The city of beaches

Our visit to Rio de Janeiro has come to an end and we are now on our return trip back to St. Louis. So how was Rio, well we just loved it. We were lucky in that my family has Brazilian friends that live in Rio, and we stayed with my dads friend's daughter, Mayra who lives in the awesome beach suburb of Leblon, which is the next beach along from Ipanema Beach. So right off the bat, we were in the coolest part of the city, with the beach, great restaurants and views of Christ the Redeemer overlooking the city below. Our first night at Mayra's apartment we got invited to go out to a Samba School with her, her roommate and some other friends. The Samba School was one of the top 3 in the city and a really cool experience. Basically, the school was practicing for carnival that is coming up in February, which means you get the full ,musical experience and get to see the dancers in their costumes etc. It was packed, and the beat of the music was pumping, and even I was grooving along to the beat :-).



The next day Mayra's dad picked us up and we headed to Copacabana Beach to visit his apartment, pickup the rest of the family and then down to the Copacabana Fort (a personal favorite of my Dads) for breakfast while overlooking the beach. We also drove around the city getting the local must see guide. It was great to see Tony and his family as I have not seen him and Mayra since I was a small boy.

Later Danielle and I headed up the 2 cable cars that take you to the top of the famous Sugarloaf Mountain which offered amazing views of beautiful Rio. The cable car ride itself is quite scary as it runs along a 1400-meter route between the peaks of Pão de Açúcar and Cara de Cão.

We met my Dad when he got off his ship and went to a traditional Brazilian Steak House in Ipanema, the food was amazing, but so much :-). The next morning we met Dad again for breakfast and saw him on his way to the aiport. Then since we were in Copacabana we decided to walk along Copacabana, to Ipanema and then on to Leblon. It was a full days walk, but awesome. We got to see all the locals practicing football, others playing volleyball, surfing, amazing sand castles and much much more. When we got to Leblon we decided to hit the beach ourselves for the remainder of the afternoon.



Finally, yesterday we made the trip up to Christ the Redeemer, on top of Corcovado mountain, one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. This was awesome, the statue itself is huge and the 360 degree view of the city below is incredible.








In in all a great trip, but we are happy to be going home.

PS. When we got to the airport today, LAN airlines could not find our electronic tickets and we spent 2 hours trying to resolve the issue. Finally American Airlines fixed the problem, and then we were told that our flight from Santiago to Dallas was canceled. So another hour an a half later we got ourselves on a flight via Sao Paulo to Dallas and leave shortly... 6 months, 20 countries, 44 flights and this was the first cancellation, not so bad.

Take a look at all the video and pics I have uploaded.

Ryan