Caipirinhas and Cariocas in Copacabana

After hearing all the scary stories about the dangers of Rio, we were pretty scared to even walk on the streets during the first days of our stay but the more time we spent in the city, the more confident we got to explore also the downtown of the city without thinking all the time that someone is trying to rob us. One day we decided to take a tour from our hostel and saw all the main sights of the city at once. For us the well-known Cristo statue didn’t offer such a big wow-effect as we hoped for but the famous Sugar Loaf instead was much better experience, when we went to the top of the 396 meter high mountain with a cable car and the views over the city were just amazing! 

To us the highlight of the sightseeing in Rio was definitely Santa Teresa and the staircase of Selarón, which also hides such an interesting story behind. The stairs are made by a Chilean artist, who started to cover some 215 steps with over 2000 tiles from 120 countries in mosaic-like shapes already in the 90’s. However, the area were the stairs are located, used to be inhabited by drug dealers and the more famous and touristy these stairs became, the more the drug dealing had to be moved away from the area. Sadly, the Chilean artist was found dead in January this year and there were also speculations that he was murdered by the drug dealers. This was because the body was found with burn marks on the steps just after he had given an interview to one newspaper where he had admitted that he has received dead threats from the dealers. So if we would have visited the stairs two months ago, we would have had a chance to see the artist himself working on his masterpiece just like he was doing every day before his death...

In Rio we also got familiar with the crazy nightlife scene of the city. The best parties of Rio are located in the area of Lapa, where especially during the weekends the streets are full of terraces and people drink and dance on the streets all night long.. After drinking too many caipirinhas and partying until the sunrise, we spent our days mostly on the beach of Ipanema where we also got to know many Cariocas, the locals who pretty much use the beach as their living room and spend the days enjoying the sun and talking to gringos like us. 

The last night in Rio we spent on the beach of Copacabana playing guitar and singing with Cariocas. Next it was time to have a break from the caipirinhas and get away from the big city to an island of no roads or traffic just to relax…