This is a section of our honeymoon blog. The main post can be found here.
Day 13 – Iguazu Falls (Brazil side)
Thanks for sticking with me through Peru and Argentina, for our third and final country of the trip!
Whilst I’m starting my Brazil post on this day, note that we still stayed over the border in Argentina today and yesterday morning, before flying to Rio on day 14.
I didn’t really know what to expect from our visit to the other side of the falls today. I assumed that nothing could ever trump our experience yesterday, especially being told that the Brazil side is made up of a 1.5km one-way descending walking route.
Crossing the border in our minibus with the rest of the eight or so visitors was very straightforward. We did have to get off the bus to go through immigration but with the aid of a tour guide regular in these parts it took no more than five minutes. Fun fact: This was our first passport stamp so far! It’s just not something Peru and Argentina do any more…
In total the drive from our hotel in Argentina to the Brazilian entrance was 30 minutes give or take before arriving at the main entrance. As we were advised by the guide, Brazil is a lot more friendly to Mastercard users than we were used to – which saved a lot of problems going forward – yet we decided to pay in USD which we had unnecessarily exchanged in Miami just in case. The entry fee was under $20 each but you could only use pristine notes (we had five $20 notes and they just about accepted two of them!).
Although this was the main entrance, you still had to take a fifteen minute road to reach the starting point of the trail in amongst the forest. Nevertheless, it was very much worthwhile given the views we were about to enjoy.
I might even shut up here and just show you some of the photo’s…
The viewing platform was cool. Pictures can’t really portray the noise and ferocity of the falls. We got bloody soaked again too.
Amazing, eh? To add to all of the wonderful pictures, there was even a lift back up level with the road where we jumped back on the bus to end our tour and spent our final night on the Argentine side of the Falls.
That evening we couldn’t really have anything else than a tray full of steak costing £25 for both of us.
Day 14 – Iguazu to Rio
The morning wasn’t too much to write about bar our breakfast and a dip in the pool, just after opening time, but before staff had gotten around to sieving out the MILLIONS of little bugs in the water.
Oh, there was a small matter of watching the football before we left for the airport. Poignant as it was the first time Newport County didn’t lose SINCE THE WEDDING! Some ten games / five months ago. Our marriage was SAVED, as I was starting to consider the best way to P45 Mikayla if results didn’t improve by say October – but that’s all unnecessary now!
The flight onwards to Rio was unproblematic, although a bit tiresome arriving at night time. As we arrived at our hotel we could not believe the location. Right on the Copacabana beach. I wouldn’t even consider this hotel in our budget if booking for myself!
Before we hit the hay, which again felt a bit overdue, we did have 20 minutes sat on the beach watching the waves crash.
I touched on this a bit when we arrived in Argentina, but this really did feel like an opportunity to relax after two weeks of hard work making the most of it. Whilst we had a few things to see in Rio we knew it would be at a much relaxed pace.
Day 15 – Rio de Janeiro
I must admit it’s a lot easier to wake up in the morning when the Copacabana beach teased you a little last night in the dark, so even before breakfast I wanted to go to the rooftop pool (small and rather unnecessary?) for a beautiful view of the beach and ocean.
Even managed to get a glimpse of Christ the Redeemer statue. We’ll be seeing this bloke in a bit.
This morning we had a tour of Rio by minibus and in fact our first stop was up the steep winding roads to yet another wonder of the world. The bus did the hard work for us and the ascent to the viewing platform was easily manageable, they even had a few escalators!
Whilst the religious significance is of course lost on me, I have some fun facts.
The “Cristo Redentor” statue was started in 1922 and finished in 1931. Jesus stands 30 meters tall on its 8 meter base. I think its arms being 28 metres wide is the most impressive part of engineering. Aside from getting the stuff up the bloody mountain in the first place!
I am led to believe that the largest Art Deco–style sculpture in the world was built because after World War One, Brazilians were becoming less attached to God and this was built as some reminder. Wikipedia describe it as dealing with “Godlessness” in society. Obviously a bit of concrete weighing 600 tonnes will help with that!
