My back is still recovering. That does not stop my wife from committing me to another hike this weekend.
Our planning relies more on weather.com app than looking outside our window.
When I woke up at 5AM to get ready for the hike, I nudged her and said "it is pouring outside! are we still going?" and she says "yes we are" and goes back to doze off.
Comes out after 30 minutes and says "it is not supposed to rain today. so we should go".. I have never seen anyone who thinks the sky should obey the weather app. That kind of faith in anything is hard to see these days.
So off we went. The trail was not hikeable for the first mile. It was pure slush.. and a few people who tried to go ahead of us just came back as they were not in right shoes and were skidding down. We being us... just went ahead and crossed this area. Even though it was still drizzling, foggy and windy, we made it to the top and back. On the way back we probably saw 10 people total making their way up, when we were almost back down. By then the sun also came out, but the trail was still very slippery and muddy.
The "lone cow"
a hilarious video snippet of our morning..
Chai never tasted this good...
Just happy to have made it back without any accident like last week. Usually we do this in 2 1/2 hours. Took us close to 4 1/2 hours today because of the weather and the muddy and slippery path!
Last weekend saw us resume hiking on a serious note.. not the jujube local hikes but a solid long hike in Mt. Diablo to see the waterfalls. We had already hiked to the top as part of covering the bay area hiking grandslam three years ago and this time we wanted to cover the waterfalls.
It was all great till I decided to go to the center of the creek to get pictures of the falls.. and fell into the creek. My head missed hitting the rocks, thanks to the backpack. I am very lucky to be writing this post now. Did bruise my elbows and palms badly and there were a few blood clots that showed up within a few minutes.
San and my friends cheered me up, told me all is well and thanks to adrenalin and waterproof shoes, made it through the rest of the hike. We did slow down a lot because of my fall but made it back in one piece.
Always, always go easy when trying to go over slippery rocks! There was a discussion on how I am not the same young guy anymore who can deftly go over rocks like a mountain goat, and how I should be more careful etc.. Will be more careful, but hopefully will stay carefree.
We did get great pictures.. and as San says, even some cheesy ones.
There is a visitor center where the trail head starts. There is a 6$ parking fee. If you have the app, you can pay from your phone.
We started on the Mitchell canyon road trail head and decided to go counter clockwise to do the hard part of the hike first.
This was the place where I fell into the creek..
After recovering, had to take a picture on the creek side..
There are a lot of small and large waterfalls on this trail. They were all beautiful
we covereted Bruce Lee road, Back creek Trail, Meridian point, Donner Trail and Muricho Road as part of the hike.
The sun made the falls light up!
We got to sit and have tea on a rock with a view of the falls..
The ladies did some dancing here (which I thought was as risky as me clambering on top of rocks to get a photo).. sadly there is no permission for that masterpiece to be shared in this blog!
the long expsoure mode in iPhone comes in handy, given I did not take the SLR with me on this trip. Usually I do when waterfalls are involved.. given I was taking 2 1/2 liters of water and change of clothes, decided to keep SLR at home. The change of clothes was there in case I sweat too much.. luckily it helped after falling into the creek! In case you are wondering "I don't see different clothes?"... I switched one Bikram Yoga shirt for another.. when your wardrobe is full of the same T-shirt.. changes will not be obvious!
we were talking about seeing god in nature and we saw this "black dog" on the mountain side
Zooming in, saw it was a shadow of a rock outcrop that looks just like a god.. sorry.. dog!
Guess it takes ~ 25 years of marriage before the wife decides some PDA is okay. This seems to be a trend among desi women I see in bay area.. either they turn 50 or have a 25th anniversary party and suddenly they decide enough is enough and start wearing tank tops for their jogs and bikinis to the beach and even start holding hands with their husbands in public! If the stats are any indication of what is to come.. I need to mentally prepare myself. You cannot suddenly ask a domesticated dog to go run wild in the forest..
This photo was Photoshopped with two versions of the same photo.. one with Long exposure for the falls and one regular to capture us..
all said and done I am a happy camper..
talking of seeing god everywhere.. there was a "govindaa goooovindaa" moment..
