When we got up in the morning, the sun was shining and there was barely a cloud in the sky so we decided not to waste the opportunity and today we headed out to climb the hill on top of which the enormous statue of Christ the Redeemer sits. For some unknown reason, the first day we were in Rio I had asked Andy which hill 'Matey' sat atop as there was too much cloud to see him and the name kind of stuck! So heading off to see Matey we took the metro to a station where had been told we could then catch a bus to Cosmo Velho, the district in which the hill is. It seemed to take a very long time to get there and after being accosted by tour touts the second we got off the bus we realised we didn't actually have much time if we were going to walk up and back down in the daylight! We firmly refused the tour offers which were the same price as the train, 43 Reals each, plus 18 Reals each to get in to the site and after being pointed in the right direction by a disgruntled taxi driver we started up. This part of the town didnt look very pleasant and we scurried on through before the road started to climb steeply and changed to cobbles which were slippery and uneven. Thankfully though they didnt last long and the more we climbed the better the road got as well as the neighbourhood, we were clearly entering an expensive area as the houses all had large walls or fences around them and the occasional brand new car driving in or out. Feeling slightly more confident about walking here, we stopped frequently to take pictures of the spectacular view spreading out below us which changed with every corner, one minute showing us a castle high up on a hill, another looking down across the town, the next straight across a small valley into the heart of a Favela. It is a very strange set up when you have the richest and the poorest of the city less than a stones throw from one another, staring into each others houses every day, its no wonder there is a lot of crime here!! We continued climbing for the best part of an hour with tour buses and taxis going by us frequently and we wondered if we were the only people to walk anywhere in this city, not only were they paying an extortionate price for 8km they were also missing some of the best views of the city imaginable! Oh well, their loss, we eventually arrived at the ticket station where you are meant to pay the 18 Reals for the minibus to the top (a further 3.5km) and your entrance to the platform on which the statue itself sits. We had already decided we weren't going to pay this and slipped by all the people milling around the minibuses to carry on up on foot, which clearly is never done as the infrequent path we had used so far was now completely non-existent and we had to hug the curb as the buses zoomed past us. Hot and sweaty we arrived at the top carpark/viewing platform having not been approached for a ticket by anyone so far and we could now see that there were turnstiles to go through which allowed you up to visit Matey. After having a good look at the view from here we decided to try and find out if you could buy a reduced price ticket as we'd walked up and not used the minibus. We were passed around to several people before finally one of the guides off of a minibus said that unfortunately its the same price no matter how you get up, not that we were that fussed as we had pretty much the same view anyway and were literally only 15m from Matey's feet so it seemed an awful lot of money to climb a few more steps! Instead we ended up talking to two of the guides for a while, Roger (very Brazilian name?!!) who spoke some English and was trying to improve it so he could become a tour guide in the City and his friend Lucas who spoke good English and was helping him to learn. Roger showed us various places in the city from our high vantage point and we found it quite funny how he would ask Lucas for how to say a word in English and he would reply that he had to pretend he wasn't there and couldn't ask him!! We had a great time talking with them both and Roger kindly offered to be our tour guide tomorrow night when we said we wanted to visit the Lapa district which is where all the night life is and we hoped to see some Samba. We exchanged emails and were about to make our way down as the light was starting to fade when Roger and Lucas managed to blag us a lift on one of the minibuses down to the ticket office, saving us a couple of miles and some daylight! We said goodbye to Roger here before continuing down the rest of the way rather rapidly because of the light but didnt manage to get down before it was dark and walked cautiously through the last bit to the bus stop where we gratefully collapsed onto the next bus our legs aching and stomachs grumbling. When we got to the stop to change for the Metro we went to a supermarket to buy something for dinner and were surprised at how busy it was, we had to queue for nearly half an hour at the check out before heading out to the Metro to get back to the apartment. Thankfully it wasn't quite as crowded as the day before but none the less we were glad to arrive at our stop where we caught a taxi the rest of the way back, not wanting to walk the deserted streets now it was dark and getting late. We had a late dinner, more Caipirinhas and went to bed shattered.