Traveling like a Pro – Rio de Janeiro

We’ve been traveling now for about 6 months. We are very proud of our ability to take micros, the local buses, and not have to take taxis. We are also feeling confident with omnibuses, the long distance buses. Yup, just when we were feeling good about ourselves and getting around easily……

We spent weeks trying to figure out where and how we would travel after we left Argentina/Chile. We knew we wanted to see the beaches of Brazil and Uruguay, Machu Picchu, Peru, northern Chile, and we had to factor in our time volunteering in Pisco, Peru and that we fly out of Lima, Peru on May 9. With all of this information we struggled with the itinerary – where would we go first? Would we fly or bus? How long in each spot? After realizing that flights out of Brazil to Peru were at best $600/each, we finally decided it would be best to fly to Brazil from the southern tip of Argentina (and S. America) then bus the rest of it. We found flights from El Calafate (southern Patagonia, Argentina) to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for about $420/each. That was the best we could find. In addition, this flight schedule was not the best. We would leave El Calafate at 8:30pm, flying first to Buenos Aires. We would arrive at 12:30 a.m. and then catch a flight at 6:10 a.m. from Buenos Aires to Rio, arriving at 9:10 a.m. I was not particularly excited about this option – spending a whole lot of money for such a horrible flight, but I decided to try my new attitude of not worrying about money so much and go for it! (Busing it would be quite out of the question – as it would take probably well over 50 hours to get from El Calafate to Buenos Aires alone, but it would save some money. :))

To make a long story short, it did not go as smoothly as I had hoped. We had to pay departure tax at the airport, our flight got delayed, I had horrible stomach cramps and a seat that would not recline, and getting less than 3 hours of sleep, on the airport ground, wasn’t much fun. - JenAA

We arrived in Buenos Aires around 1:00 a.m. so we had 5 hours and 10 minutes before taking off for Rio. I knew JenAA wasn’t looking forward to the layover and was ready for sleep. What excited me was the fact we had our bag of camping gear with us. We had the right things at easy access so all I had to do was find the right place to set up camp in the airport. It didn’t take long before I found an area to the side of an elevator and some escalators which blocked us from the sight of most people and gave us a bit of shelter and privacy. On the one side that was more exposed to people I lined the cart with all our bags on it to set up a small barricade that Jenny could sleep next to (always want to protect my little chestnut – she dyed her hair “chestnut” so now I call her my “little chestnut”). Next we pulled from our camping gear: pillows, pads, and sleeping bags. Perfect, I thought, at least for sleeping in an airport (I contemplated the tent as well). I believe it must have been half way decent for the pretty Jenny as well as she was soon fast asleep – I quickly followed… - AA


- our campsite in the airport

At 4:10 a.m. my alarm went off. I woke up, noticed all of our bags were still arranged around us, and AA and I got ready to go check in. We waited in line for about 30 min and finally got to the ticket counter. The man asked where we were going and we told him Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He looked at us confused and said, “You are at the wrong airport!” (This is when deep breaths really come in handy – long deep breaths to be precise – I think they say 3 are good). Is is really possible that they would not have informed us that we would be landing in one airport in Buenos Aires, and be flying out of a different airport in Buenos Aires? I guess so! We asked how far the other airport was, and he said, “50 min via taxi.” We glanced at each other and mutually agreed without words to turn and run for a taxi. T – 1 hour 30 minutes before take off and we have yet to travel 50 minutes via taxi. We run outside to try and flag the first taxi possible. Seconds later a cabby pulls up and we ask how much to the other airport and he says “$100 pesos.” Unfortunately (and adding to the amount of deep breaths we needed to take) we only had $50 pesos because we had planned to use up all of our Argentinean money before leaving the country. We tried desperately to sway him to take our $50 pesos, or let us pay him in American dollars or Brazilian Reis, but he wouldn’t agree. Aaron ran into the airport to find an ATM while I started to load our bags into the taxi. He returned with the money, and we both dove into the cab and told the taxi driver “muy, muy rapido, por favor” – it was now 4:45 a.m.

