Brazil: Part 2 of 3

Next stop was in Rio de Janeiro. Our first day was spent just hanging out at the beach and finding our way around the town. Both of Rio's famous beaches were near our hotel and the first day we went to check out Copacabana (pictured below). After spending some time in the tropical sun we went in seach of some grub and went to an italian resaurant recommended by the tour company which was alright. Mostly it was cool beacuse it was right on the boardwalk directly across from the beach.



The next morning it was up bright and early for a full day city tour. The tour took us around the nicer neighborhoods of Ipanema and some of the historic areas from the colonial period which were interesting. There was one street where there were period buildings from Brittan, France, Germany, and Portugal. There was also quite a heated debate on the tour bus when the tour guide pointed out the school for the deaf and dumb and one of the people on the tour tried to tell him that it was deaf and mute since the people are not "dumb"; it was never resolved as the guide quickly found something else to talk about. The bus then dropped us off at the train that took us up to see the famous statue of Christ which is built on teh highest point in Rio. The artist that designed it found he did not have the know how to complete his plan so he went to Paris to study sculpture for several years before returing to construct the statue.



On the way down there was a Samba band to entertain us.



Our last stop of the day was sugar loaf hill which offered some better views of the harbor. When the Portuguese arrived at the harbor they figured there must have been a river flowing into it and since it was January 1st when they arrived they named it "River of January" I'm sure they were surprised to find there was no river at all but the name stuck. We rode the cable cars up to the top and took in the amazing vistas


There were lots of these "monkeys" called saguis that are something more like a cross between a squirrel and monkey. Anyways, they were cool looking and were all over the place.



The view from Sugar Loaf hill


The next day we took a tour of the Tijuca Rain Forest in the morning and below is a picture from one of the stops. One of the best parts of the tour was a species of tree that grow hollow in the middle and usually has a colony of ants living inside so when the guide hit it with a stick the ants had swarmed out and were all over the place in a few seconds.


On our last day we just hung out at the beach and (fortunately for you) did not take any pictures. Although we did get a good deal on a couple of beach chairs and drank coconut water straight from a whole chilled coconut.