Today we embarked on a walking tour of Santa Teresa from our Lonely Planet guidebook. Walking Santa Teresa is a workout in itself as the terrain is quite hilly and the many of the streets are cobblestone. The neighborhood of Santa Teresa is listed as a tourist attraction on almost every guidebook for its colorful colonial architecture, views of downtown, and bonde (tram).It was also Saturday, and according to the guidebook the liveliest day in Santa Teresa.
Our first stop was one of the old Bonde stops which was beautifully decorated.
We visited La Vereda, shop of Brazilian handicrafts. The shopkeeper told us that her grandfather was one of the builders of the Bonde (tram).
She mentioned the Bonde accident that shut down the tram service and that the government had originally promised a restart in 2014, but there has been no work to the tram or the rails to facilitate the reopening in 2014.
The Bonde was shut down after a break failure that killed 5 people and wounded 54 in August 2011.
According to this article, businesses in Santa Teresa have suffered without the bonde.
In this picture, Paul is pointing to a t-shirt that states, "I love the Bonde."
In this picture, the girl is holding a sign that states, "I want our Bonde."
We also attempted to visit the Museu do Bonde, but it was closed.
Side note: While we were standing outside the old Bonde Museum, we met couple from New York staying on Ipanema Beach. They mentioned that it was hard (for them) to get around because the Ipanema Metro station was closed. We invited them to join us on our walking tour of Santa Teresa but they declined. We didn't take it personally, they probably didn't come all the way to Brazil to hang out with Americans (US). They were nice enough to take a few pictures of us outside the closed Bonde Museum (photo above).
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