Another big Jesus

Stairway to heaven

After our interesting experience with a large Jesus Christ at Tierra Santa in Buenos Aires, we had to go and see the even bigger, and rather more famous,  Cristo Redentor, or Christ the Redeemer Statue in Rio.

At around 38 metres high, and 28 metres across the outstretched arms, it is a huge statue that towers above the city from its perch on Corcovado mountain.  Clouds permitting, you can see the Christ from all around, looking down on you and supposedly protecting the cariocas (people from Rio).

Having seen that the forecast was for rain throughout our time here, we decided to visit the Christ statue on our first full day, when the rain was supposed to stop for a while.  After a false start waiting on the wrong street, we hopped on a bus to the little rack railway that takes you up Corcovado to the base of the statue.

The train up Corcovado was engineered by Francisco Pereira Passos and Joao Texeira Soares as a result of the enthusiasm of father and son emporers Pedro I and Pedro II, for the view from the top. The first section was completed in 1884. It now covers the full 3824 metres and takes twenty minutes at a speed of around fifteen kilometers per hour.


The Christ statue came along some time later, being inaugurated on 12 October 1931, having taken ten years to complete and been paid for by donations from parishioners. Hector da Silva oversaw the construction of the Carlos Oswald design.

The statue is made from reinforced concrete, but is entirely covered in small triangular pieces of soapstone, giving it a softer and slightly reflective effect. The head was the work of Paul Landowski, and sculptor Margarida Lopes modelled the hands on her own.

Sugarloaf Mountain

The statue has had many visitors over the years since then, but I guess the most fitting was probably Pope John Paul II in 1980, when he blessed the city of Rio from up here.

The statue does look impressive. And I was pleasantly surprised at the relatively small amount of stuff for sale there. There was some of course, as well as the official photographers - we discovered why they were there later - but generally it was fairly unspoiled by the usual hoards of souvenir sellers.


Copacabana beach

We spent a while admiring the views. The weather wasn't great, and made for a slightly misty effect, but the clouds stayed high enough that we could at least see the famous Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, Sugarloaf Mountain and the Maracana Stadium, as well as the hills and favelas that make Rio what it is.

We took some photos, including a few of each other, and were about to leave when we decided that we really should get a photo of the two of us with the statue. So we asked a guy to take one, which he did, but he cut off Jesus' head. Undeterred, we asked a woman, who carefully angled herself to take two pictures - and cut off one of Jesus' hands in both of them.

Despairing slightly now, I found a guy from the USA, figuring that if I could speak to him in English, then I could explain that I wanted the whole of Christ in the photo. He obligingly took a couple and he did get the whole of the Christ in both - but there was a drop of rain on the lens and it obliterated my face entirely.

Us at the statue - or not!

Almost at the stage of giving in, we decided to have one more go, and asked an older guy who had seemed to be taking a lot of care over his own photos. He agreed, and spent a while moving around to get the right position for the photo. And he did indeed get in the whole of Jesus Christ. But....we aren't in the picture at all! Not even the tops of our heads. Now why on earth would we ask someone else to take a photo of the statue without us in it when we can quite easily do that for ourselves?

At that stage we decided that it wasn't meant to be, and it would almost be a shame to actually get a proper complete photo of the three of us, so we gave up. But now we could see why they had official photographers.

On the way back down on the train, we were treated to some extra entertainment as a band got on and performed.  This seems to be a regular occurrence, so perhaps they think people will be bored on the way down otherwise.

Busking while you eat

While we were eating in Copacabana, a woman came in to play a few traditional tunes on her flutes, one of which was a double flute that sounds like you are playing two different instruments at once.  Of course the hat then comes around for a donation.

That kind of thing is quite common here, as in some of Europe, but I find it a bit irritating.  It's OK if the person is good, and you enjoy the music or songs.  Then I am happy to give them a bit of change, especially when it gives me a taste of the local music and so I feel like I have gained something.

