TL;DR  VERSION:

 

I went to Rio recently and took some pictures.

 

(Look for a longer description at the bottom of this post)

 

All photos taken from June 17, 2016 - June 19, 2016

 

Enjoy.

 

/////////////

 

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

ENHANCE!!

 

18

ENHANCE!!!

 

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

50

51

52

53

54

55

56

57

58

59

60

61

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

70

71

72

73

74

75

76

77

78

79

80

81

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

?

89

90

91

92

93

....

...continued because the BB Code ate the rest of my post...

 

94

95

96

97

98

99

100

101

102

 

/////////

 

As promised, here’s the director’s cut of my edited “introduction”:

Over the years, I have accumulated a small handful of countries in my head that I vowed that I would make an effort to visit if a good opportunity happened to come along.

 

While I’ve been lucky enough to cross a few countries off that list over time, good opportunities that aligned with exceptional airfare deals always seemed elusive for a few destinations. Because of my enduring fascination with Brazilian culture, music, history, city life, and bio-diversity, I would randomly check prices every now and then for round trip airfares from Brazil to the US – and without exception, prices were almost always over $1,000.

 

So this past spring, when I spotted an airfare deal from Chicago to Rio de Janeiro for $550 with flexible travel dates into late June, I knew I had to snatch it up. Sweetening the deal even further was the fact that I didn’t have to deal with the tedious $160 visa application process that I would normally have to fork over as a US citizen (since all tourism travel to Brazil is temporarily visa exempt for US travelers from June 1 to September 18 – covering the period of the Olympic and Paralympic Games).

 

In addition to the three days I spent in Rio, I also traveled to São Paulo for a day (however, it really only added up to an afternoon of sightseeing –after you take away all the travel time to and from airports), which was far too short to truly appreciate and tour. I had an idea of what to expect in São Paulo, but it was totally overwhelming to experience in person. Even more vibrant and colorful (even on a cool, cloudy day) than I anticipated…more about SP on another thread...

 

As for Rio, I had an amazing time. The people were warm, friendly, and generous. The beaches and the landscape lived up to their postcard expectations. Downtown was larger, louder, and more visually intriguing than I anticipated. The favelas that I visited (especially Rocinha) were perhaps the most welcoming, most vibrant, yet relaxed areas of all. And so on. My biggest complaint would be that in three days, I didn’t even have time to see and do about half as much as I wanted.

 

Of course I had some initial hesitation about the trip, after absorbing the stories I’ve heard about the rampant crime over the past decade or two, along with recent news about the Zika virus. However, I don’t tend to be the type to give into fear and hysteria, and thankfully I was richly rewarded with an unforgettable experience. I am not only anxious to visit Brazil again (and travel to more locations, and make deeper connections), but my interest in traveling more throughout Central & South America has been piqued even further. 

 

Hopefully you enjoyed these photos…

 

P.S. - I have some “rejected” photos that didn’t quite make the first cut, that I’ll probably post sometime this weekend.

Holy sh!t.

yeah -- wow great work here -- maybe the best ever photo thread on uo!

 

over all i agree with you about brazil and rio from my visiting a decade ago. i actually loved downtown rio, i thought it was pretty cool and it certainly is bustling. the favelas were the favelas, you had to be wary, but the people were fine. the food is off the hook good and there is plenty to do. what i did not like is i remembered that they were always trying to scam you in ipanema. its was bumbling, but constant. that got tiresome after a week. also, cops with machine guns posted in the hot sun every 100 yards along the famous beach sidewalks was very off putting as well.

The one thread you post on here every three decades just absolutely puts everyone else's photo threads to shame. In-freaking-credible work, as always.

Yet another amazing photo thread! You are a master at capturing cities and their people in a way that always seems to astound. National Geographic would be jealous if they saw this thread. I may send it to them anyway.  :evil:

 

That being said...when are we going to get Japan?

 

Or west coast?

 

Or Montreal/Boston 2013?

 

:-P

Your photos are incredible.

 

I was in Rio two years ago and the experience was just magical. Judging from your shots above Copacabana, it looks like you were near Fort Copacabana. I stayed at the Sofitel on that corner so I could be close to Ipanema, too. Highly recommended.

 

I also found the people very warm, and I am still in contact with friends I met while I was down there. Most of my time, though, was in the Amazon and northward in Roraima.

 

Thanks for the photographs. Great memories.

