The Trip

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Since my last trip to Brazil several years ago in 2022, I'd often dreamed of going back! I only got to spend 21 days in Rio and I got the feeling I'd only scratched the surface during that time. You can read about how that trip went here!
From day one I was going nuts! I had a lot to learn about the rhythm of Rio. My flight arrived in the morning, and when I checked the weather I saw that it was supposed to rain nearly every day for a week starting on my second day! So, before even taking a nap, I only took enough time to get my stuff out of my duffel and backpack, rack up for the climb, then get out there to rip it!
I was having some real climbing withdrawal, so I hit up a climb with a second pitch variation that had a non-bolted crack for me to finally put my cams to good use. I proceeded to get lost immediately after the crack petered out, then perfectly threaded the gap between two possible rappel lines and forced myself to top out and bushwhack through dense bamboo jungle for 30 minutes until I finally reached actual trail! Leave it to me to mess things up gloriously and still have a blast doing it.
On my return to the apartment I told my aunt, who generously hosted me for the month and a bit I was staying in the city, about my worries of the rain and she immediately laughed at me and informed me there was no way I'd have trouble like that! As the week wore on she was proven right by rain only occasionally happening, and even then only in the late afternoon, with mornings and early afternoons reliably being gorgeous days perfect for climbing!
A valuable lesson to learn, and just the kind of thing I'd been hoping to delve into by spending more time in Rio.

While in Rio, I was a real outdoor dog. My aunt and I largely did our own things, sometimes having a meal together in the apartment or going to the market when our schedules lined up. For the most part, I'd spend little time in the apartment and most of my time wandering the city, hiking, and climbing! I did a lot of rope soloing easy to moderate climbs and added whatever I climbed to Mountain Project. However, I did manage to make some new connections in the form of Henrique and Johannes!
Overall I was super pleased with how the climbing panned out on this trip. In the month of January, despite it being summer in Rio and wicked hot, I climbed the most pitches of my entire climbing career at 71! I even was in the habit of linking up to 3 pitches in one go while rope soloing, so I was pretty stoked to have been able to pull off that much climbing. While I got to do a lot of volume while rope soloing, I don't climb anything hard when I solo. Therefore, I was really happy to have Henrique and Johannes to trust and climb with. Each of them climbed some incredible routes with me while I was there, including K3 (a hard, 5.10d gear only variation pitch to the classic K2 climb that tops out at the foot of the Christ Redeemer statue), CERJ (an easy, 1,300ft alpine climb in the mountains several hours outside the city), and Waldemar Guimaraes/Waldo (one of the easier routes on the formidable North face of the Sugarloaf).
I did most of my partnered climbing with Henrique, a local to Rio, as Johannes was only in town for a week or so on holiday. My first friend in Rio, Philippe, introduced us, knowing we would vibe. Henrique and I became fast friends, meeting for the first time on an early morning run at Waldo, forging our friendship immediately by trusting each other on the bold, tricky climbing on the North face of the Sugarloaf. Our styles are incredibly well matched, both having a safety-first mindset and being stoked on long, adventurous gear routes, but we push each other into new terrirotires well, with me encouraging him to climb on thinner gear and him encouraging me to get on more committing routes!
After Waldo we both knew we'd found a solid climbing partner in the other, and we went on to climb CERJ during a rare summer weather window at Tres Picos, a remote alpine climbing area several hours away.
I'm hoping to bring him to the states sometime soon to tackle some exciting climbing up here in North America!!
For the climbers among y'all, you can see everything about my climbing in Rio at my Mountain Project profile!

Other than my climbing, I would regularly wander the city and try to explore new places and chat with folks where I could. Being somewhat of a hermit while traveling, I probably could have created more opportunities to practice my portuguese, but I'm proud to finally say that I actually speak portuguese! Maybe not fluently, but I can do it!!
I got the most practice when I started selling my climbing gear. By the time I left on this trip, I had amassed quite a collection of gear I wanted to sell that was entirely separate from my my personal gear. The majority of the climbing gear I brought to Brazil I brought to use, then sell before I left to help fund the trip! Henrique put me on to a gear trade WhatsApp group, and they were on to my gear like flies on caca. I was selling about $700 worth of gear and my phone was positively blowing up!! I did all of the wheeling and dealing in Portuguese, and when I met with folks to make sales we'd chat about the gear and climbing in Portuguese as well, which was a total delight!
I met a lot of climbers who expressed interest in roping up together... right at the end of my trip as I was engaged in selling all my gear! But now I'll have lots of connections for my next visit!
The climbing world is real small, and Rio is no different. There were a lot of coincidences that happened as I was selling the gear and I bumped into several of the people I sold gear to in the week or so I was still in town after selling everything! I just love the climbing community everywhere!

Last but absolutely not least, an insanely wild, fortuitous, coincidental, long-brewing situation culminated during my final week in Rio.
The night before I left North Carolina for Norway, I lucked out and was able to make it to a contra dance in Carrboro. I went out of my way to dance a dance with a gorgeous girl named Kim, then the night went on, I went home, and jetted off for Norway the next day. Then, to my surprise and joy, she tracked me down on Facebook! From then on we communicated every day with texts, then voice notes, then phone calls, then video chats, steadily building a connection.
Towards the end of my time in Norway, I invited her to come see me in Brazil, and she actually took me up on it! So, Kim came to Rio for a little over a week to go on a first date with me and we had a total blast together. She did her first outdoor climb to the summit of the Sugarloaf and her second climb at night at Cantagalo overlooking Copacabana beach. We had a beach day at Grumari (thanks, Henrique!), my first beach day of the entire trip, ate a ton of Acai, discovered that cheeseburgers are infinitely better with BBQ sauce, and got sauced on Caipirinhas when the street-vendor seemed to take a liking to us and made them with a generous amount of cachaca.
I hadn't planned on dating at all while traveling, much less long distance, but when the universe throws someone at you like this, only a fool would ignore it!

We took the same flight out of Rio to Miami, then she continued on back to the real world in North Carolina and I exited the airport to start the next chapter of my winter travels: Cycling from Key West, FL to my parents doorstep in North Carolina! But, more on that in the following post...