Bus & Sugarloaf

Bus ride to Rio de Janeiro

Today we have a 4h40 bus ride from Paraty to Rio de Janeiro.  With a departure time of 0920, we had to wake a little earlier than usual. It’s terrible that we had come from Europe and adapted too quickly to local time and sleeping in, when I had hoped that we’d be up early every day.  The late sunrise in the Brazilian “winter” doesn’t help.

It was a five minute walk to the Paraty station.  We left about 10 minutes late.  The scenery for more than half the ride was beautiful sandy beaches, bays and islands.  Very much the same since we descended down to the coast three days ago near Caraguatatuba.

We passed a nuclear power plant and two staff villages located near to it.  They were rather pleasant locations!  Also, there were a number of towns where boating and boat storage was big business.

We cut inland about 2h out of Rio and took a 15 min break before the final stretch on the highway.  Surprisingly, despite all the pick-ups/drop-offs en route we arrived into Novo Rio bus station bang on time at 1400

With internet available, we got an Uber to our hotel Windsor Asturias.  The station didn’t look like it was in the city area.  But leaving there and after entering/exiting a tunnel, we were right in Centro.

Visiting the Sugarloaf Mountain

I wanted to make the rest of the afternoon, so researched going to the Sugarloaf Mountain or Christ Redeemer.  Booking for the latter required a time-slot and I was in no frame of mind to work it through.  So I booked the Sugarloaf Mountain cable car online for a 10% discount (and a further 50% off for Kim being over 60 years of age).

Summoning Uber wasn’t so easy.  When entering the hotel name or street address, the app defaulted to the suburb name.  I eventually got it sorted but with all the complication, the destination address “Pao de Acucar” selected had changed to a suburb of the same name that was a little closer.  I did notice that the price had come down but didn’t think too much of it.  Fortunately the driver was able to take us to our intended destination for the appropriate/higher charge.

For the Sugarloaf cable car, one can pay for an express entry.  Well, lucky we didn’t.  There wasn’t a queue for the big cable car which took us to the first stop Morro da Urca where we wandered around briefly and admired the view.

Again, no queue for the second ride to Sugarloaf itself.  Like the first ride, the hanging cable car swung a little upon arrival while people were alighting.

The view from Sugarloaf was awesome.  It makes Rio such an amazing city.  On one side we saw the Christ Redeemer, the city, Santos Dumont airport, the bay and the eastern suburbs.  On the other side, we had the lower station of the cable car, Copacabana and Christ Redeemer as well.

With such a magical setting, we chose to sit down with a drink to absorb it all.  We stayed until the sun had lowered a little to give that warm orange glow.  The crowd was building up.

As the light dimmed, the photos weren’t as good and we made our way down before the crowds decided to do the same.

Back at ground level, the complimentary internet from the Sugarloaf cable car still worked and we were able to order an Uber to take us back to our hotel.

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Serving water from the rubbish bin

There were a few restaurants on the streets and alleys by the hotel.  We ate outside; the weather all afternoon and evening had been just perfect.  Not too hot, not too cold and no wind even up on Sugarloaf.

I saw the waiter retrieve a partly-filled bottle of water from the rubbish.  He poured the water into a plastic cup.  I had expected to give it to a beggar and my eyes followed him.  To my surprise, he served it to another customer!  I was shocked … until I saw the lady use the plastic cup of water as an ashtray.  So, all good there!

I reckon we had done well in our few hours of daylight in Rio.  Looking forward to more over the next two days.