Did I ever tell you guys that I absolutely LOVE Rio de Janeiro?
I must have told you about a million times already :)
The pic above and the pic below were taken on my very last trip to Rio de Janeiro, on the very last day in March 2013. I relocated back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in June 2013.
Surprisingly, today's post isn't gonna be about beaches or hot Brazilian women clad in bikinis. (I can SO hear some of my guy friends groaning!)
Aside from the beaches that Rio is famous for, they also have some awesome hiking trails. My buddies and I did the 'Pedra da Gávea' trail on this very trip back in March 2013. Pedra da Gávea is one of the most popular hiking trails in Rio de Janeiro because this hill is located by the coast. Upon making your way to the top, you will be rewarded with stunning views of some of Rio's most beautiful beaches (Barra da Tijuca, São Conrado & Ipanema).
The picture below is of my boyfriend Thiago, standing at the foot of the hiking trail. Notice that he is still smiling because we had NO CLUE what we were getting ourselves into.
If you can see the board in the picture above, it states the following:
Altitude: 844m
Distance (to the top): 1670m
Hiking time: 2.30 hours (each way, btw)
Level: DIFFICULT (!!!)
Naturally, we completely dismissed the 'Level: Difficult' sign because we assumed that we were superheroes.
As we started our hike, we soon realized that we weren't exactly hiking our way to the top... we were pretty much climbing our way to the top. About 60% of the trail looks like something in this picture below.
After an hour of hiking, we were presented with our first clearing and view of the other hills.
That's me at the clearing wearing my favourite Liquido long workout top.
About half an hour later, you are rewarded with your first views of the gorgeous beaches of Barra da Tijuca.
It was a rather cloudy day, but at least we had some views... and thank god it wasn't raining either.
Faisal lived in Barra da Tijuca, so here's a pic of him showing us exactly where his apartment was located. LOL!
There is an apparent inscription carved into the rockface, which appears to be some sort of Semitic language. There are some theories, but no one really knows for sure the origin or the purpose of this inscription (below).
After 2.5 hours of hiking, we reached the 'Carrasqueira'. I later learnt from Thiago that carrasqueira loosely meant 'execution point'. And it wasn't difficult to figure out why...
We had reached the steepest point of the trail, where we had to scale up these rocks to get to the peak. None of us knew that we had to bring ropes, so we had to climb those rocks without a safety rope. And if we slipped and fell, it could potentially spell death.
Thiago managed to take a good picture of Faisal and I standing at the foot of the carrasqueira. What you cannot see in this below photo were our ultimate 'what the f*ck' expressions.
What you CAN see in the next picture is me looking not too happy... and Faisal looking pretty excited.
After hiking for 3 hours, we didn't exactly want to turn back without reaching the top, so we bit the bullet and climbed.
Faisal was the first to pass the carrasqueira, and this photo was taken from his Iphone.
The video below shows a group of friends at the carrasqueira. It's 2 minutes but you don't need to watch the whole thing. The intent of this video is just to show you the extent of how dangerous this section is.
When we finally reached the top, we should have been rewarded with views such as these:
Instead, it was a cloudy day, so we were greeted with views like these:
I suppose we were all happy that we were still ALIVE after the carrasqueira experience and proud that we made it to the top, so the lack of views didn't damped our moods too much.
So in a nutshell, it was a satisfying climb, and one that I would certainly recommend. It took us about 7 hours to hike up and back down, which includes the one hour we spent at the top, just chilling. We all plan to do this again, next time on a good sunny day with clear skies, if the opportunity ever presents itself again in the near future :)
 |
| Ipanema beach on an easy Sunday morning |
The pic above and the pic below were taken on my very last trip to Rio de Janeiro, on the very last day in March 2013. I relocated back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in June 2013.
Surprisingly, today's post isn't gonna be about beaches or hot Brazilian women clad in bikinis. (I can SO hear some of my guy friends groaning!)
Aside from the beaches that Rio is famous for, they also have some awesome hiking trails. My buddies and I did the 'Pedra da Gávea' trail on this very trip back in March 2013. Pedra da Gávea is one of the most popular hiking trails in Rio de Janeiro because this hill is located by the coast. Upon making your way to the top, you will be rewarded with stunning views of some of Rio's most beautiful beaches (Barra da Tijuca, São Conrado & Ipanema).
The picture below is of my boyfriend Thiago, standing at the foot of the hiking trail. Notice that he is still smiling because we had NO CLUE what we were getting ourselves into.
If you can see the board in the picture above, it states the following:
Altitude: 844m
Distance (to the top): 1670m
Hiking time: 2.30 hours (each way, btw)
Level: DIFFICULT (!!!)
Naturally, we completely dismissed the 'Level: Difficult' sign because we assumed that we were superheroes.
As we started our hike, we soon realized that we weren't exactly hiking our way to the top... we were pretty much climbing our way to the top. About 60% of the trail looks like something in this picture below.
After an hour of hiking, we were presented with our first clearing and view of the other hills.
About half an hour later, you are rewarded with your first views of the gorgeous beaches of Barra da Tijuca.
It was a rather cloudy day, but at least we had some views... and thank god it wasn't raining either.
Faisal lived in Barra da Tijuca, so here's a pic of him showing us exactly where his apartment was located. LOL!
There is an apparent inscription carved into the rockface, which appears to be some sort of Semitic language. There are some theories, but no one really knows for sure the origin or the purpose of this inscription (below).
We had reached the steepest point of the trail, where we had to scale up these rocks to get to the peak. None of us knew that we had to bring ropes, so we had to climb those rocks without a safety rope. And if we slipped and fell, it could potentially spell death.
Thiago managed to take a good picture of Faisal and I standing at the foot of the carrasqueira. What you cannot see in this below photo were our ultimate 'what the f*ck' expressions.
What you CAN see in the next picture is me looking not too happy... and Faisal looking pretty excited.
Faisal was the first to pass the carrasqueira, and this photo was taken from his Iphone.
The video below shows a group of friends at the carrasqueira. It's 2 minutes but you don't need to watch the whole thing. The intent of this video is just to show you the extent of how dangerous this section is.
When we finally reached the top, we should have been rewarded with views such as these:
Instead, it was a cloudy day, so we were greeted with views like these:
So in a nutshell, it was a satisfying climb, and one that I would certainly recommend. It took us about 7 hours to hike up and back down, which includes the one hour we spent at the top, just chilling. We all plan to do this again, next time on a good sunny day with clear skies, if the opportunity ever presents itself again in the near future :)
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