I woke up at 7 am, the earliest since those red eye flights I had a few weeks back, to go hiking with strangers from the internet. There is a website called couchsurfing dot com which connects locals and travels to either host them at their home or show them around. I posted a message in the Rio group and this was one of the more interesting activities I was invited to.
At 8 am, I walked a bit to meet Marcos, a 20 year old student in Rio and an Italian traveler to drive to the Tijuica park. On the way, we met up with 2 other Brazilians and began our hiking.
It took us about 20 minutes of hiking to get to this waterfall. We were the only ones there, though it gets very busy during the weekend. I think I enjoyed the hike more than the waterfall since we did a lot of climbing up, down, and around some big rocks, trees, etc.
On the way back we passed this.
Aftwerwards we got back in the cars to drive here.
It is also the place where people who go hang gliding jump off.
From here we did an hour hike straight up the mountain.
But once we got there, the views were excellent.
I probably look out of place because I have my shirt on but its still a fun picture.
That rock, but closer.
I decided to try and fit in by taking off my shirt for this photo.
Next up was a visit to a museum in the middle of this forest. It was actually the former mansion of some very wealthy guy who died in the 60´s. It almost resembles my dream house.
But the property was a bit strange. The guy apparently used to host some crazy parties and I am guessing that he and his guests would gather in this area. Yep, its just a bunch of randomly colored blocks.
Another neat fact is that 4 paintings were stolen from the house recently. A Picasso, Monet, and 2 other really famous ones that I cannot recall.
The day was all about views of Rio. This is me in front of the Christ The Redeemer statue.
We could also see some Favelas from the view. Favelas are the slums of Rio, which are usually built on hills with every close together, and mostly can only be walked and not driven in.
We look so happy!
Another viewpoint we stopped at, well 2 actually, had monkeys. They like to hang around because people like us feed them. We put out a whole mango and this tiny monkey grabbed and jumped away with it. I think the mango was almost as big as the monkey.
Those are also monkeys and I am feeding them.
It was one of the best days yet. I woke up at 7am and returned back to my hostel at 7:30 pm.