It was never so hard to say GOODBYE before - RIO DE JANEIRO, one of my last stops

Rio was amazing. It was incredible. That place has so good vibes, everything seems so positive, I literally loved it. The flight was quite long. Don’t laugh, I know it sounds funny after flying over whole the Atlantic ocean, but we had to get up at 3 am (at least me), then we had our flight at 6 am, arrived in Sao Paulo at 7, and we waited for our connection 6 long hours. So when we got to Rio we were pretty exhausted but it didn’t stop us from little sightseeing. We went for a walk around the place where was our hotel (Lapa) and also went to famous Escadaria Selaron. The stairways are really amazing, but it’s funny how there are queues to take a photo on them ! In the evening we went to eat something to the street just 2 blocks away from our hotel, where were many bars and pubs, and whole street was in the flags of all the world – almost, coz there wasn’t Polish flag. But the atmosphere was amazing. Many people were drinking on the streets since 5 pm. It was Friday, so that’s why – but even tho Polish people like to drink, you can’t see people drinking on the street here at 5 pm. I mean nice and young people of course.

Escadaria Selaron, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Our hotel was quite simple but also cheap and we had everything we needed. Just breakfasts were way too early (6-9 am) so in the end I had it only once. Lapa is nice area, tho for tourism it’s nicer to stay around Copacabana or Ipanema but of course also much more expensive. And in Lapa there are really good connections with whole the city, so nothing to be worried about.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

The next day we wanted to go to Corcovado Hill and see the statue of Christ Reedemer. But when we got to Largo do Machado, the square where you can take a van (coz I think the only way to get there is by van or walking, but anyway you have to pay the entrance fee so it wouldn’t be much more cheaper that way), we were told that it didn’t make sense to go there on that day as it was quite cloudy and you couldn’t see too much from top of the Hill. So we decided to go to famous Sugarloaf, as it’s not so high so the view was supposed to be better as well.

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We were lucky coz until 21 year old you pay only half of the price, so we did, then we had to wait a bit in the queue for a cable car. First you get to the hill called Morro da Urca. The view was already amazing from there, I loved it. Also I saw so many fruits growing on the trees up there, fruits that I didn’t know they exist. There are also monkeys, quite small specie, but the thing is that there are too many of them, so nobody really takes care of them.And that’s really sad coz we saw one Money (tha one from the photos) that had this injury , which was quite small in general but big for such a small monkey. So when we got back to the place where we saw it for the 1st time after almost an hour, it was still there, it was clear it had problems with walking, and didn’t stay with people because it liked it.

Sugarloaf, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Going up once again by a cable car, you finally get to Sugarloaf. Beautiful view… no, wait wait.

It was just a cloud. I’m serious haha, unfortunately from the top the view was kind of visible only in one place, and besides that we were literally walking in the cloud. But it was still really great, I saw so many exotic plants, and so many monkeys. There was also a bambus growing up and I just quite shocked coz I really thought it grows only in Asia haha. So anyway I think this experience was great, and I really enjoyed that. Especially that we had only 4 days in Rio (actually me 4 days and Arthur 5, coz he was leaving in the evening and me in the early morning same day), so we couldn’t wait with that for the other day as we already did that with Christ.

Hurt monkey at the Sugarloaf

Afterwards this touristic attraction I wanted to walk on the beach which was just by the place where you are getting to Sugarloaf. It was called Praia Vermelha I think, really small and also bit contamined, there was quite much trash in the water. But I think it was because that beach is located in the bay, so probably that’s why. There weren’t much people, just some groups sitting or few people playing football.

Sugarloaf, Rio de Janeiro

And here comes another exotic part about Rio. Leaving the beach we saw on the street…monkeys. Monkeys walking on the electric lines, just as normally do that birds in Europe. I’m serious. First we saw them close to this Sugarloaf so it could be understandable how did they get there, but later we also saw them on completely other street. That was amazing, I love monkeys, and seeing them on the street! Or especially in their natural environment is unforgettable experience for me. I remember how happy I was about seeing them last year in Gibraltar, but I think I was even more excited in Brazil about them.

In the evening we decided to try this new option that couchsurfing offers – hangouts. You just click that you’re available and you can see people in your area willing to hang out. We decided to use that, we wanted to meet some new people, so later we went to the bar somewhere around Copacabana and Ipanema to meet few people. We ended up in nice group of many nationalities, Brazil, Paraguay. Argentina, Mexico, United Kingdom, and there was even one more guy from Poland! We had really nice time all together, later we headed to another bar in the nearby area, where we met some new people from UK and USA, and some of them came as journalists for Paraolympics. We were all quite drunk and having much fun, I also really liked the music and spirit of this pub and this whole area. Also nice thing for people who like to save money – as the pubs were full, there were of course a lot of people standing in front of them. So then instead of buying your drink inside, you could go just around the corner to the woman who was selling cold drinks , including beers for bit lower prices. There are many people selling drinks like that in the night and well, then anyway you are standing outside the pub, not inside so nobody has a problem with that.

