Brazil // São Paulo → Ilha Grande → Rio
A smiling couple, Chiara & Mattia, after a challenging early morning hike overlooking Ipanema and Copacabana in Rio de Janeiro.
We went through the favelas (and all the AK47s we saw along the way).
But more about this later.
Brazil is the most overwhelming place I’ve visited.
In my experience, you can’t leave Brazil without a little bit of it under your skin.
Everything about it is just contagious.
Sao Paulo 🏙️ -> Ilha Grande 🏖️ -> Rio de Janeiro ⚽️
Ian, my great friend from NJ, gave us the best tour of Sao Paulo. Even though my name is Mattia Cella, he calls me Celliñho, he cracks me up every time.
He introduced us to his family, friends, and Mona (the happiest dog in Brazil).
This is us enjoying a typical (and yummy) Brazilian lunch.
Just like the Indonesia-Solo Traveling blog post, here are some of the best moments of our trip:
[after this, I’ll tell you about how Chiara & I saw our lives waving goodbye at us]
Okay. Now after the BEAUTIFUL, let’s go into the SCARY… 😧
During our stay in Rio, Chiara and I wanted to go for a hike.
We heard Rio is not only famous for:
Beaches
Views
Food
Vibes
Party
Favelas
But also for wonderful nature.
One of the most famous hikes is called the “Morro Dois Irmaos.”
It means “The Two Brothers,” and one can definitely see how.
You can see it below:
This is to show you that:
1️⃣: I am a great designer
2️⃣: We had to go through Vidigal (one of the biggest Favelas in Rio), to get to the start of the hike.
A few important points:
We wanted to have the real experience, so we decided to go alone.
We did not want to pay $60 and go with a TripAdvisor guide: the hike simply followed one path, so there was no need to be directed. *
We’d have to arrange our own transportation. **
We wanted to beat the crowds. We started walking up around 7:30/8 AM.
* Take a look at the chart below.
** A video of how we got there is coming up in the story.
Regret of booking on Tripadvisor VS. going alone:
We took a Uber to the start of the hike, to find out that the car did not take us to where the hike started.
It took us to the beginning of a Favela only.
From there, we’d have to find a taxi and climb up the steep road to the ACTUAL start of the hike.
AH.
That’s why the TripAdvisor tours all had their own vehicles.
But that’s okay.
We have cash, and there are moto-taxis.
We end up taking one each. 🛵
This was a fun moment.
Okay, we’re at the start of the hike now.
Chiara & Mattia Cella (Celliñho) are about to start.
The hike is steep & monkey-packed, but we see some amazing views:
But once we get to the top…
Boy, what a view!
Here is what we saw.
[crazy to think that just one hour ago we were down in Ipanema Beach]
Chiara & I, drenched but happy.
now the fun begins
🔫
now the fun begins 🔫
[you’ll realize why the water pistol emoji soon]
We enjoy the view and the breeze up top for a good hour.
Time to descend.
Hikes are usually more challenging as you go up, but not as dangerous as you go down.
Things get slippery, and just one bad step can lead to bad surprises.
That’s why Chiara decided to play it safe!
Our efforts to beat the crowd (and the organized tour) worked.
We were alone for the entire hike.
We only bumped into some people that were rock climbing. 🧗♂️ 🧗♀️
As we descend, we talk about:
How beautiful the hike was
How amazing it’s going to feel to dive into the ocean soon
What to have for lunch…
But as we descend, someone pops up in front of our eyes.
What follows is a two-sided scenario AFTER we see them:
☝️ - This is where we’re going:
✌️ - This is where we now think we’re going:
Mattia Cella: “Baby, don’t look up. Just keep walking.”
Of course, Chiara looks up.
In front of our 👀 👀 :
5 kids. Holding AK47s and M4s, surrounding the ONLY path we must walk towards.
Their guns are bigger than them. No joke.
__________
We were in the middle of NO ONE. The closest person was miles away.
If something went wrong, nobody would have known about it.
___________
What do we do?
Well, actually there aren’t many choices here.
We either climb pack up, or pretend everything is okay, walking right in between them.
We go for the second option.
We didn’t know what to do as we were approaching them:
Do we make eye contact?
Do we smile?
Do we pretend everything is normal?
Do we accelerate?
Or, do we slow down not to show we’re scared?
Well, turns out we don’t do any of these (to a certain extent).
I’m just gonna write it:
I fist-bumped them.
🤜🤛
Smiling. Acting like I was not scared. Asking if they were having a nice time.
Did it work?
YES!
Was it the smartest thing to do?
I don’t know. But what I know, is that we got out of there alive.
Of course, the second we turned the corner, we sprinted like there was no tomorrow.
We got to the start of the hike.
And.
We didn’t think we were ever going to say this, but we were SO GLAD to find ourselves in the middle of a Favela.
