Rio De Janeiro & Big Jesus
Rio De Janeiro
This was my first time in Brazil. The last time I was in South America was during all the covid bollocks and each country had it's own dumb rules that made no sense, but a lot of countries had the same rule. If you had been to Brazil, you're not coming here. So I avoided Brazil for that reason.
Anyway, a few years have passed since that idiotic time period and we flew from Orlando to Rio. We were told to stay in Leblon rather than in Copacobana as Leblon is the upmarket area, with 24 hour security on all of the buildings, and nice beaches, and basically far away from the loud tourists and the scammers/pickpockets in the Copacobana area. It turns out this was correct, Leblon was cool. I'd highly recommend staying there if you go to Rio. Just get the metro, bus or an Uber to where you're going instead of staying in the loud and busy part of the city.
We obviously visited the massive Jesus on the hill, which was cool, but nothing spectacular in my opinion. I've seen Big Jesus, Machu Picchu, Chichen Itza and Petra out of the world wonders so far and Christ The Redeemer was the least impressive by far. HOWEVER, a big however, it is the only one out of the 4 that I wasn't harassed whilst entering and it was very easy to visit. In Petra, you literally get followed and people try to scam you. In Chicken Pizza, you're just shouted at by salespeople whenever you're near their stand. At Machu Picchu, it was actually the guards shouting at me literally the whole time about masks (during Covid), but also I was followed by loads of guides on the way in - pretty annoying. So shout out Brazilians for not being annoying in this sense.
I won't return to Rio. Brazil is massive and there are other places to visit, but it was alright.