25 Feb 2012 – Arrival –> Bloco –> Champions Parade
Early in the morning I arrived in Rio de Janeiro for the second time at my trip. 9 hours bus ride, actually not worth to be mentioned. Waited for an hour at the bus station for the sunrise. Good morning Rio de Janeiro.
I slept very bad in the bus, was tired like hell and went to the new hostel by bus.
Arrived at the hostel, I planned my day:
- Getting some tickets for the carnival
- Sleep until the parade starts
- Watch the parade
- Go to bed
But here is how it came:
Getting a ticket
Since I didn’t have a ticket for the parade I came for to Rio again, I went to the Sambadromo. The maximum price I would have paid for a ticket was about 200 Reais (about 90 €). But all tickets were sold out. Suddenly, a man came to me and offered me some tickets. He showed me the price at the ticket office which was 130 Reais and said I would get it for 200 Reais since all tickets are obviously sold out. I said I will give him 50 Reais cause I don’t know if they’re valid for the Champions Parade in the evening. He said 100 Reais would be ok for him. I just said good bye and started to walk away because 100 for a faked ticket would have been still too much. But than he said I should give him 50 Reais and will get a ticket. I said OK but realized that I have only 40 Reais in my pocket. Good for me, so I got the ticket for 40 Reais (about18 €). But I didn’t believe that it is a real ticket for the parade. Fifty fifty, 18 € lost or the cheapest ticket I could probably get. What would you have thought when you had seen this ticket?
Bloco instead of sleeping
In the hostel the staff asked if someone is interested in going to a legendary “Bloco” (Carnival on the street). Never been to a Bloco I thought and went with them. The Bloco was at Ipanema Beach, the most beautiful beach of Rio de Janeiro. I don’t know how many thousand people there where but look at the pictures and watch the short video.
This is Samba, this is Brazilian Carnival, this is Rio de Janeiro!
The Champions Parade
The Champions Parade is the last parade at the Sambadromo where the best Samaba Schools show their performance one more time. What means, just the best is good enough for me.
Unbelievable but true, the ticket was valid and I got inside the Sambadromo. The seats were the cheapest and actually just for Brazilians. Nevertheless, I’ve been to the Champions Parade of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. I didn’t expect that it will be that big but it was even bigger than I could have ever dreamed of. It was definitively worth to spend 40 Reais for the parade. Next time I will take some better places but it was great value for money.
What do you think about Carnival in Rio? Nice, isn’t it?
26 Feb 2012 - Hiking Corcovado
Everyone knows him, Christ the Redeemer above Rio de Janeiro. With wide arms he looks like a cross and can be seen from all around Rio. A must see tourist attraction. But an expensive one as well (about . Since I want to travel as cheap as possible by missing as less as possible I decided to hike up the mountain. Nearly everyone I asked said that its impossible to hike up Corcovado. But I looked it up on Google and found that there is a path which lasts 2-3 hours. Finally I made it in 1.5 hours and had to pay only 27 Reais instead of 43 Reais, still expensive but cheaper and a very nice hike at 35 °C.
27-28 Feb 2012 – Get ready for Panama
The last 2 days in Brazil I spent at the beaches of Rio, enjoyed the sun and discovered the city!
Good Bye Brazil!
To all the readers of this blog, I hope you got a feeling for south-east Brazil. I would recommend to go there for the World Cup 2012. If so, let me know, may be I will be there again!
Thanks to Rio de Janeiro for these great days and Brazil for 3 awesome weeks!
Hope to visit you again once in my life but now I have to fly more than 6 hours to Panama!
Next stop Panama City, Panama…
