Mission impossible: Rio de Janeiro in one day

Yes, it was a mission impossible but I did it, visiting Rio in one day. So I arrived on friday evening, May 10th, had dinner at Copacabana beach then the whole saturday, May 11th enjoying the city from the hills, Sugar loaf and Corcovado. Then night life, dancing Samba and Funk in Lapa.

In order to make it efficient, I joined a whole day tour of Rio. First we drove around Copacabana and Ipanema, then to see the carnaval street with the tribune. It was only 800 m long and there are only 12 best samba schools and they got 1 hr to entertain the public, 7 PM – 7 AM.

From there we drove to downtown and visited the modern cathedral of Rio, San Sebastian, which looks like a pyramid. The capacity of this church is about 5000 sitting place and 22000 standing place. From there we went to Sugarloaf hill (Pao de Acucar) which consists of 2 cable cars of each 3 minutes. The view over Rio is really stunning, it shows that Rio has different things to offer: Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, Lagoa, new land Flamengo, the bay area plus many hills around the city. However, I don’t really feel 100% ok to walk alone after dark as a woman.

Then we had lunch and continued to the other hill, Corcovado where the statue of Jesus is located. This statue is Unesco world heritage, masive and tall. We went down the hill via Santa Theresa area, the biggest slump area and escadaria Selaron, the colorful staircase of Rio, full of tiles.

Around 11 PM, I went with David and Eddie (I met them during the tour) to Lapa, the night out area… we walked around first, got a drink on the street as we’re quite thirsty then went to Bar de Lapa with samba music, I danced the samba with the locals! And we moved to Antoinetta with funk dance… very sensual, like a twerk. It was fun time and we went home at 3 AM, 4 AM in bed.