Every year, at this time of revelry, thousands of tourists descend on Rio de Janeiro to see this city’s exquisite natural beauty, this city having completed its 446th anniversary on the first of March. However, despite the “thousand enchantments” mentioned in the famous samba song by André Filho, which is sung by the samba groups in the streets, the Marvelous City still needs how to better welcome its guests, even more if we remember that within the space of a few years thousands more tourists shall come over for the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games.
The main problem is the lack of good infrastructure in relation to information and signposting. To reach the thousands of tourist attractions in the city, the visitors have not received the due guidance. A tourist who, by chance, wishes to walk up Cosme Velho Street (South Zone), in the district of the same name, to the Cosme Velho train station (which provides access to the Statue of Christ), shall only find one sign on the pavement showing the way.
Informality also sets the tone of the reception. Even before getting to the station, the tourist is overwhelmed by a swarm of thousands of van drivers offering a ride up the Corcovado Mountain for R$ 20 (about US$ 12). At the ticket office, the price is R$ 36 (about US$ 22) for an adult and R$ 18 (US$ 10) for children aged between 6 and 12 years old.
So, how do we get there?
An English couple on their first visit to Brazil, Gladys and Aaron Hoover said that they got to the Statue of Christ by taxi, as they did not want to run the risk of taking the bus. “We thought it would be better to get a taxi at the hotel and come here. However, we would like to see other attractions, get to know other places, and not always by taxi. Let’s see if we can manage it”, they risk.
Those who decide to make the trip by bus soon see that there are many bus lines that stop in front of the Statue of Christ. The main problem, however, is the descent of Cosme Velho Street. There is only one bus stop close by, with signs that are far from clear for Brazilian tourists, let alone those from abroad. There is just one blue sign with the symbol of a bus, with a list made from papers stuck on with sellotape showing the numbers of the buses that stop there.
Similarly, the trip by Underground to the Sugar Loaf Mountain is far from simple. German tourist Fabian Gottschlich, for example, could not take the bus when he alighted from the Underground, simply because there were no signposts providing information, meaning that he had to walk from Botafogo (the last station before the tourist attraction) to Urca, the neighborhood where the cable car (bondinho) is located – both in the South Zone of the city. There is in fact a sign showing the way to the Sugar Loaf at the exit of the underground, but only in Portuguese. To reach the stop of the surface metropolitan transit system that goes to Urca, there is a need to cross two streets. Even outside the Underground there is no indication of how to get to the bus.
“I got off the Underground at Botafogo, but then had to walk to the Sugar Loaf because the bus was difficult to find. I could have got another bus, but there were no drivers speaking English. And for me it is very difficult to ask the passersby in the street”, Herr Gottschlich complained.
Different from the way to the Statue of Christ, to reach the Sugar Loaf there are some indicative signs but not all of them are in the brown color, which has been standardized for tourist attractions. If the tourist is close to the place of interest, on General Severiano Avenue, which is one of the access routes to the Sugar Loaf, and also along the route of Pasteur Avenue, which is the main road leading to the bondinho, there are sufficient signs to avoid people getting lost along the way.
Some important streets in the city do indeed show the tourist spots with signs. However, any tourist who wishes to take a walk or a bus trip shall not have such an easy path to get to the places desired. RioTur, which is the tourism company of the Municipality of Rio de Janeiro, and also the Rio Underground Company, when approached by the Portal 2014, declined to comment about the problems that the tourists found. RioTur did not even bother to inform how many indicative brown plaques there were in the city.
highlights
04/05 | News
