We tried to skip the cable car line in Rio… ended up needing rescue

There are things one thinks, “that will never happen to me.” For example: I’ll never be left abandoned at sea, adrift; I’ll never be shipwrecked on a deserted island; or I’ll never get lost in the forest. Especially with that last one, whenever I saw in a movie or TV show that someone got lost in the woods, I always thought that could never happen to me. I have a good sense of direction, I consider myself capable, I simply didn’t understand how someone couldn’t retrace their steps back to the starting point. Well, that overconfidence landed me in one of those situations I thought would never happen to me: getting lost in a forest. Well, not exactly a forest, it was the Morro da Urca, a hill in Rio de Janeiro right next to one of the city’s most famous peaks, Sugarloaf Mountain. It was a short but terrible experience that left me with a good story to tell and feeling a bit humiliated. To explain what happened, I need to start with how the day began.

It was a Thursday, and my wife and I decided to visit Sugarloaf Mountain, which is a hill on the bay of Rio de Janeiro. The way to get there is by cable car from the Bondinho Park. From there, the cable car takes you to the first station on Morro da Urca, a smaller hill right next to Sugarloaf. At the top of that hill, there’s a restaurant, some shops, and the next cable car station that takes you up to Sugarloaf itself. We did the whole tour, walking through the viewpoints, taking pictures, and having a good day. By sunset, we came down from Sugarloaf to Morro da Urca (the first hill) for an event they host on certain days, where a DJ mixes dance music as the sun goes down. The event lasted till about 6:00 p.m., when it was already dark. Both hills and the park close at 8:00 p.m.

Suddenly, everyone wanted to go down on the cable cars, and the line was massive. My wife and I decided to wait a while, having a couple of beers while the line shrank. But an hour later, it was even longer. I estimated, without exaggerating, that standing in line would take nearly two hours. Another 30 minutes passed, and the line seemed to have grown even more. We couldn’t believe so many people were still trying to go down. Then we noticed a group of about six people heading toward a trail to go down. Turns out there’s a hiking trail down the hill. At the moment, it seemed like a good idea. I thought we could skip the line and be at the bottom in 20–30 minutes, it would even be a small adventure. Big mistake.

I asked the guard at the trail exit, and he said we had to go to an office and sign a liability waiver, releasing the park from any responsibility if something happened to us on the trail. Of course, what could happen? We signed it, came back, and by then there was no one else going that way. My wife and I were the only ones. The guard calmly led us to the gate, opened it, we walked through, he wished us good night, closed the gate behind us, and left. I have to say, the casual attitude of everyone, the waiver office lady, the guard, fed my confidence that this would be an easy walk down. I’ve hiked other trails before, and while some are tiring, they’ve never been a big deal. So between my usual overconfidence and the staff’s attitude, I thought, “No problem. In 20 minutes we’ll be down, and it’ll have been a mini adventure.” I turned on my iPhone flashlight since the trail was completely dark, and off we went.

Well, the trail kept getting narrower and steeper until we reached a point where I wasn’t sure we were even on the trail anymore. After trying to continue in a few different directions, it was clear we were no longer on the right path, maybe 20 minutes had passed. We decided to retrace our steps back to the park entrance, and that’s when the fear of feeling lost began, because going back, we couldn’t find the starting point. It seems impossible, and whoever reads this might think we’re idiots, but really, several factors contribute to getting you disoriented. It wasn’t our first time hiking, but it’s shocking how quickly we got lost. After a while of not being able to find the entrance, I told my wife our only option was to try to go down somehow, no matter what.

By then I was getting really nervous because the park must have been closing, and we couldn’t hear any noise in the distance. My phone had about 25% battery, my wife’s only 5%. Just like in a movie. What followed were about two hours of false trails, arguing among ourselves in the darkness: “It’s this way!” “No, it’s that way!” “We came from there!” “No, we didn’t!” “We already passed this log.” “No, we didn’t.” Every tree looked the same, every trunk the same, every plant the same. The vegetation was dense, we couldn’t see the moon, we couldn’t see city lights because of the dense vegetation, the terrain was steep, everything was slanted —it’s a hill after all— and we only had an iPhone flashlight.

