Pedra do Telégrafo? More like Pedra do I'll Never Let Go

Every once in awhile there are pictures that circulate around the internet of a guy hanging his girlfriend off the edge of a cliff or someone hanging precariously off a rock at the edge of the ocean. And everyone freaks out and says that they don't trust anyone that much, blah, blah, blah. 

Imagine my delight when I found out that that this daredevil's paradise is located in right here in Rio de Janeiro, only an hour or so from my house. 

Daredevils.

And so we went. My hot pink tennis shoes came out to play, we explained to the receptionists at our awesome AirBnB that we needed a car and they all laughed at our enthusiasm, we got lost on the way to Barra de Guaritiba, and, finally, we hiked up Pedra do Telégrafo. 

I was mentally prepared for the hike this time, unlike when we hiked Morro Dois Irmãos, so the hike didn't seem too bad. Rachel and I also adopted Kimmy Schmidt's theory that you can do anything for ten seconds.

 

When we'd been counting ten seconds for what seemed like at least half an hour, Rachel and I started asking people how much longer until we reached the top. Twenty minutes? Okay, no problem. Let's think of what we can do in less than twenty minutes. Watch an episode of Friends. Shower. First recess in Honduras. Perfect. Let's think of all of the things that have lasted longer than twenty minutes that we've survived. And next thing we knew-- we had made it to the top.

We wanted to celebrate our arrival, but frankly, it was too darn hot and we were covered in sweat and dust. Not only that, but we quickly found out that we had to wait in line for about two and a half hours just to take an infamous Pedra do Telégrafo photo. It was hot. We were sweaty. We were in direct sunlight during the hottest part of the day. We were hungry which quickly turned into hangry. But we had driven out to Recreio, rented an AirBnB for the night, woke up early to beat the heat (HA!), and climbed this mountain specifically for these photos, so we were going to stay, gosh darn it. And we did, of course. 

Thank goodness we did because the pictures turned out awesome. Everything I could have dreamed of.

Though I think that Snapchat is really missing out on a good geotag/ filter thing by not having one that says "I waited in line for two hours and all I got was this lousy picture." Because really, at that moment, that's how I felt.