After recovering from Carnival, Colin and I were ready to see some of Rio’s more popular sites… and find a few hidden gems in the city along the way! We got up early the morning of Feb 13th, deciding to try for the history museum yet again, but it was still closed due to Carnival. We drove to Ilha Fiscal and found the same situation. If you travel to Rio, try and plan your extra days before Carnival, not after, as attractions often stay closed for a while after Carnival. Finally, we decided to try an attraction that would undoubtedly be open: Sugarloaf Mountain.
We headed out to the peninsula of Guanabara Bay to see Sugarloaf Mountain (named for its resemblance to a loaf of refined sugar) which stood in front of us as we waited for the cable car to take us up to see it. Approximately 1,300 feet high, this mountain has two cable cars, the first of which takes you to Morro da Urca, the stop before Sugarloaf, and the second of which brings you to Sugarloaf itself. The cable ride to Morro da Urca only took 3 minutes – before we knew it we were taking photos at the top!
Morro da Urca had a little exhibit on the various cable cars that have been used over time to bring people to where we were standing. The first cable cars actually resembled electric street cars in Rio during the early 1900s. By the 1970’s, the cable cars had a “bubble-shape” design, which I posed in front of for a quick photo. Around the corner, we saw that from here you could take helicopter flights around the mountain and to the surrounding areas – such as Christ the Redeemer, a statue we could see from Sugarloaf!
Before taking the final tram up to the top, we ordered a bite (and I literally mean bite, in the case of Colin’s shrimp skewer) of overpriced food (eat before you go!) and snacks to renew our energy. Getting off the second tram, we first explored the little exhibit located at the top, which had and parts of the trams from past years onto which old movie clips were projected, plus showed old photos of a tightrope walker who chanced a balance on the cable car line.
We walked around the top taking tons of photos of the best view we’d seen of Rio since our first day at Copacabana Fort. Breathtaking! Walking through some of the surrounding forest led us to find a few baby marmosets jumping through the trees!
After we finished at Sugarloaf, Colin and I decided to knock the next big attraction off our list and visit the Christ the Redeemer statue located at Corcovado. We jumped in a taxi, but by the time we got there we discovered all the spaces on the tram up the Tijuca forest to see Christ were full until 6pm. Not wanting to wait around that long, we found a van service at the entrance that could take us up straight away.
A connecting van near the top brought us all the way to the elevators that could take us yet even higher before we reached Jesus. We even had to take two escalators after the elevator – but we made it to him, getting some great dramatic photos! (Which is quite a challenge, considering Jesus doesn’t quite fit into a photo unless you pretty much lay down on the floor, which is what the hundreds of people there seemed to be doing!)
The giant Jesus statue before us is known as ‘Christ the Redeemer,’ which is a monument funded by Catholic donations in the early 1920’s. The statue is made of reinforced concrete, with an outer layer of soapstone, and stands at 120 feet tall including the 20 foot pedestal. As we walked around it, we found that a little chapel was being created on the other side of Jesus, which we later learned would be used to hold weddings.
It was blazing hot outside, so we cooled off with a couple drinks and hot dogs on the platform before Jesus before heading back to the hotel for some room service and relaxation in the comfort of AC.
The next afternoon we had another walking tour arranged, one which would take us around some of the more central sights of Rio. Meeting our guide of Rio Walks at the ODEON in Cinelandia, we were relieved this time to not have to squeeze ourselves through partying bodies at every turn, as there was no bloco parties in the area. The walk was of the “Grand Bazaar,” but it ended up being quite more than just that! Starting outside the ODEON, we were told why the area got its name – it was formerly home to many popular cinemas and theaters in the 1920’s. Nearby there was a statue which marked the former boundary line of the sea – much of the area around us had been filled in and was reclaimed from the water!
During the tour we learned that in the late 1700’s, Rio became the new capital of Brazil, a capital which had formally been Salvador. Since Rio was the new capital, the Viceroy Luís de Vasconcelos began an affair with a woman living near the area where the Passeio Publico park is today. She had asked for a huge display of affection from him, a gift in the form of a park. The park was built on reclaimed land, and originally had a view of Guanabara Bay from within it. It also previously required a key to enter and was only used by the upper-class in Rio, but was eventually opened to the public. Below is a 1862 drawing of the park, which is in a classical French style, filled with amazingly ornate fountains and even some Masonic-symbolism (aka: pyramids inside.)
After the park, we walked back past Santa Teresa, passing the Escadaria Selaron yet again for a quick photo (there is so much to look at on these stairs, you just can’t get bored of them!) before coming to the beautiful white Arcos da Lapa. This 18th century former aqueduct was being used as the tram line to Santa Teresa, but was shut down after a few accidents. Let’s hope they get it running again soon, a trip on it would be quite fun!