Copacabana, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

We got back home…I mean to the hotel of course, and the next day we went to Corcovado, to see the Christ.

view from Corcovado mountain, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

I woke up and saw cloudless sky behind the window. Nice. We can get a nice view today from the Christ – I thought. And I wanted to go to the beach later, so I put my bikini on, we took our beach towels and were ready to go there after Christ. We decided to take the van from Copacabana, as it takes you back to the same place you took it from, so it didn’t make sense to take it from Largo do Machado, which is still quite far away from the beach and in the both options we had to take a subway anyway.

Christ the Redeemer, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

There were so enormous queues. Don’t even ask me how much I was complaining about it. First we waited one hour to buy the tickets. Then we waited 1,5 more hour to get the van coz it turned out that instead of every 6 minutes, vans were going every 20 minutes. And then turned out that they changed the procedure because of safety, and they made security control point, where you have to go through security control and waited around 1 more hour to get the van again to the top of the hill. So in the end we were in the queue to buy the tickets at 12 pm, and got to the Christ almost at 4 pm, to spend there just around 40 minutes. The Christ is indeed huge and impressive, but for me more impressive was the view. The bad thing is that so much people destroy the atmosphere. You wait to take a photo even of the view… Because there are some people who want to admire the view in the best point for 10 minutes, and I get it , really, but not when there are 20 more people behind them waiting for them to leave this spot. But the view was amazing just as you can see on the photos so it was actually worth it but I wish somebody had told me it looks like that, coz I was disappointed that we couldn’t go to the beach that day, as the sunset was already around 5.30 pm, and we got back to Copacabana exactly at that hour.

Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

But anyway, we had nice time afterwards… We had amazing, cheap food in the beach bar with live music and the singer was singing so beautiful. That evening was so simple but so perfect – in the beautiful place just by the beach with the view to the ocean, with my favourite person , eating delicious food and enjoying beautiful music. That is the moment that you call happiness.

Copacabana beach, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Last day was the beach day. Finally! I really love beach. I promised myself I would surf in Rio but as we were already quite broke, and we had just one day to spend on the beach, I just decided to relax there and don’t regret it. Sun, the softest sand ever, amazing blue water, with big waves, drinking my coconut water from real coconut… I didn’t need anything else at that moment. I was so happy. And I had my „photo session” on the beach with coconut. Yes – I also promised myself before coming to Brazil to have photos with coconut on the beach. So I did. You can laugh if you want, I just thought that having photo on the Brazilian beach with coconut would be kind of exotic.

I was really happy about taking a photo with coconut at the Copacabana beach haha!

And that was my last day in Rio. Apart from these few hours on the beach, since waking up I had on my mind that thought that I will leave next morning. And that was making me fearfully sad. Leaving the country that you enjoyed so much, leaving the person you love, leaving the place with endless summer. Sounds like heaven, right?
Rio is amazing place. I’m not saying it’s perfect – but nothing is perfect. The point is to know the disadvantages and still love it.

Rio de Janeiro

Rio can be dangerous. Can be annoying when you want to get nice, but quite cheap dinner, and you end up in a place where you pay a lot , but the service is so bad, and the wine is so bad that you don’t even drink it (and believe me, I was drinking really bad and cheap wines in my life before). It can be annoying, when on Sunday evening there’s no place to eat late dinner, and in the bar that was supposed to be open until midnight, they say you like 20 minutes before, that they wouldn’t serve you…because no, because they want to close now.

It can be annoying as all the big cities when you see those stressed people in rush, because they have to wait for other subway, coz there isn’t even enough space for them in this one, so probably they will be late to work or school.

night walk at the beach

But it also can be amazing when you just look around. And apart you see stressed people as in all big cities, you see how open and nice they are. It can be nice when after this bad, expensive restaurants you eat breakfast in so nice bakery that they give you some food for free to try when they see how much you struggle with your choice. It can be awesome when you see all these people selling fresk coconuts everywhere – when you see all these coconuts growing on the palms everywhere ! When you realize how lucky you are to be in the place where you can party all the time, but you can also enjoy the nature in the city, the wild, really exotic nature. And you can go to the beach even in the winter, and surf one of the best waves in the world. And when you listen to this amazing Brazilian portuguese, and can’t understand how it’s possibile that some language sounds so cool (and so different from its original, european version).

I love Rio. It was one of the places, where I felt like kind of home. It was really different to me, so it would take me some time to get used to new reality, but that’s a good thing – I like to explore. When I moved to UK one year ago, I didn’t like that I knew all the important places in the city after one month. Even in Cracow I can still get lost here sometimes, for example in Jewish district, after 20 years of living here. So I need to be kind of lost sometimes. But at the same time Rio felt like place that I could imagine as my home, I could imagine myself running on the beach every evening and going to these pubs around Copacabana on Friday evenings. I really liked that.

On Tuesday morning, 13th of September, after 2 hours of sleep, at 6 am I got into taxi and went to the airport… No flight before was so sad for me. There wasn’t any goodbye so hard to say and no boarding or passport control so hard as in this airport. Because all I wanted was to turn back and don’t leave that country.