Day 3 - Perfect sleep to activity ratio.

13:00
Much sleeping has been done. Vicki’s activity tracker reckons she’s had around 13 hours, and mine is pushing up towards 10. Tam has also slept very well, and we’re much refreshed for the day. We’ve no fixed plans until a walking tour at 15:00 this afternoon, so agree to grab some breakfast, and then head down towards the harbour area of the city. We’ve been advised to stick to Uber for cabs around town, and so jump in a fairly rickety old car to bump our way downtown. We amble along the dockside, stopping to gaze at a stunning (and huge) mural painted by the famous street artist, Kobra, for the 2016 Rio Olympics. We carry on down to Praca Maua, which is home to the breathtaking architecture of Museu Do Amanha. It’s a Science Museum, but the building which houses it is a gargantuan display of glass and metalwork. Really quite something…

It’s rapidly heating up, and we have to remind ourselves that we’re not far from the equator here, so the sun is properly strong. We seek shelter in a cool little coffee shop. I have an Espresso and a beer, while the ladies settle for coffees. Somewhat recharged and refreshed, we carry on round to Praca XV Novembro, which commemorates the end of the Emperor’s reign in Brazil in 1889, as the result of a military coup. Power to the people.

We jump in an Uber back to our hotel, mindful that we’ve 3 hours of walking this afternoon, and that we might need to save some energy. We stop in at a supermarket across the street from our hotel. There’s a range of Brazilian wines to try. I’ve been advised these are on a spectrum from really quite good, to holy fuck, that’s atrocious. We also grab more water, and some beers for our room. The supermarket feels like a decent microcosm of the Brazil we’ve experienced thus far. Everything’s on a bit of a go-slow, there’s no urgency. That’s fine for us as travellers, but I suspect we’d start to find it a little irksome for everyday life. Still - the Cariocas seem to be accustomed to and ok with it…

20:30
What a day! We head out at 13:30 to grab a quick snack before our walking tour. The first place we stop at doesn’t quite attract us. It looked like a cool place to grab a bite on Google Eats, but as is often the case with the internet, the reality doesn’t quite live up to the promise. We head up the street, and find what looks like quite a cool snack bar. We ask if there’s anything vegetarian for Tamsin. The initial response suggests yes, but this somehow turns into a no. There’s also quite a lot of confusion about how to actually ask for food.

I’m incredibly conscious that I speak no Portuguese, and that English is barely known here. It’s the first time in I can’t remember how long that I’ve struggled to communication with local folks. I’m hyper aware that being an English speaker guarantees me comprehension in a vast array of countries, but this is simply not one of them. I’ve also made the very conscious choice this year NOT to try and learn a little of the local language, as I’m visiting so many countries in a short space of time, and frankly - my addled and ageing brain is not capable of context switching that quickly. I’m regretting it now though. We wander onwards, and find a little café that offers sandwiches and custard tarts. That’ll do.

We’ve still a while to wait until our walking tour, so we amble onwards through the commercial district. We’d really kinda like to find a bar to settle into for an hour, but they seem to be thin on the ground. In this part of Rio, the concept of a ‘bar’ seems to be an alien one. Eventually, we find something that sort of meets the need, though we’re not sure if it’s actually a bar, an antiques store or a library. They do serve ultra-cold beer though, so I dive in.

It’s time for our walking tour, and we meet with the enigmatic Nina in Carioca Square. The following 3 hours are a fascinating insight into the history of Rio, of Brazil, of the Portuguese colonisation of Brazil, and of its ultimate independence in 1898. As stories go, it’s pretty soap operatic.

We’re gradually getting our Rio bearings. We blindly and blithely realise that the building we’re standing in (the 19th century Royal Palace) is on one side of the Praca XV Novembro Square we were on earlier. Ok - so our geography still needs work. We end up at the Selaron stairs, new to some of our group, but well known to us intrepid explorers who have spent all of 36 hours in the city. We (T, V and T) park at a streetside bar and grab drinks, some more drinks, and then some food. The night is starting to darken, and we feel no edge or concern about this. Without wanting to be blasé, we’re beginning to wonder whether the street safety concerns we were told about are more fiction than fact. We won’t be dropping our collective guard, but it feels like we’re all relaxing into the city, in a very good way…En savoir plus