A day tour of Rio - part 1 : Christ the Redeemer

The previous post in this series is here..

We had signed up for an all day tour of Rio with Viator and it was a good decision. It was in a large van with 15 people. We drove along the beach to pick up folks from different hotels and went to see Christ the Redeemer. We did stop at the visitor center. A different bus takes us to the top from the center through the Tijuca forest.

We were given 45 minutes to climb the steps, take pictures and get back to the bus. Our guide was waiting for us at the base of the steps. 

(that was someone else walking with an umbrella behind us!). This picture is from the visitor center..

It was a zoo out there with  a whole bunch of families waiting to get their kids baptized in the small single room chapel below the statue in 100+ degree heat! Getting clear photos was almost out of the question. We were also sweating profusely and just wanted to get back down to the shade.

Christ statue is majestic. However you cannot get good pictures as the ledge in front of Christ is very short. You can get great shots of his back from most of Rio! Don't think they thought this through when facing him that way.. at least from a photographers point of view..

Once we came down, they sell the pictures taken in front of a poster of the statue.. we were about to pay when we heard someone else bargain.. immediately the entire family jumped in to bargain! The girls have definitely inherited the "bargaining gene" from Madras thatha, which is a good thing!

Someday, will take a better photo of this photo.. this one is a keeper.. might frame it!

After this we visited the Santa Teresa neighborhood and saw the Favelas, got a view of the city and came down to see the area where samba parades are done.

Then we got to see the Maracana stadium for 10 minutes, which meant no time to go in.. we saw it from outside.

This was followed by a trip to the San Sebastian Church which resembles a football stadium more than a church. 

That is the Church building in the shape of a pyramid! Reminded me of churches in Kerala that have dwajasthambams to lure in locals.

The last stop before lunch was the painted steps, which was even more crowded than the Christ statue.. it was impossible to get a clean shot of folks.. even my method to have a frozen smile and take 4-5 shots and average them on Photoshop leaves too many ghosts..

After this the group was dropped off at a place for lunch. We didn't pay or order the lunch but were on the all day tour. A bunch of folks were only on a 1/2 day tour and split. We had packed our leftovers. So the guide and driver were kind enough to drop us off close to the lagoon where the afternoon tour would start.

We sat on the wall near the lagoon and ate under the shade of the trees. It was nice and breezy and we had a great view. 

Right after we finished and took some photos, we were picked up and went the afternoon's trip.

A highlight reel video of the mornings trip..

That post follows..

From waterfalls to beaches

The previous post on this series is here..

We moved on from Buenos Aires to Rio. We got scammed right outside the airport where a fake Uber showed up to pick us up... after some tense moments once in the car, we did get out close to where we needed and after the local Airbnb lady negotiated in Portugese we got out. 

Brazil is a sharp contrast to Argentina. You cannot trust folks on the road. Scammers everywhere. Everything is expensive and the locals are not exactly the welcoming type.

The Airbnb itself was very good. A walking distance from the Ipanema beach and close enough to grocery stores. 

The kids had had enough and decided to stay in after doing groceries. San and me decided to go to the beach for a short time to see the sunset. There was so much fog that we didn't really get orange hues that day and it just started drizzling when we made it back to cook dinner!

We called it a night.. there were a lot of interesting art books in the Airbnb and we just decided to crash early after watching Rebel moon on Netflix!

The next day was going to be spent touring Rio!

We already got a glimpse of the Redeemer statue on the way from the airport. The plan was to see him up close the next day!

The mother of all waterfalls

The previous post on this series is here..

The main highlight of the Argentina- Brazil year end trip was a visit to Iguazu falls. This was the bucket list long awaited visit.

After spending two days in Buenos Aires, we flew to Porto Iguazu airport (which is inside the national park) and had a taxi pick us up and drop us at an Airbnb. Porto Iguazu is a small place with a bunch of hotels, restaurants and shops mainly catering to the falls tourists. It was raining as expected and we were in the middle of the jungle in a small town. We had a good nights rest and were to be picked up at 7AM. 

Our plan was ambitious. See both the Brazilian side and Argentinian side of the falls in one day. Iguazu means "big water" in the local language. 

We waited to get a same day visa to Brazil at Faz Iguazu (Brazil means Portugese becomes the language!) at the gates and after a 30 minute wait we were waved through. We were dropped off at the ticket center for the falls with precise instructions from Martin (our driver for the day). He communicated with us using Google translate on his whatsapp the entire time while trying to improve his English. There were three stops. First stop was a jungle walk (optional) which I did with a sub group from the bus. Second stop was a boat ride to the falls and back which the entire family went on. Third stop was a vista point with a walkway to the edge of the falls (again I went alone). 

