Three Monkeys on The Monkey Trail for This Insanely Beautiful View of Bombinhas

Brazil is a hilly country. Okay, I have yet to check out the world’s largest jungle, but I clearly remember steep streets all along the coast from Porto Alegre in the south to Natal in the north. In São Paulo, you constantly go up and down for no obvious reason, although Avenida Paulista is flat (phew!). In Rio, it’s best to avoid climbing hills unless you know where you’re going. Floripa has very steep streets too, we still remember how hard it was to push Mark’s stroller when he was a baby.

Take my word for it, Brazil is hilly. Brazilians seem to be used to driving uphill and downhill, taking tunnels through hills, and climbing steep streets, much like locals in Valparaíso are used to climbing stairs all day long.  

This may be why you just can’t trust Brazilians when it comes to hill trails. I’ve seen entire families with grandma and small kids taking steep trails through the jungle just to reach a viewpoint or a beach—all of them wearing Havaianas and a few guys carrying giant ice coolers full of drinks. “Go ahead, it’s easy!” they’ll tell you.

For me, hill trails in Brazil range from “meh, I’ll go barefoot” to “you gotta be kidding me.”

Bombinhas’ most famous trail, the Trilha do Morro do Macaco, was… a bit more difficult than planned.

“Let’s just go check out the view before the beach!” Feng suggested.

Ah, ah. The first part was easy enough with lovely teasers along the way, glimpses of the narrow strip of land and beaches on each side.

Then came the cute signs. “Don’t burn anything but calories,” “ Take nothing but pictures,” etc. The final one was a white lie, though. “You’re almost there!” Yeah, right. It forgot to mention the last part of the climb is half narrow dirt trail, half rock-climbing.

It took us an hour to reach the top but it was worth it.