Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Tastes and Sights of Rio de Janeiro

Our journey recently led us to the colorful, eclectic country of Brazil and our first stop was Rio de Janeiro to see Copacabana and Ipanema beaches. The sun was blazing and people were loud, friendly, and vibrant. Personally, I was looking forward to finally getting a really good selection of seafood and seeing the Christ the Redeemer statue on Corcovado mountain. Well neither one of those disappointed me! The massive statue of Jesus Christ with his armed outstretched is just as impressive as we'd expected. We kind of went picture crazy and also bought a small replica of it for memories sake. And I promptly began stuffing myself with sole, shrimp and other stuff from the sea.

Another treat was seeing Sugar Loaf with its amazing views and the excitement of riding so high above the ground in cable cars. We were hot as anything in those cable cars in the jungle weather but it was really fun. When you find shade up on the hilltop it brings a nice breeze along.

Oh, and Ipanema Beach...what a busy, crazy mix of locals, tourists, and salespeople everywhere. You can basically lay on the beach all day and at the same time be fed caipirinhas and shrimp skewers, buy a whole new wardrobe, and get amazing shiatsu massages where they make your joints crack in places you never expected. Who doesn't love the beach?

We're now in Natal up in northern Brazil for 2 weeks and we spent most of yesterday watching Inauguration Day at our beach house! More about Natal later...for now, take a look at our Rio slideshow.

2 comments:

DC Mamma-Wanna-Be said...

I wish I was there!!!!!!

Anonymous said...

welcome back! >sigh<
I love Rio.