Once we literally pushed our way to the panoramic viewpoint, not caring one iota about pretend models waving selfie sticks everywhere, I was a bit disappointed with the viewing quality but did manage to get that banger of a photo above, and overlooking the Copacabana wasn’t too bad either.
Second up was the world famous football stadium the Maracana. We’ll do a tour here tomorrow so I’ll cut the drab photo I took outside.
I should mention at some point that our tour guide was a bit rubbish compared to all the others. A bit half arsed and I took particular annoyance at the lack of football knowledge around the Maracana stop!
Nevermind, on to stop three, Rio cathedral.
Yep, this is the main cathedral in Rio. Apart from being built in the 1970s I can’t tell you why this looks more like something off Star Trek rather than a typical home of devine intervention, but you already know you’re not here for a history lesson.
“Cool” wasn’t going to be a descriptive world when outside but open entering the building, it was quite unexpectedly joyous with the four 64 metre stained glass windows.
Our fourth and final stop (it really wasn’t the best tour) was the Selaron staircase. Now forgive me for not even trying to attempt to get a decent photo without loads of poeple in. It was rather impossible. We only had around 15 mutes here but you could have spent hours looking at the finer details in forms of tiles donated from around the world. It was pleasant to pick ones out from places we have been to (Malta and a Lisbon tram in the photo below) but I never expected to see one from Wales…
… and them BOOM, as clear as day a lovely little number featuring the sights of South Wales! Now personally I think you’d have to swap mid-Wales’ Aberystwyth with the Newport Transporter bridge but I wasn’t complaining. For some reason I recall being in a very minor mood on the visit and this cheered me up.
That was that for the half-day tour included in our package. It took an age to drop us back to our hotel whilst other passengers went on to be dropped off at the Sugar Loaf cable car stop.
In the evening we didn’t stray far from our hotel. I did go in the see for an enjoyable hour, although taken aback by how strong the waves were (more on this tomorrow!) and just generally taken in my current surrounds but also the trip as a whole, as tomorrow would be our last full day.
Day 16 – Rio de Janeiro
For a final full day in Rio and thus the honeymoon, we still had a couple of big hitters we needed to cross off. Firstly was a visit to the Sugar Loaf via cable car.
I very nearly booked fast-track tickets before the trip at a price of around £40 each, but ultimately passed in the hope that getting there early for the 9am opening would be sufficient.
It was. With standard tickets costing a little less around £25 each and arriving at the queue for pretty much bang on 9am, I think we were on probably the second car to escalate of the day with very few people waiting before us.
This obviously had a good impact once we reached each of the two stops as there were probably more staff around than tourists! Even this cheeky monkey felt a bit more at home!
As I have just mentioned you take one car up to the halfway stage where there is a bit more space for shops and restaurants, and then you queue (or not in our case) for another car to the summit that is primarily the cable car housing and the viewpoints.
What a view.
The picture taken at the summit shows the very wiggly coastline of the city! You have the Copacabana on the left, Botofogo beach (I think) on the right within the huge Guanabara Bay. My phone camera certainly isn’t good enough to include Christ the Redeemer here, but take my word with a decent eyesight you can clearly make it out on the highest thin peak to the top-right of the photo.
Unpopular opinion: I would rank this cable car ABOVE the aforementioned Christ statue. Although very impressive, the latter is just a statue, but where on earth do you start trying to get a cable car up here?!?
Today we were very reliant on Uber (not super cheap, but reliable) and we called a cab to our next stop, a revisit to the Maracanã stadium. Hopefully Mikayla appreciated my fun facts and footballing knowledge rather than that of the guide yesterday. We approached the tour area a full two minutes before the next tour was due to start.
Aside from some of the priceless pieces of memorabilia on offer, such as the goal net and ball where Pele scored his 1,000th goal, Ronaldo’s 2002 World Cup final boots among the list too long, I loved the fact that the museum also doubled up as the main player entrance to the stadium on matchday.
