Our time in Rio made every second of those 14 days worth it. Although my birthday really is the 12th, we started celebrating before the first day of port because all of my friends had different plans for most of Brazil. Basically I milked my 21st birthday as much as possible, because after all, you only turn 21 once and why not celebrate it for an entire week?
The Highlights:
Day -1 Nov 7: Fancy Dining with all my faves
Day 1 Nov 8: snooze fest of a field lab, penthouse party in Copacabana
Day 2 Nov 9: acai deliciousness, climbing a mountain and dying, Christ the Redeemer, friends
Day 3 Nov 10: literally flying over rio (hang gliding) hippie market, girls night out
Day 4 Nov 11: heading into the AMAZON ….. To be continued
The deets:
Day -1 (last day of the 14 day voyage)
The birthday began with fancy dining onboard the MV. To those who don’t know, the best meal you will have all of Semester at Sea is fancy dining on the ship. You reserve a table ahead of time with your friends, agree to pay 30$, and eat in a separate room with linen napkins, champagne, and all that rigmarole. My friends and I had not done anything so civilized in a while, well actually probably since beginning the voyage. I almost didn’t recognize them all cleaned up after 14 days at sea letting appearances slide toward shambles. Here’s a pic of everyone at the table:
Here’s a shot of a few of the crew looking pretty snappy if I do say so myself.
The food was also amazing. Five courses and dessert. Take a look!
I absolutely loved this meal because it was all of my favorite people together with good food to boot. We all couldn’t stop smiling the entire meal. It was also interesting to walk around the ship afterwards because people literally didn’t recognize me with straightened hair looking like a functioning human, let alone a real girl for once. (I usually stick to a messy bun, sweats, and a t-shirt onboard)
Day 1:
Unfortunately I had a field lab the first day, but luckily it was my last one. It was for finance class… joy of joys. Anyway, we headed off to the US Consulate to hear speeches from two SMEs on Brazilian economy – a US Commerce Service representative and a State Department Officer. We were pleasantly surprised with how interesting it was and it helped us to get a quick take on the intricate and highly nuanced system of government in Brazil.
Then we set off to lunch at Cais Do Oriente, a fabulous steakhouse. It was a beautiful restaurant:
Here we were served my second best meal on SAS, more steak!!
We also got to try the Brazilian soda Guaraná – a sweeter version of ginger ale.
After such a large lunch, everyone wanted to pass out for a decent nap, but sadly we had to do that during our third stop of the lab the Brazilian Development Bank. To be honest, I can’t recall much because it was more of a 2 hr power nap than anything, but they sent us the 75 billion slide power point, so I will definitely be reading that as soon as possible. I just love finance.
Finally, we were free!! My friend Aidan and I set off to go meet the owner of the penthouse we had rented out for the night to throw a huge birthday party for myself and a fellow SASer. We had a bit of apprehension because Airbnbs are notoriously hit and miss, but as soon as we arrived, all my fears were assuaged. The house was beyond fantastic. 6 bedrooms. 12th floor. View of Christ the Redeemer from the balcony. 1 block from Copacabana beach. 5 seconds from a grocery store. Really chill host who even offered to share his food and alcohol. It could not have worked out any better.
We claimed rooms and then headed to grab a quick meal at a ‘by the kilogram’ restaurant a block away called 686. It was quite a random assortment of food, but really good.
Then we met up with everyone back and the house and enjoyed a fabulous night. I had SO much fun and everyone I love on SAS made it over to at least stop by. I can safely call it the best birthday party ever.
Day 2:
The next morning we woke up surprisingly early and bee-lined for a café with acai. If you don’t know what that is, you’re missing out. After two years in Los Angeles, I have become quite familiar with the Amazonian berry and the much-crazed acai Bowls at various juice bars, but let me tell you, acai in Brazil is the real deal. Nekter and Pressed have nothing on Brazilian asci. It was delicious. Here’s a pic before I put fruit and granola on it.
