Tuesday – January 21, 2025.
There is a lot to talk about for our first day in Rio. I’m not going to do that now because we have to leave tomorrow morning at 4:15 am so we can see the sun rise from Christ The Redeemer. But I will show you one photo – taken this evening after a Samba show by local Rio dancers. Don’t know who the lady is in the photo – she scampered into the photo with Kelsey before I could trip her!
Our first day in Rio started with the arrival in the bay – which is very large. Rio de Janeiro was incorrectly named “River of January” because the explorers thought that the bay was the mouth of a large river – wrong! However, the name stuck. It was foggy so most of the photos taken from the ship as we arrived are not crystal clear – but at least you can get an idea what it looked like. The weather was very hot with a heat index over 100 F. It was also muggy – much like being in Iowa in July-August.
Our guide for the day was Andre. He was originally from São Paulo but came to Rio because he likes the atmosphere. He showed us around a couple sections of Rio. As there are 9,000,000+ living here we couldn’t see it all. We saw (from the outside) the famous Maracana Stadium – a soccer stadium which originally could hold over 200,000 spectators. This is where Pele played. Over the years it has been upgraded (primarily with addition of box seats) so that the capacity now is just under 80,000.
One of the festivities Rio is know for is Carnival. That is held 40 days before Easter – this year it begins on March 5th (same as our Mardi Gras). I’m sure you have seen photos of elaborate Carnival costumes. They built an arena called Sambadrome that is nearly half a mile long and very narrow with bleachers on both sides. The floats and dancers parade the length of the Sambadrome on Marques de Sapucai Avenue. We were about 7 weeks too early to see this year’s parades.
As we drove I did notice that they must have relatives of the electricians from Salvator – the above ground wires looked very similar (photo in the photos).
Several of the next hours were spent waiting in lines to ride the cable cars up to and down from the top of Sugarloaf Mountain – an iconic sight in Rio. There are actually 3 mountains that make up the Sugarloaf complex. There are 2 segments to the cable car ride. The first to a height of 220 meters. The second to the final height of 396 meters. These cable cars were featured in the James Bond movie “Moonraker” released in 1979. The villain Jaws tries to kill James Bond as he is coming down the cable car from the top of Sugarloaf. Of course, he survives. The gondolas are fairly large and move quickly (you’ll see 2 passing each other in a short video clip) but the sheer number of visitors makes waiting lines mandatory. Glad we arrived when we did because the lines were even longer later in the day.
While in line to go to the highest point we saw an unusual fruit hanging from a tree. The fruit is named Jaca and is native to tropical climates. Our guide said at one time the Jaca was outlawed in Rio because it was thought to be a hazard. The fruit can reach 20 pounds and when ripe, will drop from the tree. Imagine walking down a sidewalk and being clobbered by a 20 pound Jaca! The fruit contains seeds that have hairs like a mango. You can boil them and remove the part with the hair – the inside tastes good (per Andre).
At the top of Sugarloaf I took a panorama to give you an idea of the expanse of the water around Rio. We could see Christ The Redeemer but it was still some distance from us. There is a photo where the statue can be seen as we are preparing to board a cable car. Before boarding the final car to the last stop Kelsey and Jan stopped for a photo at the Wish Tree. Jan was able to snag a spot against the glass facing down and caught a video of the ride. I put a portion of that in the videos/photos page.
Once back in the bus we headed for Copacabana Beach. I didn’t know what the big deal was but apparently this is a spot people from around the world come to visit. The beach is 2.2 miles in length and is famous for the black and white inlaid stones making a sidewalk bordering it. Our guide said that nearly 1,000,000 people live in the Copacabana neighborhood – of the 9,000,000+ total population. Copacabana is separated by a small section of land from another famous beach – Ipanema. Ipanema Beach is approximately 1.6 miles in length. I took a few photos of the beach and in one of them was able to capture a MSC cruise ship as it was sailing from Rio.
We arrived at the ship around 6:30 pm – too late to make dinner in the dining room so we went to the buffet. I took the camera up to deck 15 and was able to capture lightening in the distance as well as some wall-art across the street from our dock. I took photos of Christ The Redeemer but it was too far away to see detail – leave that for our excursion on Wednesday.
For the evening’s entertainment we were given a show consisting of a Samba team and a band that gave us a taste of what it must be like during Carnival. The show was presented on deck 13 near the main pool. I didn’t understand a word of the singing. The dancing involved both the Samba team and willing participants from the audience. The costumes – especially those worn by the women – were bright and large. When the show was over I had a chance to get a photo of Kelsey (as explained earlier in this post). By the time the show ended it was after 10:00 and we had to get up on Wednesday at 3:30 am – so we went to sleep.
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