SIGHTSEEING IN THE RAIN

THURSDAY 7th JULY

  I was up, shaven and washed, ready for breakfast before 7.30am.  I must say that the breakfast on offer here stands in stark contrast to the size of the room, which also has no natural daylight, but does have an a/c unit which I have found it far too cold to use.  So back to brekkers; four or five types of tropical fruit for starters, washed down by a couple of glasses of fresh orange juice (Jim would be in his element here!), followed by coffee, scambled egg and sausages in a sort of tomato sauce.  I'm afraid I just didn't have space to go on to the breads and cakes on offer!

  I adjourned to the reception area to await the arrival of my conducted tour.  I thought I had been told they would arrive at 8.00am, but on consulting my card I found it had 8.10am on it so relaxed and waited.  By 8.15am there was no sign of them, so I went up to the reception desk and proffered it with a quizzical stare.  "Ah", the man said and pulled out a voucher from his pocket which he proceeded to fill in and then handed over to me.  He then pulled out his mobile and made a call.  "They make a mistake, they will be here at 8.40am", he said with a smile.  I retired to the waiting area.  Sure enough at 8.40am they turned up.  Our party comprised of a Swedish middle aged couple, a Brazilian couple with a young baby and a couple of Canadian girls and myself.  Our guide Flavio proceeded to demonstrate his knowledge of a few words in Swedish and Polish, and considerably more in English and Brazilian!

  I had picked a really crap day for this tour, it was completely overcast and pissing down with rain.  Still in true adventuresome spirit I set out in shorts, sandals (no socks), and thankfully took my North Face waterproof jacket.  We drove through the Santa Teresa district, so named after the Carmelite Convent located there, this apparently is an area inhabited by singer Roberto Gil.  Then it was onwards and upwards to Corcovado, the location of the 39.6metre high statue of Christ the Redeemer.

 This is what it looks like on a clear day - today was not a clear day!  We got right up to the base of the statue but this was about all one could see.  Thoroughly soaked I went back down in the lift.

  The idea for the statue for first mooted in the 1850's by Father Pedro Maria Boss, but was eventually rejected when the State and Church were separated  when Brazil became a republic in 1889.  The matter was raised again in 1921 by the Catholic Circle of Rio who started collecting donations from the Catholic community, getting the project off the ground.  The statue was designed by engineer Heitor da Silva Costa in reinforced concrete and sculpted by Paul Landowski (of French/Polish origins).  It took from 1922 till 1931 to build the statue.  On July 7th, 2007 it was named one of the New Seven Wonders of the World, which on
a clear day I'm sure it must be!

Despite the weather one still got the odd photo opportunity descending from the heights of Corcovado.

  We then drove over to the national stadium which lies between the Maracana district and the Maracana river and is popularly known as the Maracana Stadium, even though it has the official name of Estadio Journalista Mario Filha.  It was built for the 1950 World Cup. Brazil contested the final with Uruguay in front of  199,854 spectators and lost 1-2.  Six spectators committed suicide inside the stadium!  The current seating capacity is 82,238 and that is being increased to 85,000 for the 2014 World Cup. Pele scored his 1000th goal here in 1969.  Twenty years later Zico scored his final and 333rd goal for Flamengo - a record that I believe still stands.

  In front of the stadium is a statue of Hieraldo Luiz Belini the captain of the Brazilian team that defeated Sweden in 1958 in Sweden to win the World Cup. The stadium is currently undergoing rennovation to the tune of about three quarter million Brazilian reais with a view to increasing the seating capacity to as I said earler, 85,000.

  We drove on after this stop where the rain had thankfully abated for a while.  I spotted some interesting grafitti on the way.

As well as a tribute of some sort to Leia, do your parents know about this young lady?  What's it all about?

  Next came the district where the samba was born, and a place called Samba Alley where they put on performances and have concerts.  There was a Brahma brewery there that was dynamited up to make way for this samba stage - I'm not sure I totally approve!  The monument at the back is supposed to represent a bikini.  I'm afraid my imagination is not up to it! (Unless it is meant to be a cross-section).

  On the way back we learnt that a native of Rio de Janiero is called a Carioci, which means "white man's house" and that the name Rio de Janiero comes from the fact that it was discovered on the 1st January 1502 by the Portugese who mistook the bay it stands on for a river and called it the "River of January".  Don't say you don't get educated here!

  Finally we passed Ipanema beach which gave rise to "The Girl From Ipanema", to my mind a smash hit for Astrud Gilberto in 1964 but Flavio mentioned the original recording in 1962 by Pery Ribiero, so even I can learn something about music in my travels!

  And that concludes the travelogue around Rio de Janiero for today.  Time for dinner!