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Today I have organized to meet some fellow traveling Couchsurfers and do the hike up to Christ the Redeemer. As the bus drivers were on strike again today I gave myself lots of time as most buses were not running. With only a 30 minute wait I boarded my bus out to the very beautiful Park Lage where I was to meet the others. I met Alex and her friend Ada - who I was going to do the hike with; Alex loaded us up with info and told us how to get to the entrance before heading off to work. Ada and I hit it off straight away and I couldn't of asked for a better trekking partner and she walks really quickly forcing me to push myself a bit more then usually. We headed straight into the thick jungle and wouldn't of been going 10 minutes and already we were lost - we laughed and agreed we had all day so no worries. After finding the correct path we started the very steep hike up the mountain, I was surprised how steep it was and already my legs were hurting. Ada steamed ahead forcing me to forget the pain and keep up, the surroundings were beautiful and the best part absolutely nobody else on the trail. At our first stop Ada pulled out this delicious sugar cane candy stuff that had us all sugar jacked ready for the next challenging part. I am not going to lie the trek was difficult, steep, dangerous but when we got to the top the feeling of elation was overwhelming. I believe Christ the Redeemer is a form of pilgrimage and the reason this great statue is at the highest point in Rio and the hike up signifys what he represents; we must suffer a little in life in order to get great joy and happiness all of which are emotions that are fleeting. I wondered if those people who paid and took the train up the mountain could feel the same euphoria we could at the final point as there journey was without pain, without challenge and without life?? We paid our entrance which was less then half of what everyone else had to pay as we didn't have to pay the train of van fee and made our way up the last few stairs to Christ the Redeemer. It was at this point I felt immense joy, achievement and emotion - this image has been in my mind for so long and today it is reality. The sheer size of Christo was completely overwhelming and I can not describe it - we sat in awe for about 30 minutes before we even got our cameras out. There were 100s of wealthy tourists snapping photos and literally spending less then 20 minutes looking before they were whisked off to there next tourist destinations. I had to get some of my favorite photo shots doing handstands and Ada turned out to be very good with the camera - a few other tourists came and also took photos of me - amazed at this different style of photo posing - it was really nice and the people were really friendly. Another thing you notice at these amazing sites is people are generally very happy and high on the experience making for wonderful interactions, people show true politeness and real smiles - back down in the city it is all frowns and rushing to and from work. I havnt even mentioned the amazing panoramic views allowed at the top; seeing how widespread and mountainous the city really is. We stopped and ate lunch under the statue and I had this idea to do a handstand on the ledge facing the statue - we got the shot before a security guard come and pointed at a sign saying you couldn't even sit on the ledge and there I was doing head stands on it - he was really nice though and just laughed about it and then asked me where I was from and chatted a while with us (not a normal response from people working security). After 2-3 hours we had absorbed enough and took our free shuttle bus down the hill 2 kms, however we then had to walk a further 3 km to the bus stop as we hadn't paid for the expensive van tickets. The walk down was not so pleasant as it was steep and on a windey road so we had cars whizzing past us. We eventually got down to the bus stop and met another very friendly security guard who told us how to get back. The bus took us within 15 minutes walk of my apartment so I thanked Ada for the wonderful day, showed her how to get to the metro and then made my way to the apartment. At this point I realized how exhausted and dehydrated I was and must of drank 2 liters of water. I relaxed the rest of the afternoon and evening, did some yoga, chatted with Lilian a little and tried to get some sleep.
OBSERVATIONS:
- Security guards at Christo - very happy and friendly - new employees for World Cup?
- Tijunca National park possible hikes
- favelas on mountain - first time seeing
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