Rio de Janeiro Day Five: O Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer)

Cristo Redentor is more commonly known in English as Christ the Redeemer, or even "the Jesus statue." It has recently been voted one of the seven man-made wonders of the world, and is one of the many iconic tokens of the city of Rio de Janeiro. There is little bit of history on the making of the statue in several places on the internet. [*]

When I first realized that we would have to go to Rio de Janeiro as a part of Nádya's visa process, I was excited that we might get a chance to see this grand display of artisanship. We were glad to go somewhere other than on visa-related business by this time, and a fun day it was.

Every time it had rained since we arrived on Sunday, it had rained in the afternoon after a sunny morning. With that in mind, and given the high elevation (700 meters, around 1200 feet) of the statue clouds could be an issue, we planned to arrive mid-morning, and leave about lunch time.

There are several ways to get to the statue. If you have rented a car, or wish to take a taxi, there are roads that lead up to its foot. We took the Metrô, and then a bus to the Cosme Vehlo train station.

It was kind of strange to be among so many people in such a small space, all of whom seemed to speak different languages. It really felt like a tourist trap at this point, almost to the point of me wanting to call it off.

We had to wait for our turn on the train. When they sell you the ticket, it comes with a boarding time. The lines were long, and I think we had to wait for one more train before it was our turn, so we fed Kylie.

The nice part about getting that done was that we had a happy baby for the next couple of hours. We also had an alternative activity which distracted us from the savory smell of the espresso bar (who knows how much they charge there...).

Our train was scheduled for 11:00 AM, and about 10:50 AM it came rolling in. As we made our ascent I kept the camera on, and ready in case some beautiful vista of Rio came up. There were several, but the train was moving to quickly for the camera to focus fast enough. So none of them really turned out to be anything I am very proud of. I have put some in our album of the day anyway.

We arrived at the end of the line at about 11:20 AM, having been teased on and off by grand views of the city, then socked in by clouds. The higher we climbed the more clouds there were. I was worried that we had (in spite of my genius plan) chosen the wrong time to get there.

It was not a disaster, though. In fact, the clouds added to the uniqueness of the experience, which made it more enjoyable. I do wish we had a chance to see some better views of the city from there, though. Hopefully someday we will get a chance to return.

As the clouds broke away, the sun actually showed it's face for a few moments, and we got some of the standard shots:

It would have been nice to stay a bit longer, but our stomachs were telling us that it was time to go. So we headed down to the train station for the ride down.

I ended up getting into a conversation with a guy from Phoenix, Arizona about Brazil, and what it was like to live here. He told me something that shocked me: "You have an accent in English." Please don't tell my English students!

The next day we made plans to go to Sugarloaf (Pão de Açúcar).

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