The last night of 2023 was spent at the hotel for New Year’s Eve.
In Brazil, it is custom to wear white on the evening, to honor a water goddess, Lemanja. The custom was originally from Nigeria, where people would wear white to present their offerings, and in turn hope to receive good fortune. When the Portuguese brought over masses of slaves from west Africa, the tradition of wearing white came with it.
The party started at 9, and with not much else to do in Baja before, we were there right for the start. Being early, we had the whole buffet to ourselves! Lots of sushi and sashimi, many cuts of meats, pastas, rice, potatoes, even vegetables. A wonderful dessert cart was there as well. Our favorites were the coconut ceviche and the nigiri sushi.
A DJ played till near 11:30, and then a live band showed up. They started with a lot of English hits, and then switched to the Brazilian songs. Everyone was having basic fun with the English music, and really got down for the Brazilian. Makes sense, were in Rio.
The countdown was pretty sudden. The band finished their song, and then 10 – 9 – 8… started immidietly. There was lots of cheering, then we went out to the lagoon to see the fireworks. The hotel had a little show going on. Deeper into the city were many more shows, so like Christmas night, the skyline was lit up with all sorts of colours.
We switched to the beachside, and caught the tail end of the Copacabana and Ipanema fireworks. Ipanema was really going off, and we all lamented about how cool it would be to be there up close. Once the show was over, we went back inside to the party people. Eventually, the night slowed down, and we all crashed.
We had one more eventful day in Rio. On an early start, we made it to Copacabana beach. It was still recovering from the NYE fiesta two days later. For all the hype it gets for being a really busy beach, it was kinda quiet. Of course, were being relative here, there were still thousands of people. But you could see the ocean form where you were sitting. It wasn’t like Ipanema.
Cam, Ty and I went for a walk down the beach to a lookout point of the bar end. Turning around, we could see the sand stretch for kilometers, and massive apartments and hotels resting just behind it. Quite a pretty view. We also saw a couple of surfers near the rocks, catching a double wave (due to the landscape) back to shore.
The waving was decent. The ocean floor was not flat, which was annoying. Every few steps it would rise or sink by at least a foot. So when you got hit with a wave and well, you never could tell how deep it would be to place your feet. Good sized waves though.
We met up with Diogo again to head out on another hike. This time it is the two brothers hike, the most famous one in Rio. From the top you can get a fantastic view of Christ the Redeemer, sugarloaf, and the rest of the city. But to get there, we had to take a taxi through a favela.
There’s two options for that, van or motor taxi. Motor taxi’s are just hopping on the back of a motorbike and wheeling up. We opted to stick together and go for the van. They crowded a bunch of us in, and then up the winding hillside we went. The streets are very narrow, and on one hairpin, another van scraped ours. Neither driver seemed to care.
Favela’s are a certain set of chaos. This one is the safest in the city, having become the touristy one for travelers wanting to do a hike, or see the “real,” Brazil. To our travelled eyes though, it looks like any neighbourhood from La Paz or Quito. Just another massive South American city with a lot of people in not a lot of space.
The trailhead is at a football pitch. There are showers and a water fountain, and many curious kids frm the nearby school. The trail is jungle again, and started easy. It didn’t stay easy though.
This is a steep pitch. Ropes have been installed to help people ascend. Cam and I climbed like mountain goats, having little issue. Ty did well keeping up, showing a much better effort than his Barcelona climb. The rest of the gang was a little slow though. Average pace in general I’m sure.
As we got higher, the clouds around us got thicker. There were a couple viewpoints on the way, where if we looked down we could see favela’s on neighbouring hillsides. If we looked up, we could see white. Hopes for a good view fell dramatically.
As we got higher, the trail steeper. The rocks a little rougher. The ground a little wetter. Clouds still surrounded us, but at this rate, we would break through the top of them. We passed a guy with a pet monkey. Said hi to the guy. Pressed on. Finally, we reached the top. And the view was something else.
Pure white. Everywhere. We couldn’t see Christ the Redeemer, so we recreated the pic with Ty. Cam’s family really felt a sense of accomplishment for the hike, and were happy to make it up. We did too. A summit is a summit, it always feels good to get to the top.
The walk down was uneventful, though we did tell passers by that there were no views to look forward too. Getting a van back down was hard though. At one point, there were 20 motor taxi’s or so parked in front of us, beckoning us all to come on. But our stubborn group waited for the van to bring us all together. The first one was full. The next one wasn’t.
Overall, Rio was a grand adventure, and a major shift from what we had been doing. Lounge days by the pool with nothing going on were a foreign concept, and to some degree still are. But they were nice. It was fantastic seeing people from home, especially at the holidays. But they must return to their lives, and we must venture somewhere else. So one more stop in Brazil we go. We will see you there.
Fascinating landscape and great photos of it all! Happy New Year!
Favelas as a tourist attraction is an interesting concept, seeing how the other half lives brings needed context to the traveler experience. Good fun for Ty playing Christ the Redeemer poseur. Nice to have a New Year’s party w family to celebrate, keep smiling.