Rio De Janiero (plus Paraty). The 2016 Olympic Games. 50 370 Km
A little over a year ago we thought it would be a fun idea to go in the lottery for Olympic tickets, you know just in case we could get there. When we got a few events and the opportunity to get to Rio in time for the games, we just had to make it. So after a crazy quick crossing of the Amazon and an early flight out of Manaus, we arrived in Rio ready to see our first event....Rugby 7s finals!
The atmosphere at the games was exactly how I remember Sydney was in 2000. Everyone happy, cheering, and excited just to be part of it all. It was especially exciting to witness the history making event of Fiji's first medal!
Between the airport, ticket pick up, and getting to our first event, we got to know the public transport system quickly. And on our second day we made our way once again out the Deodora area, this time to watch Women's Basketball.
There was a lot of hype and media that we saw coming from Australian media before we arrived. And all in all it seemed to be a fairly injust slandering of Brasil. The public transport ran well, entrance to events was easy, people were friendly. Of course there were a number of events of crime but it general we felt safe. We were especially excited to find cheesy bread pretty much everywhere we went (Golf ball size bread stuffed with melted cheese!)
Like I imagine occurs in every Olympic city, it was crazy expensive to be there. With a 5 day gap between events, we decided to get out for a few days and visit the little town of Paraty. This town is one of a bunch of similar places along the southern coast of Brasil where rain forest meets the sea in a series of bays and islands. The weather was warm, the water not too cool, and all of it very very pretty.
We picked Paraty because it was known for it's colonial architecture. As they said in LP, you known the cobblestone streets are real because it is uncomfortable to walk along them. It was a chilled out few days where we ate and drank, took a boat out on the bay, and hiked some waterfalls. We also got to take part in the Cachaça festival and drink some of the local made sugar cane spirits.
Arriving back in Rio for our last event, Gymnastics, we had a few days to play tourist as well. We had some brilliant weather before going to Paraty and we were looking forward to doing all the typical Rio things when we got back.
On the first morning we did a walking tour of the downtown area with plans to see the Christ statue after lunch. Unfortunately our luck for the weather changed a little and the statue was covered in clouds. Thankfully a nice guide told us before we payed to go and recommended we go to Sugar Loaf mountain instead as the clouds wouldn't be that low.
Alas by the time we got the Sugar loaf and took the cable car up to the first part, the clouds had come that low. Annoyingly this happened last time I was in Rio as well and whilst we waited a while for the clouds to clear from the Sugar Loaf peak itself, in the end all we were able to see were clouds.
The following day after the gymnastics we tried once again for the Christ statue but once again there were clouds and no point to go all the way up. So we settled for the next best thing and returned to Copacabana beach to eat Feijoada and drink Caipirinhas on the beach. Tough second option really.
Whilst we felt we got to play a little bit of tourist between the games we definitely could go back for some more. If nothing else than for cheesy bread and caipirinhas.
50 370 Km (21084Km Flights, 9126Km Sailing, 20267Km Bus, 195km Hiking, 36Km Horse riding, 150Km Train, 12Km Bike)