The boat ride took us to the Brazilian side of the falls. We were all completely wet anyways after that boat ride. The walkway to the edge of the falls was unbelievable. There is no way to describe this in words or capture my emotions as I wandered through this place. So here are the pictures in slideshows..

 

and some pictures with us ...

After the walk to the vista point we got back on the bus to the ticket center, waited for Martin to pick us up. This place reminds you of the Antarctic penguins documentary where everyone is trying to find their chosen one in a crowd.. unfortunately Martin and us did not have any specific Yaadon ki baaraat type songs to call each other.. in a mad crowd of drivers trying to find their respective tourists, we decided to wait as opposed to get lost. Finally our driver found us and off we went back to the border. 

It was interesting as the Brazilian side had no record of us entering that morning as their computers had an issue updating. So we waited as they made manual passport entries and finally let us go back into Argentina. That cost us another precious 30 mintues. Martin raced us to the Argentinian side of the falls where we were to take yet another bus ride, followed by open jeep looking vehicle ride, a walk down 500 steps, and a boat ride. Given the wet clothes, San and the little one decided to walk and see the falls. It was a 2 plus mile hike and they preferred that to getting wet again. 

Jr. felt bad for daddy and agreed to join me. She later told me it was a great decision as she thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and falls. This trip to the falls was 10X better than the mornings trip. The highlight of the falls is a place called the "devils throat" where water just gushes out. The Argentina side of the falls is a must see just for this. It is risky as we don't get anything but a life vest and the waters are turbulent. However, all is well that ends well.. definitely recommend going on that boat.

we got gopro videos from both rides. I also took videos using my iPhone and the SLR and have combined them into multiple clips.. 

The videos ..

Bus ride and walk to boat ride on Brazil side

Brazil side boat ride

Vista point walk on Brazil side

Argentina side boat ride including a visit to "devil's throat"

Videos we paid for and got.. again the Brazilian side was a lot less exciting and a lot more expensive..

Was not even able to find the video from the Brazil side. One reason why I should try to blog as soon as trip is done!  

Jr. and me had to walk back a good mile and a half in rain to get back to the entrance and then we made it back to the Airbnb. We got some to go food at one of the local restaurants, rested for the night and were off the next morning. 

We said bye to Martin.. good people come in many shapes and forms.. Martin, is "good people"!

We got to see the falls from the plane and it was magnificent.  

also got to see some beautiful sights from the plane as we flew along the river..

There was still an evening to spend back in Buenos Aires near another airport and we were to fly to Rio from there the following morning..

More on that tomorrow.. 

Old city charm and an odd Obelisk

The previous post in this series on our travel in Buenos Aires is here..

For some reason, I decided to use iPhone photos for the most part, that too without any processing and my FIL promptly told me that my photos are usually a visual treat and my standards are going down.

Given few people still read this blog, decided to use nicely cropped, edited photos for this post. It is still mostly iPhone photos. Hope it gets the bar back up again..even if slightly..

After the cemetery visit, we drove to La Boca, which is not an upscale neighborhood but is one of the oldest places in Buenos Aires that was populated, mainly by waves of immigrants. There is an old world charm in this place that is very unique! Parts of it, the walls, the doors and windows reminded me of walking around old neighborhoods in Mylapore. In fact one of the steets brougt back memories of TSV Kovil street. My brain does a number on me when in new places and connects random things. So walked around in a daze absorbing the sights, sounds and smells.

one of my favorite shots on this trip!

Caminito was interesting.. with the center piece being an ice cream shop. There was a long line so we skipped the ice cream. We were also on the clock for the private tour. 

this photo courtesy of our tour guide who was trying to direct folks to be out of the shot.. he did a great job!

Then we moved on to San Telmo area and the market. The entire place was full of antique shops. Old books, LP's, cameras that went extinct, Simpson's bobble head dolls, crazy stuff that used to be in the last bottom row in Navarathri golus when I was a small boy.. it was amazing!

we went into a lane that had these umbrellas.. it had more of a French vibe to it than the Spanish vibe we expected.. the place started getting crowded, given there were offices there.. we managed to take a few photos 

Once the crowd saw what I was doing with the next shot, everyone was trying to copy it.. was telling the family that I take it as a compliment and am not the least bit offended.

