Thursday, Feb 7 – Day 52
Waited for today to see Christo, hoping the crowd would be at a minimum. I asked the cabbie to take me to the Corcovado trem – the narrow gage train that takes you up the mountain. I had a reasonable idea of where we needed to go and thought that we were close, but after a while, I’m became pretty certain that we were off course. Turns out that the guy wanted to drive me up all the way up the mountain, which probably would have been an R$50.00 fare each way instead of the R$15.00 fare to the trem. The bastard knew I wanted the trem when I got in the cab, then when I called him on it; he pretended he didn’t understand me. I made him stop and turn around, and when we got to the trem, I only gave him the fare for the original distance. Overall, I found the public cabs to be quite safe and the drivers very friendly, but about half the time they tried to screw me by asking for a fixed fare off the meter, or by taking an indirect route to my destination.
Waited for today to see Christo, hoping the crowd would be at a minimum. I asked the cabbie to take me to the Corcovado trem – the narrow gage train that takes you up the mountain. I had a reasonable idea of where we needed to go and thought that we were close, but after a while, I’m became pretty certain that we were off course. Turns out that the guy wanted to drive me up all the way up the mountain, which probably would have been an R$50.00 fare each way instead of the R$15.00 fare to the trem. The bastard knew I wanted the trem when I got in the cab, then when I called him on it; he pretended he didn’t understand me. I made him stop and turn around, and when we got to the trem, I only gave him the fare for the original distance. Overall, I found the public cabs to be quite safe and the drivers very friendly, but about half the time they tried to screw me by asking for a fixed fare off the meter, or by taking an indirect route to my destination.
Anyway, the statue of Christo is really pretty modest. It’s less than 100 feet tall (but this still qualifies it as the largest art-deco statue in the World), but it does stand on top of Mt. Corcovado, which is about 2,300 feet in elevation. You rarely see Christo from the beach areas, and in fact, he actually faces the other direction toward Zona Norte, the larger part of the city.
It was cloudy at the top so the pictures aren’t that good. In the first picture, I’m standing in front of Christo looking down on Sugarloaf. Copacabana Beach begins a little bit to the right.
The second picture is Ipanema (left half of the beach) and Leblon (right half of the beach). I’m standing under Christo’s right hand. The beach is about 2 miles long
The third picture is Sao Conrado, just further to the right of Leblon. The cylindrical building in the middle is across the street from my hotel, and you can see favela Rocinha in front of it. It’s 180 degrees from the picture of the favela a few postings earlier.
The last picture is looking up at Christo from in front of Botafugo Bay, which is between Sugarloaf and Mt. Corcovado.
In 1859, a local priest suggested they put a religious monument on top of the mountain. He suggested that it be a tribute to Princess Isabella. However, it took 63 years to build the railroad track to the tip of the mountain, and by that time, the idea had changed to that of Christo. The original design called for Him to be holding a cross, but public opinion did not support it and it was re-designed with the “open arms”. Though it was designed by a local engineer, the structure was actually built in France (I believe), shipped over in pieces and assembled on top of the mountain. It took about 4 years to build, and was completed in 1931.
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