Brazil

I left Peru in the morning on October 12, and spent basically the entire day in the air. I had a layover in Santiago, Chile in the mid-afternoon, and I landed in Rio de Janeiro about 12 hours after I left Lima. Once I landed, I made my way to my hostel in Copacabana and called it an early night.

The two weeks I spent in Peru were on a guided tour. I joined the tour as a solo traveler, but I spent the whole two weeks with the same group of wonderful people. However, I was doing something different for the remainder of my trip in South America: a non-guided tour, something I'd never heard of before. The tour company I booked with, which was based out of Argentina, handled all of the logistics for me (hostel reservations, city tours, bus transportation between cities, etc.), but I didn't have a tour guide to facilitate, or a group of people to travel with. This was my longest solo trip ever, and honestly, I found about halfway through the month that it was too long for me. I enjoy two weeks by myself but after that, I got to a point where I kept thinking it would be nice to have dinner with someone. But it was still exhilarating to do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted—which is my favorite part of solo travel.

After the punishing pace of my two weeks in Peru, I felt almost adrift in Brazil. I had four full days in Rio, so with so much free time, I almost didn't know what to do with myself.

After taking 12 hours to get there the day before, I figured I earned a beach day. My hostel in Copacabana was about a 15 minute walk from the beach, so I walked down in the morning and spent the day there.

That evening, I treated myself to a delicious dinner at a churrascaria, or a Brazilian steakhouse. The servers walk around with various types of meat and cut it to each customer's liking. I walked to the Churrascaria Palace in Copacabana, which is one of the more famous options in that neighborhood. I probably tried 7 or 8 different types of meat, and honestly they were all delicious.

I am a total bookworm and I happened to stumble across the fact that one of the most beautiful libraries in the world is in Rio, so of course I had to see it. I went out of my way to visit the Portuguese Reading Room and it was absolutely worth it.

My next stop was another famous beach in Rio: Ipanema. I went for a stroll along the beach and discovered that I honestly preferred Ipanema a little bit more than Copacabana, where I was staying. The neighborhood was a little livelier and had more restaurants and such within walking distance. Things to keep in mind if I find myself back in Rio!

That evening, I signed up for a cooking class that met in a market first before we walked back to the cooking school. The chef bought some of the ingredients we'd be cooking with, and he showed us different cuts of meat and produce many of us had never heard of. Back at the cooking school, Chef Alex's first priority was teaching us how to make caipirinhas (Brazil's national cocktail, made by muddling lime wedges and sugar, then adding cachaça) before we dove into the cooking. We had cassava two ways (fried and buttered), Pão de Queijo (Brazilian cheese bread), steak, seafood moqueca, toasted farofa with banana, and garlic rice. I really enjoyed the cooking class, despite many of the dishes not being my favorite (I would never choose to eat seafood moqueca, personally!), but the dessert of brigadilho, aka Brazilian fudge, made up for it!

The following day, I was finally going to see the sights of Rio for real, as I was booked on a full-day city tour. We started early in the morning and our first stop was Christ the Redeemer.

View of Rio de Janeiro from Corcovado Mountain, home of Christ the Redeemer

According to Wikipedia, "created by French-Polish sculptor Paul Landowski and built by Brazilian engineer Heitor da Silva Costa, Christ the Redeemer was constructed between 1922 and 1931. The statue is 98 feet high, excluding its 26 foot pedestal. The arms stretch 92 feet wide. The statue weighs 635 metric tons, and it's the largest Art Deco–style sculpture in the world."

In addition to Christ the Redeemer being deemed one of the New 7 Wonders of the World, the harbor of Rio de Janeiro is also one of the natural wonders of the world. So from Corcovado Mountain, you can see two world wonders!

It was indeed a little crowded, so this is the best photo I got with the statue

Due to the tropical climate in Rio and also the height of the mountain, it's really common for the views to be obstructed, both of the statue and the view from the mountain. I was very lucky that it was clear the day I was there!

Our next stop was to explore the Santa Teresa neighborhood, a charming and artsy area known for its historic tram (pictured above).

Morro dos Prazeres, a favela visible from the Santa Theresa neighborhood. Favela tours are common in Rio but they are ethically murky at best, which is why I decided against taking one.

The Selarón Steps, made famous by the "Beautiful" music video filmed with Snoop Dogg and Pharrell in 2003

The Metropolitan Cathedral, which in person also looks maybe the least like any other cathedral I've ever seen

The cathedral was designed by Edgar de Oliveira da Fonseca in a modern style based on Mayan architectural style of pyramids. It was constructed between 1964 and 1979.

Would it even count as a trip to Brazil if we didn't stop at a soccer stadium? We swung by the legendary Maracanã Stadium for photos of the outside.

Our last stop on the tour was the Parque Lage within Tijuca National Park, one of the world's largest urban rainforests.

At the end of the tour, we had the option of being brought back to our accommodations or being dropped off at Sugarloaf Mountain so we could take the two cable cars up in time for sunset. Obviously I chose the latter!

