Brazil"s Other Beachside Cable Car Ride
Oct.27, 2014
The gondolas may be pint-sized, but the panorama is immense in its scope and beauty: the cable car system (Bondinho) at Parque Unipraias, in Balneário Camboriú, is one of the reasons why this city in Santa Catarina State is one of the most sought-after coastal destinations in the continent's Southern Cone.
The attraction stands out in the skyline and on the list of things to do in Balneário (as the locals call it for short).
And the counterpart to the world-famous Sugarloaf cable car is one of a few things which will remind the traveler of Rio de Janeiro: on the top of a hill, the city has Cristo Luz, which has one open arm like the world-famous Christ on Corcovado but holds a disk with the other - meant to represent the sun and lit in a myriad colorful ways. The city also has a skyscraper-lined seaside avenue called Atlântica just like the one in Copacabana.
When the summer crowds are gone, the cable car and other attractions at Parque Unipraias - the Youhoo!, the Zip Rider, a canopy walk, lookout points and an ecological park - are among the many reasons to keep on visiting Balneário. Another popular park - Beto Carrero World - is less than 20 miles away.
In the off-season, the water at Barra Sul and Laranjeiras might be a bit cold for the regular tourist, but the sweeping view of the two beaches from the cable car helps draw from retired couples to college students from Chile on their annual week-long break around the time of the country's Fiestas Patrias, in September.
Balneário is a leading destination in the South both for senior travel and student travel. Overall, neighboring Rio Grande do Sul State and Argentina provide most of the area's visitors.
In the high season, when the city's population of about 108,000 is multiplied several times over (about 1.5 million gathered on Praia Central for the New Year's Eve 2014 festivities), long lines form at the Parque Unipraias ticket offices.
The park has its origins in a harrowing, yet serendipitous event in the life of Brazilian entrepreneur Norberto Tedesco. In the 1950s, the pilot of a plane he was traveling on had to make an emergency landing in Balneario, more precisely on the beach known today as Barra Sul.
Having developed a keen interest in the pristine area, Tedesco bought a great deal of land where he planned to create a cable car system. The idea only materialized in the late 1990s, when the businessman's heirs formed a partnership with a group from Joinville, also in Santa Catarina.
The gondola lift system at the park is one of a few owned by Bontur Bondinhos Aéreos - the others are in Nova Trento, also in Santa Catarina, and in Aparecida do Norte (SP) and Canela (Rio Grande do Sul).
The 10,662-foot long system connects three stations; Barra Sul, on the southern end of the city's shores; Mata Atlântica, on the verdant Aguada Hill, and Laranjeiras, on the beach by the same name. There are 47 gondolas, two of which are accessible to wheelchair users and visitors with impaired mobility. The makers are Leitner Ropeways, from Italy.
Each cabin holds up to six passengers, with a maximum total capacity of 282 people simultaneously and 800 people an hour. They move along at a top speed of 16 kilometers per hour (about 9.94 mph), with a distance of 97 meters between them. The ride lasts about 30 minutes, if taken without stops.
This year, six of the gondolas were covered in pink for Outubro Rosa, Brazil's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The park is donating 50 cents from every Bondinho ticket sold this month to the local chapter of Rede Feminina de Combate ao Câncer, an NGO dedicated to promoting awareness of breast cancer prevention.
www.unipraias.com.br
www.facebook.com/unipraiasparque
The gondolas may be pint-sized, but the panorama is immense in its scope and beauty: the cable car system (Bondinho) at Parque Unipraias, in Balneário Camboriú, is one of the reasons why this city in Santa Catarina State is one of the most sought-after coastal destinations in the continent's Southern Cone.
The attraction stands out in the skyline and on the list of things to do in Balneário (as the locals call it for short).
And the counterpart to the world-famous Sugarloaf cable car is one of a few things which will remind the traveler of Rio de Janeiro: on the top of a hill, the city has Cristo Luz, which has one open arm like the world-famous Christ on Corcovado but holds a disk with the other - meant to represent the sun and lit in a myriad colorful ways. The city also has a skyscraper-lined seaside avenue called Atlântica just like the one in Copacabana.
When the summer crowds are gone, the cable car and other attractions at Parque Unipraias - the Youhoo!, the Zip Rider, a canopy walk, lookout points and an ecological park - are among the many reasons to keep on visiting Balneário. Another popular park - Beto Carrero World - is less than 20 miles away.
In the off-season, the water at Barra Sul and Laranjeiras might be a bit cold for the regular tourist, but the sweeping view of the two beaches from the cable car helps draw from retired couples to college students from Chile on their annual week-long break around the time of the country's Fiestas Patrias, in September.
Balneário is a leading destination in the South both for senior travel and student travel. Overall, neighboring Rio Grande do Sul State and Argentina provide most of the area's visitors.
In the high season, when the city's population of about 108,000 is multiplied several times over (about 1.5 million gathered on Praia Central for the New Year's Eve 2014 festivities), long lines form at the Parque Unipraias ticket offices.
The park has its origins in a harrowing, yet serendipitous event in the life of Brazilian entrepreneur Norberto Tedesco. In the 1950s, the pilot of a plane he was traveling on had to make an emergency landing in Balneario, more precisely on the beach known today as Barra Sul.
Having developed a keen interest in the pristine area, Tedesco bought a great deal of land where he planned to create a cable car system. The idea only materialized in the late 1990s, when the businessman's heirs formed a partnership with a group from Joinville, also in Santa Catarina.
The gondola lift system at the park is one of a few owned by Bontur Bondinhos Aéreos - the others are in Nova Trento, also in Santa Catarina, and in Aparecida do Norte (SP) and Canela (Rio Grande do Sul).
The 10,662-foot long system connects three stations; Barra Sul, on the southern end of the city's shores; Mata Atlântica, on the verdant Aguada Hill, and Laranjeiras, on the beach by the same name. There are 47 gondolas, two of which are accessible to wheelchair users and visitors with impaired mobility. The makers are Leitner Ropeways, from Italy.
Each cabin holds up to six passengers, with a maximum total capacity of 282 people simultaneously and 800 people an hour. They move along at a top speed of 16 kilometers per hour (about 9.94 mph), with a distance of 97 meters between them. The ride lasts about 30 minutes, if taken without stops.
This year, six of the gondolas were covered in pink for Outubro Rosa, Brazil's Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The park is donating 50 cents from every Bondinho ticket sold this month to the local chapter of Rede Feminina de Combate ao Câncer, an NGO dedicated to promoting awareness of breast cancer prevention.
www.unipraias.com.br
www.facebook.com/unipraiasparque
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