Taking the skilift into Rio's favelas

Am I right here? The wobble of the cabin, the thick cable above, the hill rising steeply beside me: somehow this all seems familiar. Yes, we are taking a gondola to the top of a mountain, the peak is already in sight.

I sit down in the gondola and enjoy the view. Then, I close my eyes and for a short moment images of snow-covered peaks and icy glaciers flash in front of me. Then I open my eyes and the memories of former ski holidays disappear. The gondola that I am sitting in is from Austrian company Doppelmayr. But the mountain that it is going up is in the middle of Rio de Janeiro.

Just before the quarter-final in the city's Maracana stadium the gondola was opened, in Rio's oldest favela, Morro da Providencia. The lift links the favela to the city's main station, Central do Brasil.

A historic place

This part of the city, which was founded in the 19th century by Brazilian soldiers, turned into a favela after the returning soldiers were not granted plots of land that they had been promised. The area is close to Rio's main harbor.

The view from the top is just as imposing as from the top of Austria's highest peak, the Grossglockner. Behind the high tower of the city's main station, Rio's famous Sugarloaf Mountain (Pao de Acucar), and behind that is South America's longest bridge. The 14 kilometer long Ponte Rio-Niteroi snakes over the bay of Guanabara and links Rio to the neighbouring city.

Obviously not every resident of Morro da Providencia is completely happy with this new construction. Many find it too expensive and say there are other better things to invest in. Some of them are angry about the people forced to move for the construction of the cable car supports.

But even the critics weren't prepared to miss out on the first few runs of the cable car on the first day. For them there was just enough time fora quick tour of the mountain cable car station, before they head back down to the chaos of the city.