Hard to picture but each day starts off with a weird feature of our room – the heated towel wall. For some reason, the wall behind where the towels hang is very warm. I assume it’s a feature, otherwise there’s something strange going on and hopefully it waits until we leave before it lets go.

The view outside our hotel while we wait for our Uber. They are insanely cheap here, often costing less that $10 for a 1/2 trip. Petrol is about $1.80 a litre and the cars are not exactly top notch. The Uber “comfort” rides are generally anything but.

Togs, togs, togs, undies… The things you see while waiting for your ride.

So for any of you who knew my Dad, he was an avid orchid grower and spent countless days cultivating and caring for them in carefully temperature and humidity controlled glasshouses. Here? They strap them to trees and let them go for it, and they grow like crazy.

The big ticket item today was the Corcovado, with the Jesus on top. Lots of other people seem to have had that idea as well, it was crowded with all sorts. I heard French, British, American and Australian accents as well as the Brazilian and South Americans, and of course tried in vain to avoid all of them.

The train ride up is a mix of stunning views, rock walls, thick forest, random decrepit houses and the train driver blasting the horn as various fuckwits decide that leaping across the track is an easier way to see Jesus than actually going to the top. Boy are they going to be disappointed. I have no idea why they are there either, it’s a hell of a long way and farking steep.

We definitely had leg day today, even with the train there was some pretty hefty stairs to climb, but climb we did.

The big fella. Does what is says on the tin.

This doesn’t begin to show how busy it was, or how frustrating it is to have an entire group think it’s a grand idea to block the stairs with their arms outstretched. Or going for that perfect shot, looking like a complete cockwomble by doing many “manly” poses while blocking the way for everyone else. It was worth the wait for the laughs it gave us.

I’ve got the Statue of Liberty selfie, the Jesus and just need the Justice Statue to make the fairy story selfie trilogy.

A small selection of views from the top, there are a lot of crazy things to be seen from there.

After coming down from Corcovado we walked along the street a bit and ended up in a small area with some amazing buildings. It felt like we were in back in time, such a cool random encounter.

From here we got an Uber up probably the most insane streets I have ever seen, narrow, steep, winding and cobbled. We were headed for a bar / restaurant but walked past one next door and thought it looked a whole lot better and authentic, called the Nega Tereza Bar. I had the best food so far there, the rice and beans were amazing, the steak and horse was fantastic and the chips were, average.

We decided that the horse part of it was that there was an egg with it that sat on the steak like a rider on a horse. I really, really hope that’s what it meant. The food took ages to arrive, and then they took away the plate they bought, because it was the wrong one – nooooo! Happily ours wasn’t too far away. The women running the place were great, so friendly and were bringing food to the guy in the shop across cobbled street, and gave a food package to a homeless guy. He might have been asking me for my empty bottle but I have no idea what he was saying, and Louie was finding out how gross the toilets were so I was on my own translation-wise.

These beers come in 600ml bottles, and in a custom metal cooler. Those silly foam ones no longer cut it I’m afraid. It’s this or nothing, it worked so well. Cold to the last glass.

After lunch we took a long walk through the streets of Santa Theresa, famous for the street art. Their fibre installs leave a lot to be desired, and they seemed to be happy to leave the old copper lines just dangling where they cut them.

The target of our walk through the streets was Escadaria Selarón, steps that are tiled with a huge range of tiles from around the world, including a couple of NZ ones. Predictably they were a Kiwi and one of the Goldie etchings but still nice to be included. I was pretty happy that we were going down them, not up but it was still a long way down.

Finally we got down to the downtown area which was not exactly the best, which is a shame. It could be an amazing area but apparently the powers that be and the police don’t think this area is worth fixing up or patrolling, instead focussing on the wealthier areas.

We passed by the most insane street hawkers here as well, sheets out with their wares on display. Except their wares were absolute shit. Plastic dolls with missing legs, shitty old remote controls, Cameras from the early 2000s, a filthy light shade. I was certain we were going to end up in a cold bath missing a kidney. Thankfully we made it through the ordeal and was picked up by our now familiar Uber “comfort” ride, a Sandero. Such a bad, bad car, but matches the Rio roads.