Another Great Thing About Rio

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Dotted at regular intervals along the busiest beaches in Rio, you will find little exercise stations. These include various parallel bars designed for pull-ups, chin-ups and various other strenuous exercise. These tend to be frequented by muscled up guys (of which there are plenty) who seem to enjoy the opportunity for some public flexing (of course I’m neither bitter nor jealous…). 

Bit of eye-candy for anyone into this kind of guy. Personally I think he looks like he needs to eat a sandwich...

But although the great thing to which I refer in this post’s title is related to exercise, it is not designed for the beach posers. I am actually talking about free, open-air gyms designed specifically for what the Brazilians call the Terceira Idade (literally ‘third age’, meaning elderly). 

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Step Up

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In case you didn’t know already, there are a lot of very steep hills in Rio. The thing about building on steep hills is people need a way of getting up and down. I suppose the default solution to this age-old problem is simply to do nothing – walk up and down the steep hill. At the other end of the scale you have trams, elevators and cable cars.

But cable cars and elevators are expensive, so for the most part the people of Rio make do with steps. Living in Santa Teresa I know all about these as I have three routes up/down the hill I live on and two of them involve long, steep steps.

7 banks of 11 steps – I think even Rocky (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NubH5BDOaD8&t=1m55s) would find that hard going. For some reason the little girl on the right decided she’d prefer to use the storm drain. Kids are weird sometimes aren’t they?

 

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The Second Coming

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Last weekend a few friends and I went up to see Cristo Redentor (Rio’s famous Christ the Redeemer statue). Although I see it every day, I had only been up once before – a few weeks after I arrived in Rio. That first time it had been a clear, bright, sunny day and we’d gone up around lunchtime. This time, more by luck than by design, we went up a little after sunset.

If we hadn’t spent so long boozing in the bar down in Laranjeiras then we would have been and gone before the moon started getting involved.



Wow! I really recommend it. Going up during the day is great for getting a really good look at everything, but if you’ve already done that then try going up in the early evening – it’s a very different experience. 


The views of the city are stunning and the statue itself has the added element of lighting. For most of the time the statue was lit with a blue/white light, but occasionally they’d flash up something different (for about 3 seconds Jesus was dressed in a lovely rainbow robe that might have suggested certain sympathies at odds with the Catholic Church – unfortunately I didn’t manage to catch that on camera). However, I did manage to get some nice shots so I thought you might like to see a few.

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The things you see at the beach

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A few days ago I found myself strolling down the famous black and white tiled path that runs alongside the beach in Ipanema. I hadn’t been along that way in a while and I was reminded of what a great place it is for people watching. 

The iconic black and white pathways of Ipanema

 

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Urinal Ice Sculptures

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If you are ever looking for a comfortable, dependable bar in Rio, you could do a lot worse than Belmonte (pronounced bel-MONCH). There are seven in total, located in convenient locations around Zona Sul. The food is very tasty, the staff are friendly and they do a mean caipirinha (made with Magnifica if you ask). 

The familiar pale green décor of Belmonte (this looks like the one in Flamengo I think).

 

One of the things that my female readers, even those who live in Rio, may not know about is that Belmonte provides a little treat just for the guys. When you visit the toilets you will find that each urinal contains several very large chunks of ice, providing an incredibly satisfying opportunity for some impromptu, do-it-yourself ice sculpture. 

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