We boarded our flight from Iguassu around 3:30 and were on our way! We landed around 5:30, but unfortunately mom and I both had aisle seats and by the time we made it out of the airport it was dark so we didn't see much of the city that night. We did decide to go a little crazy though, and we walked around at night! No early bed time for us! Well...kind of. First impressions of this city? I loved it! But let me back up to our car ride from the airport to the hotel. It was considered rush hour, and there was tons of traffic on the highway. On our side of the highway the cars were moving and traffic wasn't as bad, but on the other side cars were mostly stopped and so because of this there were people just hanging out in the middle of the highway, selling things! What?! Can you imagine if during rush hour people did that here? Insane! And don't get me started on the driving. These Rio people are crazy. They do whatever they want. Especially motorcycles. Forget the two lanes on the highway, they just drive right down the middle...no big deal. My mom nearly had a heart attack - ha!
Once we arrived to our hotel and settled in, we hit the beach! Ahhhh love love loveeed being at the beach. The smell of salt in the air...so refreshing :) It was the perfect kind of night. The weather was gorgeous, the sky was clearing up (apparently they had rain for 3 days straight before we came, we were seriously lucky with weather!) and everything was just perfect!
After walking along the beach for a bit and coming across a local market, we headed into the downtown area to explore some. There are many little supermarkets in downtown, called Zona Sol, so we decided to pop in one just for fun! They reminded me a lot of the little supermarkets in Italy. My favorite thing in the supermarket?
Big bottles of Stella!! I kid, I kid. But I do love my Stella...and seeing it in other countries makes me happy. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though? For dinner mom and I decided to pick up some goodies from the supermarket (water, chips, cookies, the usual...) and head back to our hotel to order some room service. Pizza it was! And it was sooooo good.
It was the perfect meal after a long day of exploring and traveling!
On Saturday we had a scheduled city tour with our tour guide, but since the weather was a little iffy, we rescheduled it to Sunday to be sure that it would be sunny. Which means...WE COULD FINALLY SLEEP IN ON SATURDAY! WE HAD NO SCHEDULE! Oh it was wonderful. Saturday was the perfect kind of day after a week of tours and exploring and early mornings. Although we still managed to wake up by 8, how did that happen? Sheesh, mom and I really know how to sleep in...ha! We woke up to gorgeous blue skies and a hot summerish day! Although technically it's their 'fall' season. First stop on our agenda Saturday, The Lagoon!
We passed this lagoon on the way in and I automatically fell in love with it. Even though it was dark as we came in and we couldn't really see anything, I saw people running around the water and people boating on the water...my kind of place. There's a walking/running/biking path along the perimeter of the lagoon and it is beautiful! So many people were out running that morning, it made me really wish I were one of them.
Mom and I weren't sure how long the path was, but we decided to walk around the whole thing anyway! Did I mention yet that I was in sandals? I wasn't prepared for a super long walk, but that's what we got. The next day we asked our tour guide how long that path was around the lagoon and what was his response? 8k. That's 5 miles. 5 miles in sandals. No wonder my feet hurt! But it was totally worth it.
We tried coconut water for the first time (gross!)
We worked out outside...
This was one of my faaavorite things that we saw. They have outdoor gyms!! I was kind of in love and we really need some of these bad boys in Raleigh, asap. How perfect would that be on a gorgeous day?
We saw many gooorgeous views...
We saw some dog training, we passed countless bike rentals (but never rented one, boo!), we saw 2 rowing schools, we passed people playing tennis, soccer, basketball, people skating... etc. These people are so active! I love it so much. I think I could seriously see myself living in this city. But first, to master Portuguese. I learned the hard way that it is nothing like Spanish...
After our long walk around the lagoon we headed out to the beaches! Oh gosh, the beaches...I loved them! The sounds of the waves crashing, the smell of the salt water, the delicious salty fries and beer. Ah it was perfect. First we stopped at Ipanema Beach, where we took some pictures, saw a surf competition (we think?), had the most DELICIOUS ice cream ever (I'm thinking the fact that we were dying of thirst and hot made this Nestle ice cream even more amazing...), and listened to a band for a bit.
We headed back into the city to first stop and get some Havana's - a must have in Brazil, and then head over to Copacabana beach! This was where we were staying, and it was gorgeous! Beautiful blue water, the city behind you, and Sugar Loaf off in the distance...it was perfect :) We had a wonderful afternoon relaxing at the beach!
For dinner we headed out to a restaurant that we had passed earlier that smelled amazing and boy was it as good as it smelled! Steak, french fries, and delicious, buttery, mashed potatoes. Yuuuummmm...
We relaxed and walked around for the rest of the night, enjoying the nice warm beach weather :) Have I mentioned yet that I could live here? Because I really could... who's with me?
Day 2 in Brazil was our City tour day! We woke up bright and early, went out to meet our tour guide, and headed straight to the Christ the Redeemer Statue!
Oh, but before we left our part of the city we managed to see some partiers that were still out from the night before. Y'all, it was 8:30am. Birds were chirping, the sun was shining. These people had not gone home yet...they are hardcore in Rio! Obviously that was not mom and I on this trip...
Anyway, back to our tour. To get to the statue, you have to take a little trolley/train type thing up the back of the mountain through the Tijuca Rainforest. I was expecting to see tons of monkeys along this little trip, but sadly we only saw one and it was pretty far away. Still cool though! Once we got to the top, we had many stairs to walk up and then we were there! Ahhh...such gorgeous views. Rio is so beautiful. I love that there's the city, the beach, and some mountains thrown in there as well. It makes it so unique and incredible.