After a short walk around the reception/exhibition space we were guided straight past the player showers (with the good ol’ team-sized hot tub) and into the changing rooms, which at the time featured all of the teams that are playing in this seasons Copa Libertadores, South America’s version of the European Champions League. Can you spot the shirts that belong to the two Argentine stadiums I visited?
As you’d expect right, next to the changing rooms was the tunnel where the teams emerge out on to the pitch. I have conflicting memories of what my first thoughts were, although it was either A) wow, it’s the Maracanã! or B) it was way smaller than expected!
The stadium has a capacity of 73,000, but before the introduction of seating, once held an attendance of a staggering 173,000 *officially* for the 1950 World Cup Final, although unofficial estimates put the figure at anywhere between 199,000 and 210,000.
Now, looking at the stadium, I compared the design and estimated capacity loosely similar to a stadium in Wroclaw, Poland that only holds 45,000. When you compare it to the Millennium Stadium in Wales, I found it hard to believe that the stadium in Cardiff is marginally smaller!
Unfortunately leaving the stadium I did take in to account that I’ll probably never see Wales play here, or go here again for any other reason, but still, more than worth the £10 entry fee and an ABSOLUTE must for any football fan visiting Rio.
I really wanted a football shirt to wear alongside my Argentine River Plate number, but sadly neither club who play at the stadium, Fluminense and Flamengo, catered for the larger gentleman (and the shirts were like £100 quid so I hardly went hunting).
After lunch there wasn’t too much time to enjoy the beach for one final time, but we did for an hour, although the lifeguard telling me off TWICE for seemingly putting my life at risk was a bit of a bummer. The waves really were that ferocious even a few meters in to the sea and only when I decided to call it a day did I realise hardly anyone was as far out as I was. Oops.
Really bemused that I have hardly any photos of the beach given that I had my phone with me the whole time. I can guarantee you that I took about 50 videos but each time the impact of the water automatically ended the video! I kid you not, at one point taking the phone out of my pocket, Netflix was open streaming a programme that I never watched before!
Anyway, after a couple of hours rest it was back out to the Ipanema beach just south of the Copacabana for our own “Last Supper” overlooked by Jesus. Beforehand though, we had a nice stroll along the said less-frequented Ipanema beach to build our appetites. Whilst as pleasant as it’s neighbour, there is less distance from promenade to water and it did feel more popular with locals playing ball-sports.
For tea we had – shock – another steak, which was up there with one of the best meals of the trip, located at Galezzo restuarant down a quiet side street. Delicious and about thirty quid all in! Last food photo, honest!
After dinner we had what would be a stroll for many, but for us with our full bellies, was a decent trek from here and along the FULL 4km length of the Copacabana promenade and back to the hotel, trying to avoid the inevitable suitcase packing as long as possible! (I did spent two hours in the hotel lobby working on the Peru part of the blog!)
Day 17 – Rio to home
One final breakfast buffet (how did I ever get fed up of these?!), wash and bag pack meant that we checked out of the hotel but still had a couple of hours to spare before a lift to the airport.
The only thing we held back on for this morning was science museum “Museu do Amanhã”, or the Museum of Tomorrow which looked really fascinating from the outside if you look.
In total we had around 2.5 hours. We soon discovered that the Uber drivers weren’t that keen to accept our cheap fare to travel so far (30 minutes but in rush hour I assume) so not only were we a bit disappointment to miss out we still had two hours to hang around.
Fear not, as don’t forget our location. A simple walk and a few sit downs, including watching a beach Zumba class were enjoyed in the sunshine before our lift to the airport for our ninth and final flight.
RIOgaleão international airport was eerily quiet by the way. I don’t think they had any flights before ours at 4pm, even the restaurants didn’t open until after midday. ELEVEN hours later we’d be back in the UK.
Day 18 just for the record… Although the trip was advertised as 18-days, in reality day 18 was arriving at Heathrow at 7:30am and a lift home from Mum. Both safe, both very happy, and very very content.
Thanks for reading!
… And hopefully there are a few reading who contributed to this trip by giving us cash as wedding gifts. We are so so grateful. Thank you.
How Not 2 Life 