Sadly though, quite often they aren't any good at all, and you spend the time wishing they would go away and let you eat in peace - and then they get grumpy when you don't give them anything.  And often it isn't just the one that turns up. You get a succession of them coming through, as well as the people who come in trying to sell you biros or torches etc.

In this case, the woman with the flutes was fairly good so she got a donation, but when the guitarrist came round later he wasn't great so got nothing. I used to feel bad about things like that, partly because I know that a couple of pesos is nothing much to me but can be a lot for them. But I don't feel bad anymore, especially since I noticed that the locals don't feel obliged to give anything themselves.  Not that I have yet been brave enough to do what one of our group did an when the hat came round simply say I didn't like it.  Maybe next time.

Copacabana and the Isla del Sol



Cindy crossing Lake Titicaca

 Our next stop after La Paz was Lake Titicaca - which apparently means 'great puma', and our first stop was Copacabana.  Inevitably there was much humming of the song by Mr Manilow, although of course that is not where he was singing about.  However we were told that the Copacabana beach in Rio was named after the town here because the outline of the coast is similar.

The journey here was OK but got interesting when we had to take a ferry across the lake to where we were staying.  There was a ferry for the truck, but we all had to get off and go across separately.  This is probably for the best, as apparently one of the other truck operators lost one of their trucks recently when the ferry sank.



Sunset at Copacabana, Bolivia

 But it was a strange sight seeing Cindy float off on a small ferry that was really no more than a floating platform with a small outboard motor.  But it made it across OK, and we followed on the passenger boat.  I've said before that health and safety isn't a factor in Bolivia, so we were a bit surprised and slightly worried when they started handing out life jackets.  And then we were even more concerned when they ran out half way through the group!  But still, we made it across without incident.



Sunset in Copacabana, Bolivia



Copacabana is a small place with a couple of main streets that are focused on the tourist markets and then other streets clearly intended for the locals.  Our hotel claimed to have no record of our booking, despite Izzy being able to see the note of it on the counter, and it took repeated attempts to get towels and loo rolls, but generally it was OK.  The worst bit was the hike up five flights with the rucksacks.



We headed off almost straight away for a group meal on the roof of a local restaurant.  After watching the sun set though, we all gave in to the cold and retreated inside, taking our tables and chairs back down with us.

Isla del Sol, Bolivia

As in most places in South America there are a lot of dogs wandering around.  Unfortunately the ones here all decided to congregate close to our hotel for dog wars.  Every so often, minor skirmishes would break out with a lot of very loud barking.   Nic wasn't impressed and broke out the earplugs.

Isla del Sol, Bolivia

The next day we set off to get a boat to the Isla del Sol, the supposed originating point of some of the local gods, and some suggest the sun itself.  No life jackets at all this time, despite it being a two hour journey, but we decided to take that as a sign that this boat was safer - we know that it probably isn't true, but sometimes you just have to tell yourself these lies to make you feel better!

Isla del Sol, Bolivia

When we got there, our little walk to the inca ruins took us nearly an hour and a half, mostly up hill.  I was knackered. After a brief stop for lunch, the plan was either to go on for another three hour walk to the other side of the island, or go back the way we'd come and take a boat to the other side.  Either way we had a boat to catch back to Copacabana.  As we only had two and a quarter hours to do the three hour walk before the boat was due to go, and I figured that meant going faster than I would cope with, I decided to go back.  Trouble was, we only had forty minutes to catch that boat too. Although most of the way back was downhill, there was still quite a steep bit first and so we know this was not long enough.  Thankfully, the guide sorted out someone to go on ahead and make the boat wait for us.  We rushed back and made it in fifty minutes in the end, and then the boat sat there for another fifteen minutes before it actually left.

Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

The rest of the group was also late back from their walk, but the boat waited for them, so we made it back to Copacabana.  Nic and I took a walk around the main square before dinner rather than going back up all the steps to the hotel room, and then found a little place to eat and sample a few cocktails.  We had some interesting charades and pictionery with the staff to try to work out what a few of the items on the menu were, but we got there.

That was our last day in Bolivia, as the next day we were to cross the border into Peru