On our route towards the Cathedral we passed by a few financial centers and the headquarters of Petrobas, the country’s petroleum company – evidence we really were in the middle of Rio’s financial center. The Catedral Metropolitana de Sao Sebastiao we ventured to was on the outside very interestingly architecturally with its Mayan-temple inspired structure, while the inside was quite colorful with glowing strips of stained-glass. Shortly after visiting a couple more churches, we came to one of the best stops of the afternoon: a library so beautiful and so creepy that it looked like it came straight out of a fantasy novel.
This library is called the Royal Portuguese Reading or the O Real Gabinete Português de Leitura. An absolutely amazing place with over 350,000 super old books, this library is visually enchanting. As soon as I walked inside I was instantly reminded of the library the Beast brings Belle to in Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” with its rolling ladders, huge walls of books, and ornate moldings. Exquisite. I was really curious how anyone could read the books, as most of them were quite old (from the 1800’s) and crumbling! I was relived to learn that the book are all now in the library’s computer database so you don’t actually have to mess with any of them, though you can take them off the shelves– you just have to ask an attendant and wear special gloves to touch the pages.
Our final two stops of the day were an infamous pastry shop jammed with people where I loaded up on mini empanadas and an outdoor shopping complex of streets known as Saara. This complex has been run by generations of immigrants since the end of the 19th century and has over 1,200 businesses selling their goods. After our shopping fill was met, we returned back to Hotel Pompeu to prepare for the next filled day.
We left early on the 15th as we had a museum day planned! We first tried the Museum do Indio, a FUNAI (National Foundation of the Indian) funded exhibit which attempts to portray indigenous cultures accurately. However, it was closed when we got there! Damn renovations! They did offer us a free parting gift however, a great textbook on the indigenous cultures which I gladly snatched up and read as soon as I could. I’m guessing they were giving them away because after the renovations are finished there will be a new edition out, but this edition was really interesting nevertheless! This book had brilliant essays on both the Portuguese Jesuit (1500’s-1600’s) and modern (1900’s-2000’s) Brazilian impressions of the culinary, artistic, musical, and educational influences on diverse sets of indigenous peoples and their respective cultures. The book also contains what little first-hand accounts the indigenous peoples themselves can to contribute about their culture, as much of their societies have been vastly exterminated.
Our next attempt at a museum was actually a palace! Catete Palace is a mansion built in the mid-1800’s, and has served as Brazil's presidential palace. Thus it was also the location of Getulio Vargas’s (President Vargas) suicide in 1954. President Vargas, as a dictator, sought to bring Brazil into the global economy by moving the country from an agriculture state to one with its own strong state industries. A look at his biography tells us that he was all about creating state monopolies. “[He] …created state monopolies for oil (Petrobras), mining (Vale), steelmaking (National Siderurgy Company), alkalis (National Alkalis Company) and automobiles (National Motors Factory).” (SSGV) It was only after democratic principles grew strong after WWII that Vargas switched Brazil to free elections.
Later in the afternoon we made it to what turned out to be the best museum we’d been to so far in Brazil.
The National Historical Museum started at the beginning, with 12,000-year-old cave paintings and engravings into the rock face from pre-historic peoples that populated Brazil – we found out that many of these paintings can be found in the Serra da Capivara National Park in the north of Brazil.
In the south of Brazil, a different type of pre-historical peoples evidence is common- large ancient (8000-5000 years old) trash (with lots of marine trash, and usually located near a sea or river) heaps known as “sambaquis.” One sambaquis, found along the coastline of Santa Catarina, was over 30 meters tall!
While going through the first sections about the different indigenous groups in Brazil at the time of the Portuguese arrival, we learned that they lived in villages of 500-600 people in temporary long houses, constructed to be about 60 feet in length with no dividers and thus very little privacy between family and tribe members.
One of the most interesting aspects of some indigenous cultures (one that the Portuguese found savage) such as the Tupi people was their anthropophagy or a cannibalistic ritual rite that presupposed there was reciprocity between a captured enemy and those who imprisoned him. The prisoner was known from capture as being an “outsider,” and he wore a necklace which counted down to his day of execution.
However, during his time in the rival tribe he was treated like a tribe member, sometimes even taking a wife. He was expected not to run away back to his own tribe, as they would not accept him back – he would no longer be thought of as courageous if he were to do this rather than face his punishment and let his own tribe avenge his death. Seems like quite crazy logic, especially when you throw in that the prisoner's body is painted and eaten by the villagers once his time finally came up.
When you consider the idea from the tribe’s perspective, they strongly believed members of any tribe killed while being courageous would ‘move on’ to a literal ‘paradise on earth’ with strong certainty, one might argue their final circumstance won’t end up being so bad? Cannibalism was also the Tupi peoples’ understanding of a special life cycle and was also practiced by mothers and other relatives mourning for any dead children in the family. The mourning process many indigenous tribes go through is a ritual known as “quarup” which uses painted tree trunks symbolizing the dead placed in the center of the village to celebrate the ancestors.