The driver took our advice literally and we had the ride of our lifetimes! Luckily since it was so early in the morning there was no traffic. The taxi driver was absolutely flying – up to 130km/hr (and we had no seat belts). His little car was shaking from front to back and it felt as the wheels were going to fly of with each long curve of the highway. Every few minutes along the way he would reach up and rub his medallion of Jesus Christ hanging from the rearview mirror. He also had the rosary beads hanging. I think I just sat praying that we wouldn’t be killed in a car crash and that the car would hold together. I was doing the math in my head – if it takes 50 min then we will arrive at the airport at 5:30am and maybe we can cut to the front of the check-in line and be able to make it in time. Our bags might not make it, but we will at least.

Well, thanks to the speeding and red-light running of the taxi driver, we arrived at the correct airport at 5:10 am. While pulling up to the airport he did a Hail Mary and kissed his rosary beads. He was obviously also pleased with his time and the safe arrival. Our rock star cabby shaved 25 minutes off the normal trip time between airports! At that point we had no problem checking in and making our flight with time to spare. We arrived to Rio right on schedule, to a beautiful, hot and sunny day. - JenAA

Talk about a total change in climate - it´s hot and humid as can be here in Rio. We´ve really enjoyed our first few days here with the nice weather and gorgeous beaches. I joke with Jenny about 99.9 percent of the Brazilians here at the beaches and have found a new term for them - I call them "Sculptures" as every person looks as if they were chisled out of stone with ripping, defined bodies. Every 2 seconds - geez - look at that sculpture! We've never seen anything like it!

We actually hiked up to Corcovado (Christ the Redeemer) yesterday. We took a cool little trail that goes through the rain forest up to the top - hardly anyone knows of it other than the locals (796 meters to the top).


- Start of hike looking up to our objective

We got lucky and found out about it and decided to hike to the top instead of train or cab like everyone else. Due to the heat and humidity - it was definitely a tough little hike (new climate brings new obstacles - plus I´m realizing that I keep repeating myself with how tough all these hikes are... where are the easy ones???). :)


- steep section where we had to use a rope already in place thankfully


- view from a clearing along the hike


- near the summit was a little shed we climbed on for a private view - the owner of the Mango Tree hostel (we're staying at) hiked it with us and is the one who informed us about the trail

It only took 1 1/2 hours, but still tough. I have never sweated so much in my life - it literally looked as if I jumped into a swimming pool from how wet I was - luckily I took a spare shirt for the hike - got the advice from our hostel owner and changed into it at the top. The statue at the top is truly beautiful - I had no idea I would think that before ever being there.


- Christ the Redeemer - Corcovado


- happy Jenny and Aaron (notice the shirt change)

Here are some other pictures of Ipanema beach throughout the day:




- Brazilians juggling soccer balls throughout...







It rained today and will be for the next few days - probably won't get to do all we had hoped, but are thankful for even being here and having a few nice days. We´re heading to Ihla Grande (an island a few hours south of here that´s 11 miles off the coast) in two days and will stay in a hostel for a couple nights and also camp for awhile. It`s suppose to be a beautiful island (what island isn't though - right?) that has yet to be developed and is all secluded beaches and tropical forest - there are no roads or vehicles. Should be fun.
- by JenAA and AA both…

