s most famous landmark that can be seen from everywhere is the giant Christ the Redeemer Statue. It sits atop the steep 2300 ft Corvacado Mountain. To get there we take a bus to the base where we load onto a small train. It is a 35 minute ride to the peak through the thick jungle of Tijuca National Park. Tijuca claims to be the largest urban forest. Not surprising as thick forest covers all the mountain sides throughout the hilly city.

From the train exit, it is still seven stories of stairs before we reach the base of Christo Redentor. This Art-Deco statue was finished in 1931 and stands almost 100 feet tall. Like the beach promenades in the city, the statue is covered in white mosaic tiles.

One of the New Seven Wonders of the World, it is a popular tourist attraction and the entire base is packed. Photographers are laying on the ground to take photos of people with the statue in the background.

It is a glorious day and Corvacado also provides beautiful vistas of a picture post-card City. No wonder this view of Rio’s coastline is a World Heritage Site.

From Corvacado our group descends back to the city for a tour of Rio's famous beaches. We start at Sao Conrado on the far southwestern end where we watch hang-gliders float from the top of the local mountains landing on the beach next to million dollar condos. Just blocks away are the favelas (slums) that climb the hillsides. The beaches are all public and here the rich mingle with the poor.

We then drove past Leblon Beach to Ipanema. There we stopped at a jewelry store for our "required" factory tour. Brazil is famous for colored gem stones. At the Tucson Gem Show huge Brazilian Amethyst clusters are very common. Afterwards we left our tour group to check out very crowded Ipanema Beach and to window shop in this trendy Rio District. We had a late lunch and then taxied back to the hotel.

At Leme Beach we climbed the mountain that borders the north end to see Fort Duque de Caxias that sits on the summit and used to protect the harbor. The fort is uninteresting but it has great views of Copacabana Beach and Sugarloaf Mountain. On the walk back down, we saw some kids feeding tiny monkeys. These New World long-tailed creatures, the size of a squirrel, we discover are Marmosets.

This evening we had a Beach-side drink with our tour group, before having a light dinner of soup.