Pay before you start hiking.. or you get a ticket!
A video of all of us crossing the creek 20 times over the hike..
It would have been even better if I had not fallen... but it is what it is. Next time we will go when there is more water and I will be safer walking on rocks!
After a hectic all day tour of Rio which ended in Sugarloaf, we were all tired. After our Europe trip in 2018 when the kids made a new rule that there will be a "rest day" within the trip if we walk more than 6 miles a day for a few days in a row, San had put in a rest day.. Hell, she put in two rest days before we flew out as that was what was available ticket wise..
So we ended up spending Christmas eve and Christmas day in Rio before flying out on 26th morning.
We were told that the city shuts down by 1PM and most places close. We didn't care. Our plan was to go see two more sunsets from the two other popular places in Rio.. the first one was the Arpoador rock, the second one was the Copacabana beach and area.
San had made friends with a lady who worked for the city of Rio on our flight into Brazil from Argentina and she had suggested spending time at a local mall.. eat at a famous Vegan place called Teva..
So we woke up late, took a cab to Teva (we had made reservations) and sat down pretty much as soon as they opened. I ate the pita bread with some side but the family ordered a lot of items and seem to finish everything with relish.. I am allergic to Jackfruit, so had to skip a lot of stuff, but San and the kids said it was mouth watering.
After the lunch, we went to the mall and walked around for a good 2 hours. The stuff there was at least 50% to 100% more expensive than similar stuff in US malls. We also got the location of the mall wrong at first and ended up being dropped somewhere else.. so we walked around the local tiled streets before finally making to the actual mall location. After enough window shopping and having some ice cream there, we wanted to walk to the carnival area near the lagoon.
We never found the right spot and tickets were all sold out anyways. So we decided to just walk along the water front and took an Uber and came back to the Arpoador area. Got a nice vantage point on the rock to watch the sunset and headed back to the Airbnb.
We did get great pictures that evening..
There was a photo by Jr. of the little one taking a photo of me taking a photo of San.. that photo I cannot find..
Here are video clips of our chilling in Rio..
the entire area was cordoned off by cops to local traffic for some reason..
had used this picture as the Happy New Year card for 2024..
It was time to make some pizza and thachchi mummum.. The kids made it after getting all the ingredients from the local supermarket which was still open! We also got stuff to cook for the next day..
Christmas was a laid back day.. we lazed around in the morning and did laundry! Then in the afternoon we decided to visit the Copacabana beach. We were clearly over dressed for this beach as the videos will show. The rain clouds rolled in and there was no way to see the sun set, but we got beautiful family pictures.. and startred walking from there all the way to Ipanema area. It was a long walk and the rains hit before we could walk back. We got cursed by the kids for not taking an uber. We were flying back the next day and wet clothes on the night before was going to be tricky.
Rio is full of tall trees with wide leaves on all the local streets.. Chennai (Madras used to be like this when I was a kid.. not anymore) .. these streets brought back a lot of great memories..
we saw another painted step as we were going from Copacabana to Ipanema.. we stopped by a pastry store to get some stuff to eat as well..
This was my last shot as it started raining all of a sudden..
To date I have not washed and wrung clothes the way I did that evening. They were almost dry by morning and I ironed the collars and waistbands of what was not dry and got them to dry as well.. one of Daddy Narayanan's proudest moments! "There, see... all dry!!" and all I got in return was some eye rolling from the women.
We got to see the Redeemer one last time on our drive to the airport (you really cannot miss this guy from anywhere in Rio!) and took off.. We got to see a beautiful Panama city skyline and had a 3 hour stop over before heading back home.
Jet lag for a +5 hour time difference was interesting to deal with. We have. never been to a place 5 hours ahead till now. It wore off in two days though. The fact that we went on a break before the rest of the folks went on break was a blessing.
On a whole we enjoyed the trip to Argentina and Brazil.. We definitely all agreed that Argentina was more welcoming than Brazil but we did have fun in both places.
