The Best Thing Since Sliced Sugarloaf

Pão de Açúcar / Sugarloaf

 Coco Loco  -  cachaça, coconut milk, coconut water,

condensed milk and ice cream - yum!

We were waiting and waiting for the clearest of days during these cooler months so we could explore TripAdvisor’s top rated site in Rio, which is the most famous viewpoint in all of the city, if not the country. However, time was slowly running out and our remaining weekends in Brazil were now countable on one hand, so we had to bite the bullet and just go for it. In the morning we took the bus to Copacabana and started the day with a bang as we explored Zona Sul, feeling a bit more comfortable walking around the streets than we had when we arrived in February. I say bang because one of the first things we did was try a cocktail called Coco Loco, which was was not only delicious but meant we started the morning with a bit of a buzz. The weather was a little hazy and we were worried that it wouldn’t clear up but after lunch it looked significantly better, so we jumped in taxi and headed to the foot of the first mountain.

We were expecting a queue but there were very few people and we managed to get a good spot on the first cable car that arrived. Seemingly about 1pm is a great time to go as most people are eating lunch. With the morning haze cleared up, the cable car journey was beautiful. Even Katie, with her fear of heights, seemed to love this one (although not my comments on the reliability of the engineering in Brazil).

The first cable car took us up to the mountain called Urca, where there is a large selection of shops, restaurants, and cafes. There are also several view points, and the one over woodland was great for bird-snapping. From Urca you could take a (very short, very expensive) helicopter ride but we decided against it as neither of us had any spare underwear and we have seen how Cariocas drive cars...let alone helicopters. Urca had some of the best views of Rio we have seen, with Christ visible of course, as well as most of Zona Sul (South Zone) such as Ipanema and Copacabana.

From Urca you can take a second cable car to the actual Sugarloaf mountain, which is a lot higher than Urca and hence has a different perspective of the city. We ate ice cream (Dolce de Leite Magnum and a Cornetto), drank beer, watched a giant lizard, spied on a private beach, and generally just absorbed the view for over an hour. It was a great way to spend an afternoon and if you visit Rio, it’s an absolute must-see.

Feira do Hippie

Every Sunday in Ipanema there is a market called the Hippie Market (Feira do Hippie), and the day after visiting Sugarloaf we decided to take a morning and see what all the fuss was about. As our regular readers know, we are massive market lovers and can think of no better way to spend a morning/day/night than looking at the delightful items and same-same tat that is sold around the world. The hippie market was very nice and sold many items that we haven’t seen anywhere else. Also the stalls didn’t all sell the same things as each other, most stalls were unique actually, which meant we had to navigate the entire market to ensure we didn’t miss the one thing we wanted! The market isn’t that big and you can walk around in an hour easily (depending on how many things you buy of course.)

We bought a bag that Katie fell in love with when she saw one Swedish friends in Jeri had. I bought the hardest thing in the world to transport back in a suitcase; a huge round plate of painted glass that is as beautiful as it is fragile. Anyway it will look lovely hanging in the window of a new flat somewhere.

That’s about that for today, enjoy the rest of the photos from our glorious weekend living the #RioLife.

Copacabana Beach. Have you heard of it? I'm not sure it's that well known...

Ipanema Beach

People were climbing Urca and Sugarloaf!

Sugarloaf from Urca Mountain

There's quite a lot of wildlife at the top of Urca. We saw this Mico...

A huge lizard...

Lots of leaf-cutter ants...

And have you ever seen such a red bird?! Beautiful

The view from the top of Sugarloaf

Christ from Sugarloaf

Brasília - As Vanilla as Manila

Well after the Amazon, what could possibly be next?! We went from the real jungle to what turned out to be a concrete jungle - Brasília. The political capital of Brazil, it was founded in the middle of the country in 1960, and houses the parliament, taking the focal point away from Rio and southern Brazil. With Brazil’s current political climate, it feels slightly like they've bundled a huge amount of corruption in one place. The centre of the city doesn't feel very Brazilian, nor did the route from the airport. It seemed to be affluent everywhere we went, full of museums and architecture (by Lúcio Costa, Roberto Burle Marx and Oscar Niemeyer). Brasília wasn't on our short-list of places to visit, but we spent just over 24 hours in the city, since we had to change planes there anyway. This turned out to be the perfect length of time to explore and see the main sights.