Visitors can walk up to the top of Morro da Urca, the smaller mountain in the lower right corner of the picture, and then taking a cable car to Sugarloaf from there, but I chose instead to take both cable cars. If you look in the distance in either of these photos, you can see a tiny Christ the Redeemer on a mountaintop in the distance.

I stayed until after sunset and watched all the lights turn on (again, including on Christ the Redeemer). It was an incredible sight!

The following day, I had a day trip booked to Angra dos Reis, a beach destination a few hours from Rio. The tour company reached out the day before the tour and told me that they were canceling due to bad weather, and offered me a trip to Cabo Frio, another beach destination with better weather, instead.

This beach is called Praia do Farol and it's considered one of the most beautiful in Brazil (which is saying something).

No complaints from me!

Cabo Frio has its own Blue Grotto inside this cave. We only got to see it from the outside because the tide was too high.

Another breathtaking day in Brazil!

That was my last night in Rio, so the following morning, I got up and headed for the bus station. I took a 6 hour bus ride to São Paulo, Brazil’s vibrant financial center and the largest urban area by population outside Asia.

I took it easy for most of that day and made a game plan for the following day. With Rio, there was so much to see and do that 5 days there flew by. I didn't know nearly as much about São Paulo, and I discovered that it's not nearly as touristy as Rio. I actually found that city or cultural tours were relatively hard to find (Can you believe that I couldn't find a Brazilian coffee tour in Rio or in São Paulo?), so I basically ended up making my own itinerary.

My first stop was to explore Ibirapuera Park, which is the Central Park of São Paulo. It was a lovely area to explore, and they have museums and a planetarium inside the park.

I then went downtown and visited the world-famous São Paulo Museum of Art, which had some beautiful pieces, and took a stroll down Avenida Paulista, one of the city's main thoroughfares (pictured above, from above!)

The neighborhood I was staying in was very close to Beco do Batman, a touristy area famous for its ever-changing graffiti.

It was like walking through a living piece of art!

In the evening, I attempted to go to a samba show but discovered the cheap seats were all sold out, and the remaining seats were out of my budget, so I ended up going back to my hostel earlier than I expected.

In the morning, I joined a walking tour of downtown São Paulo, where I really enjoyed taking in the European-style architecture.

Theatro Municipal de São Paulo

São Paulo Cathedral

So I was really trying to be mindful of my safety while I was in Brazil, because I have an unfortunate tendency to just assume that everything will be fine (because it always has been!). I'm knocking on wood as I write this, but in all my travels, I've never been pickpocketed or robbed despite never taking any extra precautions to avoid it. For once, I was actually trying to be careful, especially while I was in São Paulo.

After the tour, the tour guide recommended a sandwich shop that was only about a 10 minute walk away, and they made a famous sandwich that had three kinds of cheese on it. Obviously that sounds like a sandwich for me, so I walked over and bought one. As I was waiting for my Uber back to the hostel, I was standing with my back to the wall of the restaurant so that no one could sneak up behind me and snatch something. But when my Uber arrived, he pulled over on the left side of the road, so I opened the backseat door behind the driver. As luck would have it, he was a large man driving a small car, so his seat was pushed so far back that he was sitting almost in the backseat. I immediately closed the door and stepped back so that I could walk around to the other side of the car and get in on the passenger side; as I did so, I crashed into a man behind me on a bicycle. As I was apologizing profusely, he reached backwards and wrapped his hand around my phone; however, I'd thrown him so off-balance when I crashed into him that I was able to hang onto it, and he pedaled away, phone-less. As I got in the car (because it all happened so fast!), it hit me that I was just almost robbed. I truly don't know what I would've done if he made off with my phone; as a solo traveler, I literally might've had to come home if I didn't have it, so thank God I managed to hang onto it!

I got back to my hostel and ate the damn sandwich (which was delicious, at least!). I hung out for a couple of hours and then I headed to the bus station for my overnight bus to Iguazu.

The tour company I booked with in South America made my travels so easy, because I didn't have to worry about logistics like buses or hostels; they booked everything for me, so I just had to show up. I also prefer to stretch my money, so naturally this was a budget tour. That said, a few times, the tour company booked me on these absolutely terrible bus trips despite a flight only costing maybe about $50 more. This trip, from São Paulo to Iguazu, was one of them. It was an overnight bus that left São Paulo at 5pm and arrived in Iguazu at 10am the following morning, so it was a 17-hour bus ride. After I survived this bus trip to Iguazu, I ended up canceling the other two buses later in my travels that would be 20 hours plus and booked flights instead. My time and comfort is worth $50 or $75!

Eventually, I made it to Iguazu and checked into my hostel after the hellish 17-hour ride. But it was all worth it when I went to the falls the following day.

Iguazu Falls is on the border of Argentina and Brazil. These photos are taken from the Brazilian side.

The prevailing wisdom is that the Brazilian side has better views, but the Argentine side lets you get much closer to the falls themselves.

I would have to agree that the views from the Brazilian side were breathtaking!

I've been lucky enough to see Victoria Falls as well, which is one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, but I was even more awestruck by Iguazu. It was a dream come true to visit!