They make a smoothie like dish with the berries and you can add granola and fruit as well. We found that almost every café on the street carried acai, so this was just my first of many times tasting it in Brazil.
After packing up our things at the penthouse, we set off on what ended up being quite the wild goose chase to climb to Christ the Redeemer. Three of my guy friends and I – Mark, Rory, and John (who we all call Bama because he’s from Alabama) – caught a cab from Copacabana to our hostel for the next night to drop off our bags before the hike.
As we were getting out of the cab, another one whizzed by too closely and clipped the side of ours. The other driver pulled over, got out, and proceeded to yell at us in Portuguese. From my handle of Spanish, I could understand that he wanted us to pay for the damage, although we all agreed it was not our fault. Eventually, we conveyed our apology for his erratic driving and escaped the situation with our money and our belongings in tact. We dropped off our things at the hostel – El Misti Hostel – which I would describe as passable. It provided a safe place to sleep and that is about as much as I would give it.
Then we made our way to the metro station a block down the road and bought tickets to the stop closest to the Redeemer. After arriving at that stop, we realized we were still a bit away from our final goal. We then took another cab to the bottom of the tram station that takes groups of people up to the top of the mountain.
We attempted to buy tram tickets, but learned that it was sold out until 4:00 that afternoon. We had planned on meeting up with other friends for dinner and going out that night, so we unfortunately did not have enough time to wait for that tram and hike down afterwards. After running into some other SAS kids, we learned that if we took a quick bus ride, we would end up at the trailhead to hike up the mountain, but the hike was apparently a bit difficult. Our group all agreed this would be ideal, and set off to hike. We had no idea how big of a commitment we had just made.
So far, we have several errors in judgment that I would like to highlight: 1) brining no water for a hike of questionable distance 2) blatantly ignoring the warnings of other SASers that the hike would be rather “strenuous” 3) beginning said hike in the middle of the afternoon and arguably the very hottest time of the day.
I guess all I can say here is you live and you learn. The hike ended up taking us about 1 hour and 15 minutes, which is much faster than the advertised 2 hours, but it could not have been further from a walk in the park. Most parts of it were so steep that we had to use tree roots to crawl up the “path” and one section had a long chain nailed to the wall to assist climbing up. Honestly, the word climb would probably be the more apt term to describe our experience. By the end, my legs were on the verge of giving out completely and all of us were just dripping in sweat. During one of our few rest breaks we did happen to see several small monkeys in the wild and it was really cool, if not a bit scary. They kept jumping on Rory’s GoPro, so that made me a bit nervous.
Of the several hundred people we encountered at the Christ the Redeemer viewpoint, not a single other one had attempted the climb up. At the top, we bought two bottles of water each and sat on the ground for a bit before braving the last several flights of stairs to get to the lookout point. The view took my breath away and made all the preceding events 100% worth it. Take a look:
We spent a good amount of time taking photos and marveling at the amazing views.
After a bit, we decided to head back down and luckily ran into a couple of friends who gave us their tickets for a van ride to Copacabana from the top. They had decided to hike down – the much more logical and intelligent decision relative to ours – and didn’t need the last half of their round trip tickets on the ride-share vans. Rory, Bama, Mark, & I hopped in line and caught a van shortly after to our hostel area.
We arrived after not too long and tooled around the market at the beach. After our own stench became too much, we headed to the ship to clean up, grab some free (slash already paid for) food and meet up with the rest of our friends.
That evening, we headed into Lapa, the nightlife hub of Rio and had a blast roaming around the street market underneath the Arcos do Lapa – an aqueduct- and stopping at some bars.
(pic from google btw)
Yet again, what makes these nights so fun is the amazing people I get to spend them with. My friends and I could probably have sat on a street corner for the entire time and still had a blast. Exploring Rio was even more fun.
