Rio tour day 3 - 1/9/2025
- sridgway38
- Jan 8
- 4 min read
Updated: Jan 11
We got up early to meet our tour guide to do the Rio tour. We ha contracted with a private company that Conrad found called Be Free Tours, Marcelo the owner had been very professional and communicative leading up to the tour and had assigned us a tour guide named Higor (pronounced Igor) who he said was excellent, that was an understatement. We found Higor already waiting for us in the lobby when we got downstairs and was a tall young man with a big smile and excellent english. He called our driver Joao to let him know that we were ready and Joao was in the driveway of the hotel already.
It was a rainy morning with rain and low clouds forecast all day but Higor wasn't worried, he thought that we would be fine getting to the places we wanted to go. We gave him flexibility to structure the day as he thought was best with the only direction that Christ the Redeemer monument and Sugarloaf were our highest priorities.
We headed off to Christ the Redeemer first. It was nice to have a separate driver vs tour guide because Joao was able to just drop us at the entrance and go, and Higor stayed with us getting us through lines and entrances quickly and efficiently. It quickly became clear that Higor had many contacts at the monuments. Everywhere we went the staff smiled and waved, most coming for hugs and he knew exactly where to stand in each place to get the best seats and views.
We took the train to the top where the Christ The Redeemer statue was with views along the way. It was about a 20 minute train ride and Higor had given us information ahead of time about what we would see along the way.
When we arrived at the top the statue was completely encased in clouds, you literally wouldn't have known it was there. Higor was undeterred. He took us to a spot to stand and took my camera and we waited. In a few minutes the clouds briefly parted, he sat on the ground and took some great pictures of us with the sttaue in the background.
I then got a few more pictures of the statue and the view from the top before the clouds closed in again
On our way our we stopped briefly in a small chappen at the base of the monument
We took the train back down and Joao was waiting for us at the bottom. He and Higor stayed in communication by phone so that he knew when to arrive at each stop. We next headed off to Sugarloaf and Joao made sure to take us on routes where we could see the different neighborhoods and Higor would give us the history and point out unique landmarks.
When we arrived at Sugarloaf if was raining and quite cloudy. Higor was obviously loved by everyone here, we were whisked through a side door and out a separate entrance to the front of the cable car line with employees guiding us through, each stopping to give Higor a hug. We found out that he had worked there and they obviously loved him. The cable car for Sugarloaf is in 2 parts. we took the ride to the first stop and got off and it really started to pour and thunder so we followed Higor to a small inside museum of sorts where we could see the history of the cable cars. Some of the initial versions of the Cable Cars and the man who built the Sugarloaf attraction.
The cable cars were stopped until the storm passed but the spot where we stood and Higor's connections put us on the first car as the storm passed to get to the top. When we arrived at the top the rain had cleared and we had beautiful views.
Higor pointed out his hometown in one direction.
Conrad looked off in the distance and say that Christ the Redeemer was above the clouds and visible to us on Sugarloaf, while probably not at all visible on the ground there.
Once we had seen enough at the top, we headed back down to meet Joao and went to a Braillian Steakhouse for lunch. The food was very good and the offerings of different meat and seafood never stoped coming to the table. After lunch we again met Joao outside and we decided to go to the Botanical Garden for the remainder of the afternoon. It was a huge garden in the middle of the city that seemed to go on forever. Although the rain continued on and off it was light enough to not worry about and we walked around with Higor pointing out the different interesting places and guiding us through the maze of paths. At one point we saw monkeys high in the trees, but to high to get pictures.
Here is a sample of some of the garden.
We had a great final day in Rio and decided to head back to the hotel to get packed for our early morning flight to Buenos Aires. We had dinner one final time at the happy hour and then made it an early night. We loved Rio, it was beautiful, vibrant, and the people were so incredibly nice. The Fairmont was excellent fro start to end. Conrad pushed to stop in Rio on our way to this tour and he was so right. It was the perfect way to start our vacation.