Rio de Janeiro

A horrendous set of flights took us from French Guiana to Rio. We left Cayenne at 5:30pm in order to spend 8 hours in the airport in the northern Brazilian city of Belém. We left there at 3am for Belo Horizonte before a final, hour long, flight to our destination. It seems that this is common in Brazil - our later journey to Foz do Iguaçu would also require three flights.

Rio from Corcovado

Rio is a beautiful city, best seen from its many heights. Or from its beaches. Or from street level. We shared our time between all of these, hitting all of the major sights - Sugarloaf Mountain, Christ the Redeemer, Copacabana, Ipanema... It's strange to be in a place where you already know all of the names and sights, but this doesn't detract from the experience at all.

Copacabana Beach

Half of the city is set along Guanabara Bay and the rest along the Atlantic coast. We walked down from the hilly Santa Teresa area, where we were staying, to Flamengo beach where we received our first view of the classic Rio scenery. A long, lively beach filled with people playing beach volleyball and football, sloping down to the bay and the distinctive hills on the other side. Around the corner is Copacabana beach, and we climbed the hill at the end to Leme fort. There were great views of the sweep of the beach, but also to Sugarloaf on the other side. Copacabana is separated from Ipanema beach by a headland, and we spent several evenings sitting on the bare rock here to enjoy the sunset.

Sunset over Ipanema Beach

Although we enjoy walking, it's not possible to get to the top of Sugarloaf without rock climbing or taking the cable car. We took the cable car, first to the accompanying hill Morro de Urca, then to the top of Sugarloaf itself. Unfortunately, we'd picked a day when the top was covered in cloud. No matter - the sunset views from Urca over Botafogo and Guanabara Bay were spectacular, and Sugarloaf was lit beautifully.

The cable car to Sugarloaf Mountain

Most people ascend Corcovado to visit the iconic art deco statue of Jesus by train or minibus, but we'd heard that it's possible to walk up. We started in Parque Lage and made our way up the 700m ascent, which got gradually steeper and slipperier. At one point we had to use a chain pinned to the cliff to get up a particularly precarious part. The effort was worth it - the views at the top over the whole of the city are unmissable. We took the train down.

Worshipping at Christ the Redeemer

Rio is currently preparing to host the Olympics and, therefore, is busy building and renovating everything. From what we saw, there will be plenty that is pushed right up to the wire. There are some new trams being prepared in the city centre, but the tracks are still being laid; and some buildings (the National Library, for example) were receiving facelifts, but political infighting has led to all work being stopped. This has left important parts of the city's architecture covered in scaffolding and sheets for one of its biggest events.

Olympic City sign next to Rio's newest museum, the 'Museum of the Future'

On many of the hills, and integrated with the rest of the city, are the favelas - inner city slums. There are lots of companies offering tours in many shapes and forms, but we decided against any of them. We're sure that many of the companies operate very ethically, but there are plenty that don't as well. Because of the tight integration of the poorer areas, Rio can be quite a dangerous city. We were followed by some assumably unsavoury characters after leaving a bank (ironically which hadn't worked with our card), but we shook them off by wandering around a supermarket for a while. We also heard a lot of firecrackers going off, which are often used as signals by the drug gangs. These were the only times when we felt unsafe, though.

Sunset from the Morro de Urca over Botofogo

We've now left Rio on our second batch of Brazilian flights to Foz do Iguaçu, to see the Iguazu Falls. They have been on top of my list of things to visit for a long time, so I'm excited to finally make it there.