Tijuca National Forest Jungle Jeep Tour

On our last day in Rio, we decided to do a Jeep Tour of Tijuca National Forest. We had been toying around with the idea of going to visit the forest and the botanical garden and on the last day, we got lucky with a sunny morning before afternoon rain came in and we went for it.


One of the things that we learned was that brazilians don't care much about time. Another family was supposed to join us on the same jeep. We waited over 30 minutes for them... they never came. Then, as we were about half way to the forest, the jeep driver got a call that they showed up at the meet-up spot and we had to go back to get them. FAIL!! Since they do an afternoon tour as well, it meant that we didn't have time to stop at the gorgeous un-touched beach that we should have stopped at. Oh well. Overall, it was great.

Tijuca National forest is the largest urban forest in the world. The first sight that you see is the Chinese Vista Outlook. Our guide told us that before this park was turned into a rainforest area, that this particular spot was where chinese immigrants to the area grew tea. And very close-by is the Mesa do Imperador where the Portuguese emperor would sit with his family to eat and had a view of most of the city back in the day. Our tour guide loved taking pictures for Dave and I. He actually insisted that we pretended to eat at the table...

Chinese Vista Outlook


View from the outloook


Eating at the Mesa do Imperador


The emperor's view from his dining area


Next sight is the Cascatinha waterfall. This is right next to an old farm area that was turned into a restaurant. We enjoyed a nice coconut popsicle and the lovely scenery including a map of the forest made of tiles and a cool fountain. Our tourguide insisted we could drink the water from the fountain (and he did) but we decided against it.

Cascatinha Waterfall


Banana flower at the waterfall


Dave pretending to drink from the fountain


Map of the forest



A nice spot to relax in


We then continued on through the forest and were surprised to find a small chapel in the middle of the forest. We later learned that though there are no houses being built any longer in the forest, there are some that remained untouched and thus there is a chapel. It's called Mayrink Chapel and was an interesting shade of pink. We couldn't go inside, but it was a lovely spot.


We ended up doing some traveling by foot through the forest. I had really hoped to spot a tucan or monkeys, but we weren't lucky that day. We did spot what we thought was a turkey up in the trees and some cool flowers.

Our views in the forest:





After the trek through the forest, we were headed out of the forest and weren't able to snap very good pictures in the moving jeep. Once outside of the forest we passed by one of the largest favela's in Rio (which we didn't photograph) and an amazing stretch of beach that seemed to be un-touched. Gorgeous!! We really did see some stunning views on this ride back to our hotel, but I guess that means you'll have to go visit if you want a look!

Here are some of the shots that we managed to snap on our ride back into the city, including one of the large favela which we snapped from a significant distance







I think that this was one of the best things that we did because it really gave us a great view of the city and a chance to enjoy so many of the natural beauties of Rio de Janiero

Sugarloaf Mountain & Helicopter Ride

On one of the mornings that was supposed to be a relatively clear day in Rio, we decided to make the trek to Sugarloaf Mountain. That was pretty interesting because you take these sky trams up to the top to see all the views. It sounds like it's a much more athletic trip than it actually is. We got there and wandered some of the "trails" along the top. We took in all the views from every point and enjoyed every minute. It was very relaxing.











Once at the top, when we were heading down, we were debating whether or not to take our chances to try to see the Christo again. (If you remember the first time, we were stuck in the clouds.) But then we saw a sign for the helicopter tours. Unfortunately the cheaper ride required 3 passengers. We waited around a bit to see if we could find a 3rd person to come with us, but we couldn't... so we decided to go for it anyways and went for the more expensive tour (which was longer as well) and only required 2 passengers. This cost about as much as a tandem skydive would cost back in the US, so we were ok with the price. We had lovely views of the Christo and the beaches below. Overall, totally worth it!

Santa Teresa & Lapa

In our preparations for our honeymoon, we researched sights we would want to go see. We read about them and watched videos about it. One of the places that we were especially excited to go see was Santa Teresa and Lapa. We heard that Santa Teresa was an artistic community filled with shops and cafe's. We were supposed to be able to take a trolley "bondinho" from the city center to this community.

Our first clue should have been that the trolley wasn't running anymore. Apparantly there was an accident that killed 7 people and also led to the bondinho's demise. So, we unknowingly had a taxi drive us up to Santa Teresa where we (naively) thought we'd wander down through the neighborhoods until we reached the Arcos da Lapa and the Escalera de Selaron.

I think the taxi driver thought we were nuts when we asked him to drop us off in the middle of nowhere. Little did he know that our map told us that we should have been in the middle of quite the happening place! It was drizzly that morning, so I thought by the looks of things that maybe we would have to work a little harder to find what we were looking for. It MUST have just been hiding!

We started walking. I saw this amazing shop. It looked like it was selling mostly fruit, but it had this amazing blue and white tiled store front. I HAD to take a picture... that is, until the lady inside the shop started yelling/screaming at me to put the camera away. No pictures. We were also being followed by a transvestite-type person trying to sell me "hand-made" jewelry. I was nervous. It also seemed like she was following us. Double nervous. But he/she was the closest thing we saw to a "shop" in the area.