“This can’t be,” I thought. “We can’t be lost. We’re in a city, not a real forest. Civilization is only 600 or 700 meters away. (About 2,000–2,300 feet)” And for those who know Morro da Urca or at least have seen pictures, you might say, “It’s just a hill, how could you get lost there?” Well, it’s not a small hill. From a distance it looks small, but in reality, it’s quite large. I couldn’t find the exact surface area of Morro da Urca, but together with Sugarloaf, they cover 91.5 hectares (roughly 226 acres). Morro da Urca is 220 meters high (about 720 feet), and the trail, I googled later —idiot—, is 1.5 kilometers long (just under a mile), but normally takes about 45 to 60 minutes. So it’s not like getting lost on a tiny hill.

You might also think: “It’s a hill, just walk in any direction until you reach the bottom.” Logical, right? Except that when we tried, all we found were cliffs, ravines, or vegetation so dense we couldn’t pass. A fun fact I discovered: the hill is full of thorny plants… and I was wearing shorts. We reached a point where we couldn’t go any further, every path seemed harder, it was pitch dark, the phone batteries were running low, and reality set in: yes, we were lost. Yes, we needed to be rescued somehow.

My wife had the very obvious idea—which hadn’t even occurred to me—of shouting for help. In Spanish (we’re Mexican), in English, in Portuguese, she shouted at the top of her lungs. Reflecting on that later, I realized why I hadn’t thought of it: I think men are programmed to believe we don’t need help, that we can always get ourselves out of any situation. A very stupid way of thinking, but deeply ingrained. I told my wife I was going to call emergency services since my phone still had some battery. I was reluctant to doing it before because it felt humiliating but also because I thought somehow we were going to set a whole thing in motion that would probably cost us money. I could picture the morning news story: “Two stupid Mexican tourists had to be rescued from Morro da Urca last night”. I called, a recording said, “For English, press star.” I pressed star. Someone answered in Portuguese. I asked if they spoke English or Spanish, no, they didn’t. With my terrible Portuguese, I tried to explain. Out of frustration, I spoke very slowly in Spanish, hoping they would understand. I said we were lost on Morro da Urca and asked if they could alert a park ranger. “Wait a moment,” they said, and put me on hold for a few minutes. I don’t think they understood. Meanwhile, my wife kept shouting, and then we heard a shout from up the hill. She shouted again, another reply. “They found us!” my wife said. “Hang up!” I did.

After shouting back and forth, we saw a flashlight from above. “Você pode me ver?” I asked in Portuguese (Can you see me?). “Sim, vejo!” they replied (Yes, I see you). More voices above. At least now we knew the park staff knew we were there. They shouted for us to go right. “Sua direita ou minha“ (Your right or mine?) I asked. They signaled with the flashlight, far away but visible. We started moving in that direction, constantly shouting so they could track our position. A few minutes later, we heard voices closer, at our level. We shouted, they shouted back. I had never felt so vulnerable yet so relieved to know help was coming. Finally, we saw the flashlight beam pointing at us. “Here!” we shouted waving our arms, like castaways spotting a rescue helicopter. When they reached us, My wife looked at me as if to say, “Holy crap, we made it!” I laugh now when I think about it.

At last, we were found: three park workers with flashlights, one with a rope. They asked if we were okay, if we had any injuries. They led us back, about 10 minutes walking, to the spot we had started from. Pavement, civilization. Out of that green hell that, under the iPhone light, looked more black-and-white. They offered us water. I hadn’t noticed how sweaty and thirsty I was. We must have looked ridiculous, with our tourist clothes, a tote bag from a Danish museum and iPhones. Just a couple of dumb tourists who tried the trail and got lost.

We had been lost about three hours, but it felt like six or seven. When I checked the time, I couldn’t believe it had been so short. Darkness, disorientation, and fear stretch time. They said they’d take us to a cable car to go down. My wife asked if there was any dangerous wildlife on the hill. “Only snakes” they replied.

Normally there are two big enclosed cable cars on service, that hold 65 people each, but the workers use a small open one, like a metal basket. We got on that one with them and began the descent. “Nobody else gets to ride this,” I thought. “At least I got a VIP trip.” While descending I looked back at the hill, it was much bigger than the picture I had in my mind, all cliffs around. “Lucky we didn’t fall off one,” I thought.

I asked the workers if we were the first ones to get lost. “No.” One asked where we were from. I told them. Representing Mexico. We reached the bottom, they led us out, we said goodbye and thanked them profusely. We walked onto the street as if nothing had happened, hard to believe just minutes earlier we had been contemplating spending the night on the hill, waiting for daylight. We walked about 200 meters (around 650 feet) to call an Uber. I looked back, and the park staff were still there, waving goodbye. I waved back. Five minutes later, we were in an Uber on the way to our flat, with a few scratches and cuts, but laughing.