After the family decided to eat some empanadas at one of San Telmo's hottest places, we made a move to see the Obelisk and what is dubbed the Times Square of Buenos Aires.

There was no parking, so our guide stopped the car on the road side and said "10 minutes is all I can wait if you want to run across and take pictures".. and we did manage to do that and get back, jump in the car and go back to our hotel area. 

this whole obelisk thing was weird. It was in the middle of the busiest part of the city and the barricades and barriers around it made it less appealing. There were too many walking signals around and the pedestrian and car traffic was a disaster waiting to happen. Also there is no way to get a decent shot of us and the Obelisk given the short distance in front of it. The locals seemed to be very happy with the monument.. we were all wondering how it fit with the rest of the area.. it stuck out like a sore obelisk!

the kids never share their pics with me.. and I am definitely not allowed in their social media circle.. but I do have these type of memories.. watching them grow into confident young women!

we stopped at a few more places to take photos of monuments (our time was up and I made a request.. so it was nice of our guide to do this!) 

we even stopped by the area where all the big hotels are.. the lobby decorations in Buenos Aires are interesting..

We thanked our guide who was a really nice person and ate leftovers from what we had packed for lunch at the hotel. Had to finish the food anyways as we were to check out. We had two hours to spend before our ride to the airport. San and the little one stayed in the hotel restaurant after checking out.  Jr. and myself decided to go back to the waterfront to get a taste of the famous Luciano's ice cream. It was a 40 minute walk one way but we made it, had ice cream and got back in time to catch our ride to the airport... only after coming back to the US did we realize that this ice cream is from California but has become very popular in Buenos Aires!! 

the dulce de leche here is apparently a hit.. so we had to get a taste of it. It was yummmmmmmmmyyy!

we walked past the boats (which were museums .. didn't realize it the previous evening!)

We made it in time for our flight.. but it was late. So we ended up in the crowded airport for an extra two painful hours before finally boarding for Porto Iguazu..

A video for the last part of the city tour. We covered a lot of places in 4 and a half hours! 

Would definitely recommend this private guided tour of Buenos Aires through Viator. Our guide was Martin and he was a really sincere guide! Not sure if you can ask for him through Viator tours. . . 

We said bye to Buenos Aires as there was not going to be any more walking around the city.. we had no idea.. 

The whole trip was all about Iguazu falls. Have way too many photos and videos to process from the next day of the trip. The next post on this series will have to wait..

A beautiful flag and an interesting Cemetery..

The previous post on our visit to Argentina is here..

The second morning in BA, we started with some pictures in the hotel room (the attention to detail and the decor in our hotel was lovely!), had a nice breakfast at our hotel (they had really good yoghurt.. katti thachchi.. as it is known in our house) and were picked up on time by our private tour guide in his car.

We drove first to the Plaza de Mayo, the historic square. We got a history lesson, saw a really beautiful flag with the sun in the flag masking the real sun behind it. Then our guide gave us 20 minutes to go inside the cathedral and come back. 

The place was not crowded at all given it was a week day and a busy end of the year working day. This cathedral is beautiful!

Took a good 10-15 mintues to try and get the real sun to overlap the sun in the flag.. also my eyes started watering after staring at it through the lens.. our guide and the family was getting upset with this obsession to get a picture.. had to walk off.. sometimes time constraints and photography conflict.. went with the flow and moved on.

This was followed by a drive through the city to the Recoleta area. This place had a unique one of a kind cemetery where all the rich and famous were buried or entombed. It was like a collection of miniature Taj Mahal's in one place.. No simpler way to describe it. We did have to wait a few minutes to get entry tickets for the Cemetery (it was not included in the tour price and the ticket was pricey!)

War heroes to miliary generals to popular businessmen and their families.. you can find them all here in row after row of tombs!

The highlight was a Chemistry Nobel winners tomb and Eva Peron's tomb which came with a long story. I was impressed that both Jr. and the little one knew who she was! My tour guide was impressed with my knowledge but once I mentioned the movie Evita, he was not impressed..maybe I should have said "I learned that in history class!"

Apparently these tied up toilet papers were a sign of luck.. as was touching the nose of a dog statue.. the nose of the dog was shining because of all the folks who had rubbed it! (you can see it in the video)

After that we walked across the Cemetery to a 200 year old rubber tree and the "Before-After" picture collection that was in front of the tree. Watch out for dogs not on leash in this area. San had a tough time running all over the place and hiding behind me at the sight of every loose dog. 

A short video of the places covered in this post..

We were off to our next stop on the private tour which was also interesting.. will cover that in the next post.