The second part of the museum focused on the Portuguese arrival to Brazil, their quest for gold and slave trade; with the third section focusing more on the relatively modern-day progression of politics, life, and a mixing of cultures that would eventually create a society known as the Brazilian people.
For example, the museum went into the numerous wars between European powers over country of the territory (most notably between the Portuguese, French, and Dutch) and described how the Jesuit priests arrived in Brazil to convert and thus “subdue” the indigenous people. Obviously struggle ensued, with both the Portuguese (another other European) state and the Catholic Church working to strip power away from the native people.
Since it was difficult to subdue (and enslave) the indigenous (they kept dying or being killed before capture,) African slaves were brought over to work the land, cultivating sugarcane. In 400 years it is estimated that 10 to 15 million Africans of various ethnic backgrounds were brought to Brazil, a staggering 40% of the overall slave trade during that time. With gold and precious minerals were being discovered as well, many tried to find ways around the Portuguese government’s hefty tax scheme – such as with this hollow Mary statue with a spot for sneaking goods. Some slaves (who could work part-time for their masters selling food or utensils and got to keep a percentage) were able to purchase their own freedom – even eventually owning slaves themselves! The irony!
The museum described the political side of Brazil’s history, the story of the monarchy, and Brazil’s move towards independence from Portugal. Don Pedro I supported the construction of this empire when he promulgated the Constitution of the Empire in 1924, supporting a new and united Brazil. He eventually abdicated the throne, and his son, Don Pedro II became ruled at age 14. Don Pedro supported political freedom, freedom of the press, and attempted to modernized the nation while he was in power. Coffee became the number one product for Brazil in the 19th century and holds strong until today as a staple export. The next few parts of the museum had pieces from the 1900’s through to present-day.
We couldn’t quite get through the whole museum, so we asked to be let back in for free the following day and – yay! – they said it would be allowed.
The afternoon of the 16th, Colin and I decided to check-out Ilha Fiscal, an island nearby our hotel in Centro. Once we got there, we realized we had just missed getting tickets for the next boat, so we purchased some for a boat a couple hours later and grabbed some snacks. We were actually a bit glad – this would give us just enough time to explore all the ships and military boats/helicopters surrounding us at the included Maritime Museum. There was even an old regal boat used by Don Pedro when Brazil was still an empire! We got some great pictures as we roamed around, navigating the claustrophobic halls of the long submarines.
Our boat to Fiscal Island left around 2pm, and we located an English-speaking tour guide when we got there. Kinda. She spoke Portuguese to the rest of our group and handed us a booklet to follow along with. At least we could ask her a few questions in English! We learned that the island and the buildings on it used to be the Customs House back in the 1880’s after Don Pedro II came to the island and decided he wanted to build a French-style castle on it.
But Fiscal Island really became famous after there was a famous ceremony held on it, a 2000-guest ball which would be the last of the Brazilian Empire. The island was also the location of the Republic’s proclamation on November 15th, 1889. A famous painting we saw at the National Historical Museum was reproduced here on the island: "“Last Ball of the Monarchy.” We made our way around the castle, through the ballrooms, and imagined what it would be like to attend a ball knowing it was the last celebration a government would ever have, and the birth of a new government.
After our boat brought us back to the mainland, we headed for our ‘free’ time at the National Historical Museum. Turns out that we didn’t miss too much – we saw some sedan chairs and carriages used by Don Pedro II, religious-themed Baroque art, and an extremely detailed exhibit on the history of money and coins. Natives originally inhabiting Brazil had no concept of money or even bartering, but the colony that resulted from the Portuguese take-over was very much a “money economy;” gold and silver coins to paper money and plastic cards. The general history of money was quite interesting but I won’t go into that here, but it seems like one can learn a lot about societies and cultures by looking at how they handled finances. Let me know if anyone out there knows a good documentary or history episode about this, I’d love to find out more. 
Colin and I spent our final day in Rio walking through Rio’s Botanical Garden. This was actually one of the highlights of our time in the city. We got there early afternoon after buying some snacks, leaving plenty of time to walk around and eat in the park. There was a little museum inside the tourist center which had a couple indigenous art pieces, but once we got ourselves booked for one of the later ‘golf-cart’ rides, we were ready to start exploring the outside. 
While the golf-cart gave us a quick zoom around the gardens, we actually saw most of it doing our own walk in the couple hours beforehand. Exotic flowers, Japanese gardens, young Brazilians taking cosplay photos all over the place… and we discovered there were many very pregnant women getting professional pre-birth photos done in the park. After we saw the first three or four, we realized it wasn’t just a coincidence… I guess it’s a trend? Either way, if you stay more than a couple days, the Botanical Garden is a must-see in Rio.
See you all soon. Colin will now take you out of Rio and beyond…
Francesca
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