Brazil

The first days of the trip were a blur. It took three flights to get to Rio de Janeiro (which translates to River of January after its discovery in 1502). We flew from Vancouver to São Paulo to Rio.  Not the most direct route, but makes more sense than our originally scheduled flights that had us flying into Newark, NJ with a connecting flight 60k away at JFK.

 

We were up early the next morning for a half day tour that included the imposing Christ the Redeemer, located in a national park high above the city.

The views were spectacular. 

Afterwards we stopped at the contemporary pyramid shaped San Sebastián Cathedral, beautiful in its simplicity. 

Outside we saw one of Canadian, Timothy Schmalz’s, homeless Jesus statues.

Rio’s weather was hot, humid, and windless even as we walked along Copacabana Beach. 

We have a habit of repeating visits to restaurants we like. In Rio it was Braseiro (established 1962) where the first night we shared a barbecue platter containing two kinds of steak, sausage, pork and chicken plus a giant Heineken for Chuck and a split of wine for me, all for about $45cdn. 

The second night we ordered chicken, sausages and salad. We should have stuck with a sure thing and returned three nights in a row, as we went to Restaurante Manoel & Juaquim for tough, rubbery calamari.

 

Next stop is Argentina, but impressions of Rio included:

• a respect for seniors. At stores, airport etc…there were dedicated queues for seniors and people with disabilities. That would never work in our home town, a haven for retirees. The senior’s line up would be the longest.
• Quite impressed with Brazil’s Azul Airlines. Where Air Canada has discontinued pretzels with drinks, Azul is known for their snacks, handing out three different ones per person. They have a totally organized disembarkation process, where they dismiss passengers five rows at a time. So much better than the free for all that happens on most airlines. Azul implemented the procedure during the pandemic and noticing its effectiveness, kept it.
• Two national passions: football (of the soccer variety) and energy drinks.
• Rio is a large city with accompanying noise levels.

 

Next post: Iguazu Falls

Comments

[Karen]

Love all your photos and comments. Look forward to the next ones! Thanks for the specially guided tour! 💕