The Hulking, Transperant Carriage

         I groaned.  Not only was it a sticky, sweltering day outside, with the sun persistently beating down on  our heads, but we would have to patiently stand in it  for at least another hour.

      But wait a moment. Evandro was quickly maneuvering past the line and urging us to follow. We had no trouble complying, hastily passing the short distance that would take the individuals in line possibly an eternity to cross.

      Briskly approaching a stout woman in uniform, Evandro briefly flipped her his tourism badge and uttered a few phrases in Portuguese. After several seconds, she nodded vigorously, and ushered us into the ticket stand. It was nearly too good to be true. Agonizing hours of waiting in line had been entirely eliminated, ah, the perks of touring the city with a certified guide. Come to think of it, I have not yet shared our guide's contact information for anyone who plans on visiting Rio de Janiero someday. So here it is:

General Director: Evandro Da Silva

Email: contato@bambuiecotour.com.br

Website: http://www.bambuiecotour.com.br/

Other Information:

We continued to the ticket stand before  Evandro informed us that we could go on exploring the sublime peaks of Morro de Urca and Pão de Açúcar until he returned at 5:00 PM . That was in about three hours. Sounded good.  We smiled, thanking him heartily and waving him a temporary goodbye, as we went to purchase our tickets.

      It was when we stepped to that fateful ticket counter, that it finally dawned on me how we would scale the staggering heights of Morro de Urca and Pão de Açúcar.  Judging from the hulking, transparent carriage that was sitting several feet away, and the thin, elongated wires connecting Morro da Urca and Pão de Açúcar, we must be going by cable car. Just some food for thought: The cable cars run every twenty minutes, and can hold up to 65 passengers. The round trip ticket is R$53 for adults, R$26 for children (ages six to twelve), and children under age five ride for free.

   That aside, we audaciously approached the ticket counter once more, and left it shortly after with six round tickets in hand. Two for each of us, one for going to Morro de Urca and the other for reaching Pão de Açúcar.  One cannot understate the importance of keeping these tickets in a place where one can conveniently pull  them from one's pockets. This wasn't like Jardim Botanico, where an officer would glance at them casually. No, this was a place with metal bars that you could only step through after scanning the tickets on a machine. Very official stuff. Thus, after several minutes of tryingly searching our pockets, we finally found them, scanned them duly, and entered the hulking, transparent cage of a cable car. Just as I would excitedly lean against the cool glass of the windows of Evandro's van, searching and learning, I did the same for the much wider and clearer windows of the cable car. After several warnings both in English and in Portuguese, the doors quickly hissed shut, and we felt the cable cart suddenly lurch forward.