Casi, Casi

7/17/14

We didn’t want to leave Rio without spending a little bit more time at the beach. Sigh – if only we had longer, I would have loved to spend an entire day or two relaxing on the beach after the whirlwind that this trip has been. But alas, we just had one morning to make the most of it, so we strolled along Ipanema and Leblon beaches for a few hours. It was a gorgeous day and the white sandy beaches were picture perfect against a background or crashing waves and tan bodies (good lord, the amount of butt cheek on display was staggering). If only Southern CA beaches were this warm and inviting! [Nick: But both need nice Costa Rican water, which is much warmer. I only wish I could make L.A.’s water warmer.]

Bikini vendor

Sarong vendor

Favela near the beach

Leblon Beach

Leblon Beach to the left

Leblon Beach to the right

We grabbed a cab to take us to the base of Christ the Redeemer (and got a nice drive around the Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas), where my French, of all things in Brazil, came in handy to get us on the tram up to the top of Corcovado Mountain. I have to say, Christ the Redeemer looks A LOT smaller in person. Granted pictures taken from helicopters have the perspective to make the statue (98 ft high) look large and looming over the expansive city, but still; I pictured it to be much larger in my head. The views were spectacular though. Seeing Rio sprawled out from high above during the daytime was really beautiful, with the beaches and the mountains spread all around you. The only bad thing was this horrible sinus infection – at a mere 2300 ft in elevation, the sinus pressure was really intense and, unfortunately, impossible to equalize my ears. Ugh, I had being sick!

Corcovado Tram

Pão de Açúcar & Botafogo Beach

Rio Centro

Pão de Açúcar & Copacabana Beach

Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas

Maracanã Stadium

Corcovado (meaning hunchback) is part of the Tijuca National Park; a secondary forest (originally cut down for coffee and sugarcane) that was restored in the late 19^th century and all that remains of the Atlantic rainforest in this area (46 sq. miles). Sadly, I would only get to see a small sliver of it from the top of the Christ. This definitely isn’t our normal type of vacation where we go tramping through nature and seeing wildlife. (The World Cup is more of an urban jungle trip, I suppose.) And sadly, even though we are in Brazil – home to the world’s largest rainforest – we didn’t have a chance to see any of it. Boo. Oh well, another trip, another time. We were treated, however, to a bit of wildlife (we have seen lots of caracara in the cities, which was really cool!) as we waited for the tram and a capuchin monkey spent a good 10 minutes checking out the pale, hairless primates taking pictures down below. Unfortunately, several people with GoPro’s on extender arms (which, along with mohawks, seems to be THE accessory at this year’s World Cup) would shove their camera too close to the animal and frighten it. Stupid people.

Our second to last night was probably our splashiest night. We figured we only had a little time left in Brazil, so why not. We decided to splurge and go to a churrascaria for dinner, followed by a samba show. The dancing was more than just samba, though; the show included a review of bossa nova and an amazing capoeira performance. As expected, the costumes were outrageous – beyond Vegas with much less fabric and more sequence, if that’s even possible! – with a big carnival finish (we finished the day with even more butt cheek on display but this time, it was doing all kinds of fancy things up on stage!). It was well worth it except for the very awkward intermission where they had an emcee bring people up on stage to sing songs from their home countries. One American couple and a Peruvian man had had way too much liquid courage and it was difficult for the emcee to get his mic back.