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| See that body of water in the middle of the city? That's the lagoon mom and I walked around. |
And this wasn't so bad either...
Man, it was huge! I don't know what I was excepting, but wow. Nothing like Cristo Blanco in Cusco...obviously ha. We were really lucky with the weather this day (and all days really!), even though it was a bit cloudy it still didn't block out any of the views or the statue...it was beautiful!
And of course, we had to do this...
When in Rio, bust out your terrible towel and show some Steelers pride... ;)
After staying up there for a bit, taking some pictures, and avoiding the massive amount of tourists at all costs, we headed back down and went over to the Botanical Gardens. At first I was kind of whatever about going to the gardens... I mean we have that in America, I see gardens all the time. But I'm so glad we made this stop! All of the plants and trees were just so much bigger! They were all really pretty and the gorgeous plants paired with the beautiful blue sky made it for a relaxing late morning walking around :)
We even saw these cute? little guys. I can't remember what they're called but I think they're from the monkey family. They were definitely interesting looking....
Mom and I decided that they kind of have faces that resemble an old man. They just seemed very human like. Kind of weird in a cute way.
We continued walking around the gardens and ended up on a beautiful walkway surrounded by really tall palm trees. The bark was really colorful and a lot different than any palm trees that I've seen in the US. This was by far one of my favorite places in the whole gardens...it was so pretty. And at the end of the walkway we were met with an antique looking, gorgeous gateway.
I'm really glad we were able to walk around the gardens, especially since it wasn't technically on our tour!
Next stop...Sugar Loaf! I won't lie to you guys, I was pretty nervous about going up to Sugar Loaf. To get there you have to go up by these little cable car things and that kind of freaked me out. Being suspended in this 60 passenger thing by one cable up above you? Not my idea of fun. BUT I survived! And by the time we were heading back down I actually enjoyed it. First we went up to this other mountain (are these actually considered mountains? Probably not...) that's in front of Sugar Loaf, and of course I can't remember the name of it...if it even had a name. From there we got out, took some pictures, and then hopped on another cable car that took us to the top of Sugar Loaf! Oh my word those views were breathtaking. The Christ Statue, the city, and rolling hills (mountains?) were stretched out on one side, while on the other side there was crystal clear, beautiful blue water, and beaches beaches beaches! Ahh I loved it.
One big thing in this area that we didn't know about ahead of time was that people love to rock climb. But not just anywhere, no, these people are climbing up the side of Sugar Loaf. Umm, what? That seems like a straight up incline! How in the world are people doing this? We actually saw some people climbing up the side of Sugar Loaf and others repelling down (I think?) from the other, smaller, mountain in front of Sugar Loaf. Bunch of crazies.
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| If you look closely you can see two little dots, those are people... |
For our last stop of the day, before heading off to the airport for our flight home (boo!) we headed to Porcao, one of the Barbecues in Rio. What they call Barbeque's are actually our version of Steak Houses. Except totally different. So, we're ushered in to our table, given a picture of a cow with the different pieces of meat on the cow labeled, and then told that there's a buffet with 'appetizers' and to flip our card over whenever we're ready. What? A card? Ready for what?! I was very lost. So okay, mom and I head up to the buffet to get some starters. These starters could have been my whole meal! Salad, shrimp (so good!), salmon, pasta, etc. It was deeeelicious. And along with that we're also given Empanada's which were completely amazing. I could have had a bunch of those and been totally happy.
Once we've finished our starters, mom and I decide to flip our card over and see what happens. One side of this card is red and says something like "No thanks!" while the other side is green and says "yes please!" (maybe? honestly I don't remember plus it was in Portuguese...). When you flip the card to the green side it means that you are ready for your MEAT! All of these guys that are walking around with meat on skewers come over to you and just start offering you tons and tons of different types of meat. Oh my word, there was a lot! And it was gooood. I tried so much, I don't even remember what. I do know that I loved the Ribs, and sadly never found the Filet Mignon, so who knows what happened to that.
So you think that food is enough, right? That's what I thought too. But as we're eating our steaks, we're then gifted 4 different types of sides. Seriously, they're trying to make us fat. French fries, fried bananas, rice, and onion rings. And it was all sooooo good. I ate so much.
And to top it all off, we had an amazing desert! I got a chocolate cake with ice cream and the cake was melted on the inside and it was to die for. But no of course I didn't take a picture. Oh, and did I mention that all of this was included with the tour? Peeeerfection :)
Needless to say, Mom and I feasted. Our bellies were so full that I never wanted to see another piece of meat again. But it was delicious!
We walked around behind the restaurant for a bit, soaked up the last bit of Rio, and then were off to the airport.
We had a lot of time to kill in the airport (we were there by like 5:30 and our flight was at 9) so we did lots of wandering around in the various stores. Finally we boarded our flight, and were on our way back to the good ole United States. After 18 hours of traveling, we were in Raleigh! First top? Mom needed some Starbucks and I needed a chocolate milkshake...even though it was only 11am :)
We had SUCH an amazing trip and I am so thankful for all of the things that we got to see and adventures we got to experience! Can't wait to go back ;)
And because I had planned on posting this on Thursday afternoon, I had also planned on sharing my amazing memorial day weekend plans with you...but that failed. But better late than never right? This weekend I jetted off to NYC with some friends and my cousin to visit our friend who is now living in The Big Apple! If I could describe the weekend in two words I would have to say that it was amazingly exhaustive. Does that even make sense? Maybe not. So, be on the lookout for a NYC post soon! Once I catch up on life and get back to feeling normal. Hope you all had a wonderful long weekend :)
Happy Tuesday!
B.Hines
all photos copyright Brittany Hines, please don't steal :)
