Santa Teresa and Corcovado

Yesterday I thought I'd take a break from the constant training and only did the morning class. I decided to do a bit of a touristy thing and met up with a group of Couch Surfers in Santa Teresa and spent the rest of the day (6 or more hours) walking!!!

Walking...

Ever since I've been on holidays I've been walking A LOT... but not all in the same day! Whenever I walk it makes me appreciate the little things in a neighbourhood you'd miss if you drove by in a car. It realise how lucky/lazy I've been to be able to drive a car a short distance and have the money to pay for it all, while I see others less fortunate than myself but they still have the truest smiles on their faces. It also makes me realise how lazy society has become to rely so heavily on public transport to get from A to B and on how much we miss out seeing when you zoom by them in a car. You never know: that little café might have the best home cooked meals in the world, or hottest waitress in Rio.

Santa Teresa...

Anyways yesterday I went to Santa Teresa and spent about 1.5hrs walking around there which is tiring in itself, because the suburb is on a hill and many of the roads and stairs wind up and down and all around. Not to mention a French guy was leading and it seems almost like we were going in circles, only up and down hills. It was pleasant and we got to view some favelas on a hill and walk through a small part of them. After walking for around 1.5hrs we rested at some cantina for lunch before making the long ass trek up Corcovado. It was also where a guy had his red car parked out front fixing the subwoofers and stereo system in the back of his car so he could play some LOUD ASS baile funk music. Totally straight out of Fast and Furious, except in the middle of narrow street in a favela in Rio de Janeiro. Go figure.

The cobblestone roads of Santa Teresa

Taking our rest before going up Corcovado... L-R Max (french dude), old french dude, me and some random french dude that lives in the 'favela'

You can see the tracks for the tram (bonde)

The famous stairs in Lapa/Santa Teresa

Jorge Selarón, the man that spent 18yrs to complete the stairs... and me with a Brasilian brown belt (forgot his name, Allan?) that led us up and down Corcovado

Top of Parque das Ruinas and the view of Rio de Janeiro from there.

(Brasil??) Favela ... you can see it from Santa Teresa

More stairs and a pic of graffiti I thought was cool. Walked up and down more than 5 flights of stairs like this, not to mention up and down hills.

Corcovado...

Corcovado is the hill that Cristo Redentor (Christ statue) sits atop. From our rest spot in Santa Teresa it took probably just over 3hrs to walk up to the top of the 'mountain.' The only thing was that towards the top there was so much cloud cover you could barely see 50meters in front of you, which would of made it pointless to pay and try view the statue. Luckily I'm still here for another 4 months so got plenty of time to see it on a sunny day. Also next time I'll make sure to wear my "Jesus is my homeboy" t-shirt.

The start of the ascent up Corcovado.

Small 'waterfall' we saw on the way up.

I wish they also include how far you got to go on the signs. This was taken probably a good hour or more into our walk.

That 'fog' up there is actually the beginning of the clouds which just got thicker the higher we ascended.

This was my first experience of 'walking through/on the clouds' and a pretty cool one at that.

Finally reaching the top. You can see how thick the cloud cover is up there.



The descent...

... was an interesting event itself. Instead of walking back down along the same road we followed some train tracks for a bit before taking a left onto a jungle path. I didn't remember to take any pictures till I was near the bottom because most of the time I was concerned about not slipping and falling only to have trees, branches and rocks to break my 50º angle fall down the hill. Knowing how goofy I am I wouldn't of been surprised if that shit happened but after a bit I got used to it and where the best parts were for footing but was still very cautious. There was a part where we had to use a rope attached to some ropes to get down a steep bit which was cool. Then a main little stream that had many waterfalls we came across on the zig-zag path down.

Following the train tracks down.

The water was so nice and cool here and I had a sip when I was informed it's alright to drink. So fresh!!

I had a small epiphany while looking over some of these "jungle trek" photos. Wouldn't it be cool if you had a Predator costume and just ran around laser-pointing some people and then jumping out through the leaves and all? I reckon it would :)

A sign at the very bottom, I'm pretty sure it shows the trail we took.... Ok I'm just guessing.

Words really can't describe enough the views and experiences of these places. You really have to be here and experience them yourself to appreciate it and do it some justice.

That being said, if I was told before hand that we'd be walking for 6 or more hours I would of said F T S! (you can fill in the blanks) and probably made a polite exit and gone home.