We started wandering down the street looking for shops and the famous Escalera. The place was mostly a dump, most likely went downhill after the trolley stopped bringing the tourists up. However, there were some cool looking buildings I would have liked to take pictures of. I actually had to wait around about 5 minutes until the coast was clear to snap this photo.



The point at which we took this picture, was the last "decent" memory I have of this place. We were not far from the Arcos de Lapa and the Escalera, but we had to walk a little further. We started down... we weren't sure which way to go. We turned the corner and decided that if we wanted to keep ANYTHING we had with us, we needed to turn around immediately and go back the other way. Because around the corner, we saw a street that had a reasonable number of threatening-looking people and there was NO WAY we could blend in... especially with my "yellow" hair (what the Brazilians referred to blonde hair). It even made Dave nervous. We turned around and I started praying for a bus, a taxi, whatever... I didn't care, I just wanted out of there!

About 10 minutes later a bus came by and we stopped it and hopped on. Everyone on board staring at us like we were crazy... and that we definitely weren't from there! Less than 5 minutes on the bus we were at the Arcos. I refused to go back to the area looking for the Escalera and we continued on to the Metropolitan Cathedral & Bell Tower.

Arcos da Lapa


Metropolitan Cathedral


Bell Tower


This ultimately led us to meet our "tour guide" and taxi driver Luiz. He was absolutely amazing. So amazing, that I have to save that for next time... But here's a sneak preview- he brought us to the Escalera de Selaron that I was too nervous to go back searching for.

Views from the Roof-top: Rio de Janiero, Part 1

Our first day of our honeymoon in Rio was after a long day of traveling and immediately following the wedding marathon! We left at 4am the morning after our wedding and drove from San Diego to LAX for our 13 hour flight to Brazil. If I were to do that over again, I would have left a day in-between to round everything up and soak in the first day of being married off of an airplane, but, as they say, "live and learn"! Regardless, the first day in Rio was wonderful. We arrived around 3am in the city, slept till about 10 and enjoyed the beach that was immediately in front of our hotel and the views from the roof-top pool and bar. We were completely lazy. We wandered a bit around the beach areas of Leblon and Impanema, but nothing too crazy. We grabbed dinner along the street. Dave ordered what he thought was going to be a soup and hamburger but turned out to be orange juice and a hamburger! That was pretty funny! We had no idea what we were ordering! But I'll say this, they have the BEST juices in Brazil. Sooo good & super fresh! We had fun trying the different varieties!

You can barely make out the Corcodova on that mountain behind us. At night it was all lit-up and pretty cool.


This is the view of Impanema Beach from our hotel roof.


We were wandering down by the beach at sunset and grabbed this shot. The sun set on the "Twin Brothers" mountain. The first day was one of the few days we got a sunset because it was cloudy and rainy for most of our time there. We actually thought that was Sugarloaf mountain and we would look there to see if it was a good day to visit Sugarloaf. We were shocked when we found out that wasn't the famous mountain! Typical tourists!


View of Twin Brothers mountains and Leblon Beach at night. Beautiful huh?!? We made it a habit to bring a bottle of wine with us to the roof-top at night to watch the scenery and relax. You can see the lights on the side of the mountain, and that is a very large favela. We drove by it on our way back from our jungle tour (more on that later) and it's very sad. Very low income housing area with over 12,000 people living there. If you think the gap between the rich & poor is bad in the US, go to Brazil where it is much worse. Less than a 5 minute drive from this favela is the Leblon beach where condo's sell for between 2-10 million Real's (the Brazilian currency). That is $1.14-5.7 million US dollars. Crazy!


Oh the beauty...

Our Wedding Day

I really want to blog about our honeymoon, but I feel like I should write a little something about our wedding before I do that!

We were married on the most perfect day in October. It was a beautiful and sunny day with a perfect sunset. Everything about our day was perfect. I know that probably everyone thinks that about their wedding day, but ours really was. In fact, the whole first day of our honeymoon, we couldn't stop talking about how perfect everything was. Now, did it all go off without a hitch? No. The pedestals for the tall centerpieces were up-side down, the aisle runner wasn't long enough, the aqua blue linens that were used were much brighter than the ones that I picked, nobody waved the cute ribbon wands I spent so much time making and there was a mix-up with one of the groomsmen and the appropriate tie he was supposed to wear. But honestly, just little stuff and I'd still use the word "perfect" to describe our day. Why? Because everything else was amazing. The sun was shining, the flowers were gorgeous, people were smiling at the ceremony and dancing at the reception. We had such a perfect day with the people we love!

I am anxiously awaiting photos from our photographer, but here are a few I snagged off Facebook that others posted!

Corcovado

The first day we saw the Corcovado or "Cristo Redentor" (Christ the Redeemer) was on the cloudiest day. We only had about one minute of time to get a clear picture of the 80 year-old statue on the list of the 7 Wonders of the World. Today, we took the most amazing helicopter tour from Sugarloaf Mountain and had an amazing view from above. It literally takes your breath away. Such an amazing sight...

In the moment of clearness


These two are from a helicopter above the Christo