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Posted On Sunday, March 20, 2011 at
at
7:58 PM
by Alvin
You thought of Rio de Janeiro, you would relate Copacabana Beach, The Girl From Ipanema, Maracana Futbol Stadium, but Catete ? Yep ! We landed at 7PM at Santos Dumont Airport and were advised not to walk to the nearest Metro (even only 10 minutes !); so we took the airport bus and headed to the nearest suburb Catete, before the sky got completely dark... Well, the sky got completely dark anyway and Catete (Car-Tet-Chi) turned out to be a friendly middle-class neighbourhood but the hotels were completely booked solid because of the suburb's proximity to the central business district; we found Hostel Leon in the shimmering lights where a clean 4-bed dormitory awaited us. Luckily, the following 6 days we found a decent hotel (also in Catete) which provided us a comfortable sojourn (such a nice man at the reception who gave us the best room in the hotel...) for the last leg of our journey.
We absolutely loved this city ! We walked for many hours and enjoyed the vista of the beach-scape of Ipanema, Leblon, Copacabana and Flamenco; ate our way through another "por Kilo" lunch; joined the Sunday crowds on their jogging/power-walking trails around the lake of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and ventured around the streets and hoods of Saara, Lapa, Escadaria Selaron, Sao Cristovao and Maracana. Rio was really a diverse city with different neighbourhoods showing-off their characters. Again, the energy, optimism, vibrancy and also the left-behind favela (slums) of this city reminded us of the similarities and consequences of the fast-pace growth of the cities in China. BTW, Rio was pronounced to us by the locals as HEE-O and the Brazilian currency the Real as he-OWL ... Now we know.
You thought of Rio de Janeiro, you would relate Copacabana Beach, The Girl From Ipanema, Maracana Futbol Stadium, but Catete ? Yep ! We landed at 7PM at Santos Dumont Airport and were advised not to walk to the nearest Metro (even only 10 minutes !); so we took the airport bus and headed to the nearest suburb Catete, before the sky got completely dark... Well, the sky got completely dark anyway and Catete (Car-Tet-Chi) turned out to be a friendly middle-class neighbourhood but the hotels were completely booked solid because of the suburb's proximity to the central business district; we found Hostel Leon in the shimmering lights where a clean 4-bed dormitory awaited us. Luckily, the following 6 days we found a decent hotel (also in Catete) which provided us a comfortable sojourn (such a nice man at the reception who gave us the best room in the hotel...) for the last leg of our journey.
We absolutely loved this city ! We walked for many hours and enjoyed the vista of the beach-scape of Ipanema, Leblon, Copacabana and Flamenco; ate our way through another "por Kilo" lunch; joined the Sunday crowds on their jogging/power-walking trails around the lake of Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas and ventured around the streets and hoods of Saara, Lapa, Escadaria Selaron, Sao Cristovao and Maracana. Rio was really a diverse city with different neighbourhoods showing-off their characters. Again, the energy, optimism, vibrancy and also the left-behind favela (slums) of this city reminded us of the similarities and consequences of the fast-pace growth of the cities in China. BTW, Rio was pronounced to us by the locals as HEE-O and the Brazilian currency the Real as he-OWL ... Now we know.
