Tropical Rio De Janeiro

Saturday March 26, 2011

Malibu, California

Cloudy and Rainy

What makes Rio special and unique is the surrounding beautiful tropical landscape. The mountains are steep, majestic and lush. So in addition, to enjoying the city, we spent time to enjoy the tropical landscape of Rio.

On the first Monday of our trip, Nicky and I took a cab ride to the Botanical Gardens. The gardens was founded in 1808 by the reigning Portuguese prince at that time. The Portuguese royal family actually moved to Rio and is the only monarchy to have established residency in a "colony". It's a huge park, 137 hectares where 55 of the hectares are open to the public. It holds a botanical collection of around 9000 specimens of brazilian flora and a well renowned orchid center.

We found the gardens to be green and not very colorful. There was a sad rose garden where most seem dead. I guess roses are very hard to grow in the tropics. The trees were magnificent though and as they were pretty dense and lush, it kept the grounds cool. And of course, like all botanical gardens, they also had a Japanese garden with a pagoda, koi pond, japanese maple trees and bamboo. The bamboo was doing well and thriving but the maple tree seemed to be struggling.

It was worth a visit though just to see the different palm trees and the rare and beautiful orchids. It's also a nice way to get an introduction to tropical Rio. I only wished they had better signs explaining the origin, names of the plants and trees that grow in the park.

Row of palm trees

A strange looking fruit growing on this native vine from the Amazon.

The Giant Water Lilies of the Amazon. Unfortunately, no flowers when we were there.

Beautiful and rare orchids

On Wednesday, we decided to take a tropical island tour with the tour agency from the Sheraton hotel. We were picked up at 8am but then spent a good hour driving around Rio picking up more tourists. Unfortunately, the streets were messed up because of Carnaval which screwed up the pickup route. Anyhow, after picking up tourists from Poland, Germany, Netherlands and Iran (yes Iran!) we headed to Itacuruca which is about an hours drive from downtown Rio. During the drive, we got to see alot of Rio including the port and the warehouses where the floats from Carnaval are kept. Sadly, we also saw the warehouse that caught fire where one of the important Samba schools lost are their floats.

We had a pit stop at a small town where many Brazilian-Japanese live. (Brazil is home to the second largest Japanese population). So for that reason, I expected to see onigiris to be sold at the pit stop but all they had were chips and local pastries. But an interesting thing happened at the pit stop. The Iranian tour guide started playing Iranian music on a portable CD player he brought and some of the Iranians started dancing. And the tourguide started rapping! We found out later that his name is Alijan and what a great way to break the ice, so to speak.

So Sandra gets into the music and joins the dance and I take the photos. It's becoming a tradition of ours in every country we visit it seems. We get to know the Iranians especially the tour guide as he speaks fluent English. I find out he travels ALOT and after this Rio trip he is picking up a few hundred Iranian tourists to take them to Singapore and Malaysia. He was such a nice guy. He also tried fixing us up with his "rich" clients. He did say that in his country though, men can have multiple wives but they guys travelling with him don't have any. Anyhow, he was funny and we had a good laugh.

Alijan, the Iranian tour guid and rapper

Sandra dancing with the Iranian tourists

After another 30min drive or so we arrived at Itacuruca to catch our boat. The town is located on the bay of Sepetiba. We took the boat to explore the bay, go for a swim on an isolated beach and have lunch at a hotel on one of the islands in the bay. Apparently they are 50 plus tropical islands in this bay and some rich folks from Sao Paolo own some of the islands and have vacation homes. It's a very pretty bay dotted with lush islands with great beaches.

We stopped by one island where we could jump from the boat and go for a swim. The water was warm and since it is a bay very calm. Ideal and safe for swimming unlike the beaches in downtown Rio.

After taking a swim, we got back on the boat and headed to Hotel Pierre which is on one of the main islands. There we had a delicious buffet lunch followed by another short swim. We also tried the kayaks but then got in trouble as it was for guests staying at the hotel only. The hotel is beautiful and quiet. But also expensive! Found out by checking the website that its about 300$ per nite!

After lounging around the hotel, reading, napping, it was time to head back. The return trip was shorter as we took the direct route and I napped on the bus ride home. It was a full but fun day! My only regret was not getting the email address of Alijan as he seemed to be a very nice guy that could give good advice on travelling.

Our boat