Rio de Janeiro Brasil
In March, 2010 I went to Rio de Janeiro for a UN conference. Not without reason this city is so often selected for world meetings. I spent about one week there, staying with a couchsurfer at Jardim Botânico District. The district got its name as it grew around the city’s world-famous Botanical Garden, which is very beautiful as I could see from the bus window. I did not have much time to behave as a real tourist in this city, however I found one day to walk from Jardim Botânico to Copacabana district, which is famous mostly because of its 4 km golden beach. The walk led me around Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, known simply as “Lagoa”, and between two of the numerous hills in Rio: Candagalo and Cabritos.
Lagoa is surrounded by high-rise residential buildings and is the area of the upper-middle class. It is very nice walk, where you can see local people jogging, biking, canoeing and just relaxing, sitting on the benches around Lagoa. Cocoa juice vendors are always around to help you if you are thirsty under the hot sun. However, when you go closer to the Candagalo or Cabritos hills you can notice that on the slope there are some random slum constructions – favelas; nevertheless, in this area of Rio they are not so spread out as in the northern parts of the city.
On the beach, there are always lots of people enjoying the sunny weather and ocean. The water here is so warm but at the same time is wavy; I could not swim far away from the beach as I usually do. There are many sand sculptures. You can pay in order to take a picture of them; however, I did it for free from the distance.
Without doubt, Rio is one of my favorite cities, even if I did not have much time to explore it. I hope to come back soon.
Great pictures of Rio, one of my favorite cities. I particularly liked the one with the favela spilling down the hill. Makes it even harder to endure the blustery weather here in NYC.
I want to go! Heard ipanama was really cool