Rio baby...

Rio - Friday July 21- Sunday July 23. Made the unfortunate mistake of flying to Rio through the international airports so took a bit longer than it could have - but had a very helpful Eugenio pick me up at the airport and then proceed to play Julie McCoy for me the rest of my weekends - negotiating betters deals and times for everything I had already tried to plan! After squaring away the details I wandered out to a pizzeria. Pedro - a 60ish native - tried out his limited English on me "You very Bootiful!" But he did make me take a cab home which was wise as it was already 11:30.

Saturday - woke up not feeling so hot from my cold but took a long stroll on the beautiful Ipanema Beach (where the song "Girl From Ipanema" originated). Took some pictures! The bathing suits are loose speedo types for men which don't leave much to the imagination and thongs for women that truly leave nothing to the imagination! Then I napped in the sun with the waves crashing. Wonderful!

Then a lovely lunch at a little cafe and lots of people watching before meeting up with Andrea to see the Christ and Sugar Loaf. We took the funicular up through the jungle and were entertained part way up by a samba band. They got me up and dancing - I'm sorry to say I let the US down in that department! The Christ was amazing- you could see everywhere. It was also crowded and hot. But we had mango and guava juice and watched a monkey steal a banana. Then Andrea got us as the last 2 passengers on the funicular down so we wouldn't miss the sunset at Sugar Loaf.

Sugar loaf took two ski lift type cars to get to the top. The mid way they do concerts in the summer- that would be amazing. We reached the top just in time for the sunset and some amazing pictures. Frigate birds and others circling - amazing doesn't even start to cover it.

Back to the hotel for a short nap (and a call to David) before heading out to a very touristy but entertaining Brazil Dance show. It went through all the dances of the different regions, including fighting which is now dancing with amazing tumbling ending up with Carnival costumes. The women wearing them must be incredibly strong because they were huge!!

Sunday - Woke up to jump in a jeep to see two favelas, Brazilian slums. The word is from a plant that grows rapidly - because that's what these do/did. The first one was a small one, 1,200 in the national jungle. Very quiet and beautiful. Our guide somewhat annoyingly kept saying how wonderful the people were that lived there and they got a bad rap. I owuld have been satisfied to hear her take on things once - not 20X. I asked some questions about who used the drugs - she replied the drug dealers only hide there, the drugs are too expensive for the folks that live there. A lot of people that live in the favelas have menial service jobs, janitors, maids, bell boys - they make about $200US/month. The second favela we visited was the largest 300,000. It was a huge labyrinth with a lot of trash. Apparently trash is collected and hauled out 3X a day. It was somewhat of a tourist trap in that there were "local artists" displaying their wares. I did buy a CD from a guy that said 12 of the 16 songs were his - he was good. We also watched a young group of men perform the dance/fighting/acrobatics - they were raising money for a place to learn that indoors. Then to a place where they had a deal with the owner to look from his roof toop. Pretty amazing. Angela the tour guide waxed on about how wonderful these people were. Her guide in training seemed to have the more common attitude of young women getting pregnant etc. It made me think how people try to see situations like favelas in black and white when it is a whole lot of grey.

From the favela to San Corado beach where my Glauco, my tandem hanggliding guy picked me up. There was a bottleneck at the top as the winds were bad. But soon everyone starting taking off. I started to get nervous - but before I knew I was running down the ramp! Wheeeeee...... It was amazing. And I have the whole thing on video and pictures! The coolest part was seeing these little lost penguins swimming in the sea. Glauco says they round them up and take them south. Sometimes the babies get lost.

Back to the hotel for a final leisurely walk on the beach and a lovely ocean front lunch/dinner before heading back to Sao Paulo. I was so sad to leave - it was a magical place!

Check out the photos! http://www.kodakgallery.com/Slideshow.jsp?mode=fromshare&Uc=hggnkpd.42cz654h&Uy=tzcy41&Ux=1