Rio!

We're attempting to see the places listed as the wonders of the world, and the Christ Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro is on the list. For spring break this year we booked a trip to Brazil and Argentina.

 We landed at 6am so we look a little worse for wear in the photo above!

 We took some pictures on the drive from the airport to our hotel. It was rush hour traffic, so it moved pretty slowly. We saw vendors selling food in the middle of the road.

 We saw some of the poor housing on the outskirts of the city. We assumed the blue tubs were their water supply.

 This was our first view of the mountain with the Christ Redeemer statue on it.

After an orientation meeting we went to a restaurant where they served several varieties of meat on skewers. Don't ask me why I didn't get a picture of those! I know they have Brazilian restaurants in the states who do that, too.

                     

Our hotel was right on the beach, and these are some views of the beach from the top of it.

 We could see the Christ Redeemer statue, too, all lit up. There was a full moon while we were in Rio, so the evenings were really nice.

 We were up bright and early to get over to the line to take the cable car up to see the Christ Redeemer Statue. I had to put this picture in of the Brazilian cheese rolls. Adri introduced us to the recipe for these rolls and we've been making them for the past few years. I think hers are better than the ones in the breakfast room of the hotel!

A view of the crowds waiting to go up on the second cable car of the day.

 It was very exciting to be going up to see such an iconic statue!

                                      Definitely lots of tourists!!

         

 It was virtually impossible to get a picture without other people in the background, but we got a couple where we could crop out most of the other tourists.

 There were some amazing views of the bay around Rio de Janeiro. Our tour guide told us there had been flooding in Rio the week before, so we were fortunate we came when we did.

 After seeing the Christ Redeemer statue we went down into the city to do some shopping.

I bought some flip flops at the well-known Havaianas store.

That evening we went to an evening of entertainment at bar(for lack of a better word for it) on the Copacabana beach.

 We had the non-alcoholic fresh coconut juice. You can see what Kent thought of it by the expression on his face.

 We didn't stay too long, but walked down along the beach looking for a souvenirs, specifically a nativity set for my collection.

We didn't find any, but saw some other interesting buildings sand sculptures.

I wanted to go into the Copacabana Palace but we never had the time, It wasn't far from our hotel.

The next morning our first stop was to the sky tram that would take us up to Sugar Loaf Mountain, another place to see great views of the city.

The trams were quite large and fit about 30 people in them.

   

Here are some of the views we got of the harbor.

 Behind me on the tallest peak to the right is the mountain top with the Christ Redeemer statue.

 Afterwards we went into the city to see some sights there. These steps were famous for having tiles from all over the world.

 Again you can see how popular it was with the tourists!

Our last stop was at a Catholic Cathedral built in the 1960's.

To me it looked like a building from a sci-fi movie.

 The stained glass on the inside was pretty, though.

There was a statue of Mother Teresa on the grounds.

While we were there they were having a Palm Sunday service.

 
We flew out very early the next morning (our wake-up call was at 2:15am!) on our way to Iguazu Falls. We had a short layover in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and it was at a small shop in the airport that I found a small nativity to buy for my collection.

Good bye to Brazil!!