I continued North using the Blue Ridge Parkway, a very scenic road and one of the most visited parkways in the USA. It runs 750km from North Carolina to Virginia, atop of a chain of mountains that are part of the Appalachians. Being a weekday, it wasn’t crowded at all, so I was able to take full advantage of the curvy road. I camped twice in the vicinity of this road – once at the end of a runaway truck ramp 🙂 I was worried a bear might wake me up, but in the end nothing happened.
Tags: park
The Sugarloaf Mountain is easily accessible by cable car (built in 1912, claimed to be the third in the world, after Spain in 1907 and Switzerland in 1908) and offers awesome views of the city and its famous Copacabana beach. We planned to go there just before sunset, to be able to observe during daytime and nighttime as well.
Tags: architecture, park
The statue of “Christ the Redeemer” is situated on top of the Corcovado mountain in Rio de Janeiro. Even better than the statue itself is the view one can get from the observation point in front of it.
But the process of getting there brings back memories from Machu Picchu. The train is not working. There is no sign to tell about the alternatives, but at least ten people are waiting near the train station to invite you to the private vans that do the service. The distance is 8km, but the van will only drive you for 4km. There you have to buy another ticket, from the park service, and switch vans. The park service itself looks less like a business and more like a welfare system, being overstaffed: there is a ticket vendor, a guy arranging people to form a waiting line, another one who opens the van door and invites people inside. The van will take you to the top station, where another person is paid to open the van door (there is another one opening doors for people who want to leave as well). Continue towards the entrance, where you will find a person that takes the ticket from your hand and inserts it into the subway-like machine. Proceed towards the elevators, where a person will push the button to call the elevator for you. There are three elevators, with two stops each. Therefore, two buttons in each elevator, but there is another person hired to push those two buttons. Once at the top stop, another person invites you to step outside the elevator.
We path then continues with an automatic stairway where, surprisingly, there is nobody to invite us to advance 🙂 Finally we got to the observation deck. The effort is well worth it!
Tags: architecture, park, train
The Iguazu falls was our last Argentinian objective. The waterfall itself is big, and the park surrounding it is even bigger. Therefore, there is a narrow gauge train that connects the parking lot with the remote areas. From the stations, there are hiking paths through the jungle and, as you get closer, elevated walkways that bring tourists right on top of the waterfall, assuring breathtaking views. The Argentinian side brings people closer and takes around 4 hours to complete (including walking some 3-4km) while the Brazilian side offers wider views. There are some boat tours as well, but considering that we’ve been on many watercrafts lately, we decided to skip.
We spent half a day in this park. Since now it’s winter down there, not many tourists were present and everything was very quiet. Only a hungry fox disturbed us during the visit! 🙂
Tags: park