I saw this photo set on SSP and loved it there. Thanks for cross posting here, so more of the forumers here have a chance to view it.  I am very curious about Rio, and I'd love to see some sort of model of the city to try to make sense of how it's shaped, and curves around the various mountains that pop up throughout the city.  I honestly thought Rio would be more polished looking.  It seems like it definitely has a bit of a developing world vibe to it, which I thought it would have lost by now, seeing how it's been such a famous global destination for so long.  The Brazilian mega-cities are kind of their own beast, it seems. 

Thanks for posting these. They perfectly capture the essence of  what I experienced in Rio too. I was there for a couple days a few years ago, but it really left a mark on me.  It is unlike any other place I’ve been.  I found it to be a city of incredible beauty as well as grinding poverty, danger and chaos. Don’t know that I could live there, but I am glad I went. 

 

A book that helped me make some sense of what I saw of life in the favelas was "https://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Cities-Billion-Squatters-Urban/dp/0415953618"

 

I saw this photo set on SSP and loved it there. Thanks for cross posting here, so more of the forumers here have a chance to view it.  I am very curious about Rio, and I'd love to see some sort of model of the city to try to make sense of how it's shaped, and curves around the various mountains that pop up throughout the city.  I honestly thought Rio would be more polished looking.  It seems like it definitely has a bit of a developing world vibe to it, which I thought it would have lost by now, seeing how it's been such a famous global destination for so long.  The Brazilian mega-cities are kind of their own beast, it seems.

 

I found Rio, and most of Brazil, to be pretty slummy. It's not central Africa by any means, but definitely second-world. As far as a model, try Google Earth. It doesn't provide the full 3-D experience that you get with most US cities, but it can help you formulate a 3-d model in your mind. I found it to be the most beautiful location to place a city that I've ever visited.

Thank you all so much for the incredible feedback. I really do appreciate each and every comment. It makes the effort I put into these posts totally worth it!

 

 

mrnyc: Yeah, I can’t stand having strangers constantly come up and try to harass you with schemes and solicitations...

 

To that point, I’ll be honest and say that my brown complexion and “mixed race” appearance probably worked out in my favor in Brazil, because I was able to blend into the population (and perhaps move around more freely in certain places without getting bothered) because I didn’t draw attention to myself as a American tourist with disposable income. Quite a few people did initiate conversation with me in Portuguese before realizing that my language skills were pretty infantile.

 

Unfortunately I didn’t get to see much of Ipanema during the day, because of how quickly time got sucked away from me in other areas during the day (and because it’s winter currently there, the sunset had already set by 5:30pm).

 

Strangely, the constant presence of local and military police officers with semi-automatic weapons in crowded locations didn’t really faze me that much (I’m probably jaded from observing them in U.S. airports and random places in large east coast cities like NYC and Washington over the past 15 years). I did notice that while the Brazilian officers’ body language and expressions while looking at passersby were often “chill,” a number of them were resting with their fingers on the triggers of their weapons…which kinda gave me a different type of “chill.”

 

“Funny” first impression: 10 minutes after I left in the airport in a taxi headed across town for Copacabana, where my hotel was (this was around 1:30am), all the lanes of traffic on the highway were merged into one single checkpoint lane, in which every car that passed through was inspected with a quick look over by two heavily armed policeman standing outside their vehicle…

 

BigDipper 80: Much appreciated! But I’m not worthy!  :-( I do know I need to show up, shake off my online social anxiety and participate more often…but I’m working on it! ;)

 

JYP: Thanks for reminding me…I have a pretty long to-do list! Lol. I’m more than half way done with editing the Japan pictures (I deleted the wrong folder on my hard drive last month and lost about half of them :P)…I got about a quarter of the way through editing the West Coast pictures from last year, but then I suddenly got overwhelmed and sidetracked…I need to come back to them soon. And Montreal/Boston ’13…I’ve barely even touched. I know. I suck.

 

dwhershberger: I took those shots from the Rio Othon Palace. That was the “consolation location” that I came up with on the spot when I realized there was no way for me to get to Sugarloaf mountain in time for sunset (from Centro) like I originally planned.

 

I actually stayed closer to Fort Duque de Caxias at the Mirasol Copacabana Hotel, a block away from the famous Copacabana Palace and 5 blocks away from the Olympic Beach Volleyball venue (seen in one of my photos, under construction on Friday, June 17 in picture #44).

 

Mesmerizing photos. You're ability to capture the essence of a location never ceases to amaze me. I hope to one day see this city through the same lenses as you. 

As always, another amazing set - thank you for posting!