The Reward

We are now in a town of southern Chile, in the lake district, called Pucon. It is somewhat a tourist town - but the reasons are obvious. Pucon is surrounded by lakes, national parks, mountains, volcanos, hot springs, and many other forms of adventure lovers' dreams. We spent our first two days here in Parque Nacional Huerquehue. We hiked “Los Lagos”, an 18km hike winding through many different lakes, waterfalls, and a tropical forest. It was beautiful - the forest looked like it could be from a different planet. The huge trees were covered with thin, stringy light green moss which very closely resembles silly string. Other trees have pine cones, but they all grow together, connected, pine cone after pine cone, forming a big crosses as the branches. They were very interesting. We also noticed all of the Chilco flora which look like red upside down firework flowers. Along our walk we were never far from the sound of water rummaging through the forest. We also stumbled across some beautiful, untouched lakes amid the mountain scenery and also some waterfalls. If only the weather would have been better we could have seen some really incredible views of the volcanoes as well. However it had been raining for the past two weeks straight, so the trails were muddy and the clouds were out. We camped in the park for one night, but woke up to rain and cold weather, so decided one night camping would be enough. Our next adventure was to climb the Villarrica volcano. It's known to be a "must do" when visiting Pucon. The volcano is an active volcano, reaching 2,847m high. We went with an excursion group which consisted of our new friends, Jeff and Maggie, a father/son team from France, our lead guide Mauricio, and an assistant guide. Our alarm went off at 5:40 am, and we all got dressed as recommended (warm pants, three layers on top – long-sleeve shirt, fleece, and jacket, long socks, and sunscreen), ate breakfast, made some sandwiches for lunch, and we were off. We arrived at the base of the mountain around 7:15 and began preparing for the hike. The guide provided us with snow pants, a windbreaker, head fleece, gators, waterproof mittens, gloves, boots, cramp-ons, a helmet, ice pick, and backpack. We got all of our gear on and then took a ski-lift up to where the snow on the mountain began. The morning was beautiful - cool, crisp, and a gorgeous view of the lake, other volcanos, and of town. We looked up and saw the vapors rising from the top of the volcano. It didn’t look so far away; we thought that it would be an easy hike up. However, this ended up being a lesson in depth perception and how something that looks so close can actually be very far away. Our main guide, Mauricio was in front, leading the way, and the rest of us followed in a single file line. We got started and immediately I thought to myself – “Wow, this is much harder than I expected.” It did prove to be a very difficult challenge. The mountain is covered in snow and ice. Therefore, you must learn to trust your cramp-ons. Those are the things you put over your boots that have 14 prongs and dig into the snow and ice in order to get a good grip. We were also taught how to use the ice pick as an extra weight-bearing limb. The mountain’s slope averaged between a 25 and 45 degree angle. It was especially scary when we were near the top, a very steep area, and the snow was icy. Two people from our group had already experienced some problems so they were behind with the assistant guide. I was directly behind the guide and he was paving his own trail of switchback after switchback in order to get us to the summit. It was especially scary because it’s hard to feel like you have a good grip with your feet when you are on a 45 degree angle, on ice, and thousands of feet up. I probably had half of the prongs dug into the snow and the other half hanging in the air due to the angle. In addition, I developed huge blisters on the back of each of my ankles. Each step I took involved a lot of pain, but there was no room to think of the pain. The only thing I could do was concentrate on putting on foot in front of the other – that’s it! It was overwhelming to look down and know that one misstep would lead to your death, and then to look up and see a tremendous amount left to conquer. It made me feel overwhelmingly helpless because I had no other option except to not think about any of my fears or pains, and only to focus on one foot in front of the next. Eventually, after trekking up the mountain for about 4.5 hours, we made it to the top. Ah, it felt so good to have conquered the mountain. I was looking forward to sitting and resting and eating some food at the top. That proved very short lived due to the freezing cold, gusty winds at the top of the mountain, and the vapors released by the volcano. The vapors include sulfur and chlorine gases which stung our eyes and irritated our lungs, making it difficult to breathe. So we had to hold our breath, run out for a picture near the crater, and then run back to the fresh air. I was hoping to peek down into the crater and see a hot magma pool, but unfortunately that was not possible. Villarrica is an active volcano, but you can only see the lava from a plane. I was already dreading the descent. I asked Mauricio how much time it would take to get down and he said 3 hours. My feet hurt, I was tired, and the last thing I wanted to do was spend another 3 hours or so getting down. However, I was also freezing cold and ready to get moving again. We went down a slightly different way, where the snow was very soft and not icy at all. We took huge, big steps and it was going very quickly. Cool, I thought, this is going to be easy. Then, I look over and see people sliding down the mountain on their butts! It looked like so much fun. I glanced ahead at our guide wondering if he knew about this way to descend, secretly hoping that he would let us try. We walk down about half an hour and then finally he tells us the surprise - we get to slide the rest of the way down the mountain! Yay!!! I wanted to plant a huge kiss on his cheek at that point. We strapped on these special butt protection/sledding aids and off we went. We used the ice pick as our brake and there were grooves in the snow already created from all the people sledding down. I have to say that I can't remember a time I've had as much fun as I did sledding down the mountain on my butt. It was sooo cool!!! It made all the torture and pain of going up worth it. In fact, I'd love to do it all again tomorrow just to get to sled again. It was exhilarating! I felt free and carefree and reckless. It was awesome. The way down only ended up being an hour, the guide had tricked me! The trip itself was just great and now we sit here sun-burnt and completely exhausted, reliving the experiences of the day. Check out this video of us at the top of the volcano.


And check out this video from the Pucon beach. Notice the black sand due to the volcano.