Rio - The Real Deal

4:00 am-Everybody involved in the interchange arrives at Kathe and Nikki's house to get on the bus to Rio de Janeiro (River of January). And I thought that 7:00 was a bad time. I don't think that I even remember anything that happened in the morning, just after we woke up. Every single person on the bus fell asleep within the first 10 minutes of the bus ride. I was one of the first people to wake up in the morning so I listened to my iPod for a bit. It was very cool to recognize some landmarks and buildings as we were driving into Rio. When I came to Brazil last February with Colorado Children's Chorale, Rio de Janeiro was my favorite place, and we got a very informational tour, and I have remembered a lot.

As we were driving into the city, I pointed out the Christ the Redeemer statue standing with open arms on the top of Corcovado mountain.

Our fist stop for the day was the Christ the Redeemer statue. We all got off of the bus and got in line to get tickets to go take the Trem de Corcovado, the train that takes us up to the top of the mountain. It is about a 20 minute ride, so we bought our tickets and got on the train. When we got to the top, there are exactly 220 stairs (Blake counted) to get to the top point of Corcovado. The view from the top is magnificent. You can see all of Rio and all of Guanabara bay, which is beautiful in every aspect. The statue is breathtaking. It stands so high above our head and watches over the city, it is hard to look up to the top of it it is so tall. We all gawked around for a while and then headed back down the stairs to enjoy some fresh juice and peruse the shops. I found some nice souvenirs and then we headed back down. We got back in the bus and headed for downtown Rio. We drove along Copacabana and Ipanema beaches, both of which are very famous. The sidewalk at Copacabana was pointed out to us-it is one of the most famous sidewalks in the world. We enjoyed some lunch, buffet style, with Guarana of course. We walked to Copacabana and had the chance to walk on the sand and stick our feet in the water, and then it was back on the bus.

It turns out that Rio de Janeiro is a candidate to host the 2016 summer olympics. There was an area that we bought a ticket to that had information about it and some shops that would help pick Rio to host the olympics. We went to a ferris wheel that could give us an amazing view of all of the city. We got on and took in the amazing view. The ride only lasted a few minutes, but it was fun. We walked back to the bus and then drove around Rio for a while. We got to see a lot of the local areas and just see the city. After that we headed to Sugarloaf mountain. 

To get to the top of sugarloaf you have to take a gondola to a smaller mountain, and then another gondola from there to Sugarloaf. We got our tickets and headed up. We didn't spend any time at the first mountain because time was crunched. The view from the top of Sugarloaf is truly breathtaking. You can see everything, even Christ the Redeemer. We hung out at the top for probably about an hour or so. What we were really waiting for was the sunset, and it was truly worth the wait. The view of the entire Guanabara bay, seeing all the beaches and the mountains, and Christ the Redeemer, all silhouetted against an orange sky, it is simply incredible. We all snapped some nice pictures, but no matter how hard we tried, nothing could capture the breathtaking view of this gorgeous city.

We were pried back down the mountain, and then we headed for the bakery to snack on some cheese bread and Guarana, which we inhaled. We all got on the bus, and some of us stayed up and some fell asleep. 

Around 11, we stopped at a mall about halfway back to São Jose for some dinner. We all woke up and realized we were hungry. We shoveled in some food, bought some snacks and hit the road again. This time, almost everybody instantly fell asleep. What seemed like 20 minutes later, we all were woken up by the lights of the bus, back in São Jose. We all cleaned up the bus and headed home and crashed. More tomorrow...