D3:
We began our last full day in Rio, with one of the most amazing things I have ever done: hang gliding! My good friend Jess had been talking about hang gliding nonstop on the 14 days at sea and she booked it for us as soon as we found wifi the first day. As we drove to the jump site, I could almost see the excitement. Everyone kept exclaiming “We are going hang gliding now!” and we all were surprisingly chipper for 9:30am after a night out.
The weather was absolutely fabulous and I could not wait to fly! After signing the forms and paying, we all split up into our guides’ cars to head up to the jump site, high on Pedra Bonita. Jess and I ended up in a car together with our two guides in the front. To call this vehicle a car is actually quite generous, as it was more of a rickety, popping engine with 4 wheels. As we headed up and up towards the jump site, my fear of jumping off a cliff quickly faded and was replaced by my fear of this sad excuse for a vehicle breaking down completely. The narrow and incredibly steep road seemed to really challenge the car as it jolted and wined upwards. We crawled up the hills, quickly passed by every single other vehicle on the road. Jess and I kept joking that we were more likely to die in the car than hang gliding.
Our fears were soon realized as the car turned toward one final steep hill. It gave one last sputter and stopped completely. We giggled awkwardly in the back seat as our driver coasted off the road and pulled the emergency brake. Here is a shot of Jess in front of our fabulous ride:
what struggles…
As you can see, things were not going well. Luckily, there were many other guides with much more reliable cars and they came to our aid not long after we stopped.
Then there was nothing between the jump and us.
We arrived to the rest of our group already involved in a flurry of activity preparing for flight. Guides unfurled the sails of the hang glides (is that what it’s called?) and their assistants fitted the next victims with helmets and crash suits. I finally realized exactly how dangerous this activity was and how completely and utterly SOL I would be if anything went wrong.
As I stood on the takeoff ramp, I became even more acutely aware of the possibility of falling to my death.
We were all pretty amped and a little nervous, so I don’t think we fully appreciated the beauty of our vantage point.
After watching almost all of my friends successfully sprint into empty space and survive, it was my turn. My guide, Matty, kept reminding me, “Chin up, loose grip, strong woman.”
He turned to me, after we finally got strapped in and checked twice and asked, “Are we ready to fly?” Despite the butterflies flurrying in my stomach, I responded with what I would like to think was a resounding, “Hell yeah.”
We ran down the ramp for about 20 feet then the ground fell away beneath my feet. We soared over the trees and through the clouds. For the first minute, I’m pretty sure I just sat in awe with my mouth wide open. Then I began to take in the sites of the city, the favela, the beach, the park. Even the favela was beautiful. The silence while flying in the air was shocking and absolute. After the hustle and bustle of a city like Rio, the vacuum of sound was pure bliss.
We flew for about 10 incredible minutes then we came down to land on the beach to a crown of onlookers. Not one of my friends could keep a smile off of their faces for a single minute afterward. Jess was all grins for the rest of the day and so was I.
After everyone landed safely, we headed out to a market we affectionately deemed, “hippie market.” We spent a good deal of time roaming around pursuing the wide array of goods and purchasing souvenirs for loved ones back home. As evening fell, my friends Lucy and Jessy and I headed off to meet up with the group of kids that would be traveling on our Amazon riverboat excursion and the rest of our friends went in different directions for the remainder of their overland plans.
I’m going to leave it here for now, because the Amazon deserves a post all to itself. Even though these days didn’t technically encompass my real birthday, I count them all as heady contributions to the celebration. Honestly after these few days in Rio I was already ecstatic about how my birthday had turned out. Who gets to enjoy a fancy meal with some of their best friends, a mansion party, hiking Christ the Redeemer, and hang gliding for their 21st birthday? And then I got to head into the Amazon as well! I really cannot explain how lucky I felt to have been able to experience everything that I did and I also am kind of bummed that every birthday after this will probably be a bitter disappointment. Oh well. I am obsessed with Rio and I really want to return sooner rather than later. All I can say is dear Rio, you did my 21st birthday well.
Off to the Amazon to get down and dirty with nature. To be continued…
xo
paige gets around [the world] 