I would recommend using BikeBrasília, even though we didn't, as there is a lot of emptiness between sights. There seems to just be areas of empty space and maybe in 50 years that will change, but to me it looked like how I imagine these new purpose-built Arabic cities in the desert to be. The must-sees are doable in a few hours and we actually pretty much walked everywhere, which was good exercise. That said, Brazilian cities often aren't very pedestrian friendly, with paths often ending for no good reason and this seemed especially true in Brasília.

One thing that will stay with me me was the experience we had at the central bus station, trying to find our bus. There was very little information about how to get the bus or where to queue once you found the right place. This wasn't a gringo not understanding Portuguese either, it was just as clear as mud for everyone involved. Sometimes I wonder whether people do things just to add chaos and confusion to everyone else’s life. We eventually found the bus and spent our evening at Pontão do Lago Sul, from which we got a view of the JK bridge. It was a lovely area to end the day and we got a taxi back to the hotel to save some time and not have to figure out the bus again.

Our main thoughts on the city are that it is affluent and very spacious, almost too much so! In hindsight walking wasn't the best idea for such a big place. There are lots of interesting buildings and taxis are expensive even for an adopted Carioca like me. It was a short, interesting stay that exceeded expectations mainly because we didn't really have any. It’s worth mentioning that the hotel we stayed at served breakfast in their rooftop restaurant, which gave us some decent views of the city. It was a nice touch, turning a standard hotel into a lovely one.

Anyway just a short one today with some photos below for you to enjoy!

#RioLife

On the Saturday after Katie's birthday, we decided to celebrate by being travellers again in the city we are growing to love. We took the free* walking tour around the city of Rio de Janeiro.

*Of course it is not free, they need tips to survive so be generous.

Rather than bog you down with the old word-speak, I thought we could use a medium called photos to help explain the journey.

It all started at Carioca Square, which is a busy little business district full of tall buildings and eager walkers ready to get started. Scores of vultures started circling and I genuinely feared being pooed on.

Nearby was one of the world’s ugliest buildings – the head quarters of Petrobras. It is shaped to resemble an oil rig.

We then did a Columbo by walking to a famous bakery called Colombo to partake in a quick urine break. It was a delightful quaint place to lay down a stream.

Along from the bakery are these fine cobbled streets and colonial buildings, pictured below.

This little street was famous as a market back in the day. When the Portuguese opened the port to the British, we decided to bring thick wool fabric to try and shift in exchange for a six-pence. Obviously no-one had googled the weather systems in Rio back in the 17^th century. They must have sold less than Woolworths.

We walked about and saw the Imperial Palace (top left), Tiradentes Palace (big photo underneath), Cinelândia, Municipal Theater (bottom right) as well as some other cool cathedrals, churches, and political buildings.

The Selaron Steps were next on the tour and along the road towards them we caught some great graffiti.

The steps (Escadaria Selarón) were designed by the Chilean artist Jorge Selarón. What started as a hobby, quickly turned into an obsession, and was soon being internationally recognised. People sent him tiles from around the world. Can you spot any recognisable faces (besides us)?

The walking tour finished here but we weren't finished. After grabbing a well deserved juice and meal, we took to the surrounding streets of Lapa - a popular area for bars and such. The famous Lapa Arches are below. Absolutely beautiful.

We walked round a nearby Saturday antique market and saw the bar above with some more cool graffiti. Being Brazil, there is of course always music and dancing.  I really love this photo below.

We finished the day with a trip to Arpoador, a rock in between Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. It was a great way to finish a great day, watching the sunset behind a mountain. We even took a new banner photo for the blog.

