Rocinha - Rio's biggest favela with just a bad reputation!?

Rocinha is the biggest favela in Rio and there are different estimations of the population that vary quite a lot. The estimations are between 200,000 and even 400,000 inhabitants and it has a hmmm...well, not so good reputation. Nowadays almost all of the favelas are ‘pacified’ and the pacifying process started around 2008 with brutal force to clean up and take control over the favelas before the 2014World Cup and Rio Olympics in 2016, and nowadays they should be quite safe. We wanted to visit and see how life in Rocinha is. Markus had found a blog for few years ago about life in Rocinha and he noticed that the writer organizes also tours there. It seemed like the organization tries to help locals, tries to make living a bit easier, give different education to kids (such as dance, dj’ing, martial arts etc.) and show how Rochina is to outsiders. The description of the tours was promising. Not just normal tourist sights, but more of the normal life in Rocinha and local places. We booked a tour from favelatour.org together with Maria and Johan (the Swedish couple) we met in Peru on the Inka Trail. 

View over one part of Rocinha

Rio de Janeiro, Part 2: New Year’s Eve including thieves, Christ Redeemer statue and peaceful Jardim Botanic garden

Then it was time to celebrate New Year’s! We had read that most of the people wear white at New Year’s to bring luck for the upcoming year. If one wears black, one is doomed for the next year! We went around in different shopping centers in Rio to find the clothes and it was not an easy task! There were plenty of white clothes in the stores, but all stores were really expensive! If you think that the lowest level is at a ‘Tommy Hilfiger/GANT’ price level, you can figure out what the prices were in Rio. 😞 We don’t know where one could find cheaper stores there? Well, we managed to find something anyhow 😊

Rio de Janeiro, Part 1: Beautiful views from Sugarloaf Mountain, crowded Copacabana and other touristy places

We were both excited and a bit nervous entering Rio de Janeiro. Well, Markus not very nervous. Everyone had been telling us that Rio is a very beautiful and interesting city, but also very dangerous and that one needs to be careful all the time because there are so many thieves and people who have nothing to lose. Well, our (especially Edda’s) image of Rio changed during our 9-night stay in Rio. 😊 Even though the city is big, the touristic area is easy to comprehend and we felt also rather safe.

This is the Sugarloaf Mountain. More text and pictures will follow!