Have managed to finally finish blogging about a Christmas trip in early March! That brings me to the next trip..
After lunch we were picked up and the smaller group went to Sugarloaf mountain as part of the afternoon Viator all day Rio trip.
There is a stop in between from the ground level at another mountain called Urca hill with a visitor center in it. This place had some amazing shops with art work and some nice places to eat.
The views from the cable cars were amazing. We met a total of 9 desis on this entire trip, an all time low for our international travels to date!
It was two different cable car rides, one to the hill and from hill to mountain.
Given the dark clouds, our guide took us straight to the top and said we could always spend time in the first stop on the way back. Urca hill is full of jack fruit trees!!!! San just went nuts seeing them!
Luckily the clouds disappeared and we got to spend a good 45 minutes there, eat ice cream and take more photos.
We got spectacular views of Rio from both the vista points and the cable car ride was great! Apparently we went on the third generation cable car. The first two cars used were on display at Urca hill
Vaugely remember the Yellow Santa being there on Urca hill in one of the Panetone bread stores.. Some pictures are already missing from my phone! Yet another reason to blog right after a trip! Summer Christmas in the southern hemisphere is interesting.. Almost 100 degree heat on Christmas eve is a different experience.
Then we were back down to a monument where we waited for our van and were dropped off near our hotel.
San and the kids decided to try a place called Que Quieres en route to our Airbnb..
They were very happy with the food. I steered clear off it for fear of allergies and made and ate grilled cheese sandwiches and thachchi mummum in the Airbnb and we called it a night!
A video of the afternoon tour..
We still had two days, two more beaches to see and nothing else to do.. but we decided to have those last two days as relaxing days. We had done a lot with this all day tour, thanks to Viator!
We had signed up for an all day tour of Rio with Viator and it was a good decision. It was in a large van with 15 people. We drove along the beach to pick up folks from different hotels and went to see Christ the Redeemer. We did stop at the visitor center. A different bus takes us to the top from the center through the Tijuca forest.
We were given 45 minutes to climb the steps, take pictures and get back to the bus. Our guide was waiting for us at the base of the steps.
(that was someone else walking with an umbrella behind us!). This picture is from the visitor center..
It was a zoo out there with a whole bunch of families waiting to get their kids baptized in the small single room chapel below the statue in 100+ degree heat! Getting clear photos was almost out of the question. We were also sweating profusely and just wanted to get back down to the shade.
Christ statue is majestic. However you cannot get good pictures as the ledge in front of Christ is very short. You can get great shots of his back from most of Rio! Don't think they thought this through when facing him that way.. at least from a photographers point of view..
Once we came down, they sell the pictures taken in front of a poster of the statue.. we were about to pay when we heard someone else bargain.. immediately the entire family jumped in to bargain! The girls have definitely inherited the "bargaining gene" from Madras thatha, which is a good thing!
Someday, will take a better photo of this photo.. this one is a keeper.. might frame it!
After this we visited the Santa Teresa neighborhood and saw the Favelas, got a view of the city and came down to see the area where samba parades are done.
Then we got to see the Maracana stadium for 10 minutes, which meant no time to go in.. we saw it from outside.
This was followed by a trip to the San Sebastian Church which resembles a football stadium more than a church.
That is the Church building in the shape of a pyramid! Reminded me of churches in Kerala that have dwajasthambams to lure in locals.
The last stop before lunch was the painted steps, which was even more crowded than the Christ statue.. it was impossible to get a clean shot of folks.. even my method to have a frozen smile and take 4-5 shots and average them on Photoshop leaves too many ghosts..
After this the group was dropped off at a place for lunch. We didn't pay or order the lunch but were on the all day tour. A bunch of folks were only on a 1/2 day tour and split. We had packed our leftovers. So the guide and driver were kind enough to drop us off close to the lagoon where the afternoon tour would start.
We sat on the wall near the lagoon and ate under the shade of the trees. It was nice and breezy and we had a great view.
Right after we finished and took some photos, we were picked up and went the afternoon's trip.
Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 12:42PM ;)
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