Two Trips To Taipei: Days 1-3 & 9-11 of 137

We started our trip in Taiwan by flying into the capital, Taipei. We were couchsurfing with an American called Grant and arrived in the city at around 11pm...We were a little hungry, tired, and very excited at exploring a new country!

Grant's first question after the standard pleasantries was, "Are you hungry?" to which we answered, "Yes!" Grant then said "Let's go to a night market!" Five minutes later, with a beer in each of our hands, we were exploring his local night market.

Grant was our perfect host – walking round the market he was constantly pointing at things saying “eat that…try this…oh you HAVE to have one of these…”. So we did. We then got some more food, and then a steak, and then dessert. We ate and we ate until our heart pumped Taiwanese cuisine and our head pounded with a delicious MSG hangover. Afterwards, we decided to get drunk, play basketball and try a local stimulant (similar to a cigarette in strength) called Beetlenut.

This is a sour, strange plant that you chew and it turns your spit pink – it made me feel a little dizzy.

The next day we awoke, a little worse for wear, and took a stroll through part of the city. We wandered down a busy street full of places to eat and eventually made our way to the Peace Park. It was a beautiful, lush, green park with a few pagodas and other interesting features. It was an oasis in the middle of the bustling metropolis.

Spaghetti stall / VW Van

This photo doesn't do it justice but this is a
beautiful monument that I (Katie) fell in love with.
It was surrounded by white lilies and in the centre
there was a water feature thingy.

Dave being brave and attempting to
walk on a stone path - it was so
painful with just socks on!

Apparently it's really good at stimulating all kinds of
pressure points!

We then headed to a monument, not far from the park. We weren’t sure what to expect and as we entered the grounds we were pleasantly surprised by the surroundings.

Toilet Seats in an Information Centre.

The Chiang Kai Shek (not Shrek) monument is a huge, ostentatious statue, in a huge building at the edge of an equally huge square, with a huge gateway thingy opposite it. It’s huge. 

After we were suitably humbled by the…hugeness, we started to wander back to the road and suddenly found ourselves in a beautiful Japanese style garden. I then became fascinated by two birds and we spent ages trying to get the perfect photo of them so Dad can look them up and tell us what they are (please):

 

After this we went to the botanical gardens, which were thoroughly underwhelming. Perhaps it was the time of year, or perhaps it just didn’t live up to the Japanese garden we had just seen. Needless to say we didn’t take any interesting pictures.

We then had our first night time temple experience at Longshan Temple. It was an incredible sight and is truly magnificent at night.

Waterfall!

The next day we went on a hike with loads of people from couchsurfing, up the nearby Elephant Mountain. It was slightly cloudy so we didn’t get the best view of Taipei or Taipei 101 (3^rd tallest building in the world) but it was an interesting hike with lots of interesting people.

Bright Blue Berries

Weird building we saw.

We left Taipei later that day and returned on day 9 (of 137 days of travelling) after visiting Taroko Gorge and Tainan. We did a day trip to a nearby town called Jiufen but sadly during our absence from Taipei the weather had taken a turn for the worse. This meant that the wonderful mountain view was more like a mediocre mountain view but we could tell that when the visibility improved, the view would be well worth it.

The great view that never was...

Later that day we went to Taipei 101 for some food and to take a look at this really, really, really tall building.

We didn’t go up because of the weather but the view that the hike up Elephant Mountain had already provided us with a good picture of Taipei. £10 seemed a lot to ride 40 seconds at 1010 meters a minute up the world’s fastest lift just to say we’d done it.

World's fastest lift

That night we went to an awesome club with our new couchsurfer, Jon, who showed us how to party Taipei style. We didn’t take any photos but we all danced our tits off and showed the Taiwanese how to sweat.

On our final day in Taiwan we went to an outdoor hot spring and bathed in the public baths. It was a little crowded (and gross) (and raining) so we didn’t stay for long. However for £1, it was well worth it! 

Later we went around Jon’s area, Ximen (pronounced “semen” – lol), looking at some graffiti and finally settled into a huge bowl of ice cream!

Cool graffiti

Jon and his ice cream