In Rio de Janeiro, we threw our bags down at a hostel in the heart of Copacabana, minutes away from the beach. Contrary to all the dangers we kept being warned about Rio, we felt quite safe as long as we didn't wander into any favelas (where the poor live).



For the first two days it felt like we were back in Van (minus the warm weather) since it rained constantly. We didn´t get up to much in the day but managed to see another Samba Rehearsal outside of town, which was a blast! It´s hard to get tired watching beautiful women and men shake their asses and dance around frantically to upbeat samba music.

 

The next night we went to a Lapa street party (a neighborhood in Rio). It´s tough not knowing how to speak Portuguese, although, we sometimes managed to get by with a little spanish. The majority of Brazilians we met speak very little, if any English, but some would try their hand when they heard us speaking. It was quite a scene, the streets were filled with locals and a few weary tourists (way to easy to spot with their bright red burns), and music pouring out of bars. To add to the craziness some locals had their own bars set up on portable tables along the sidewalk where you could get an assortment of mixed drinks. We sampled a Brazilian drink called capirinha, which was tasty (lots of limes, sugar, ice, and booze of course). We found the Brasilians really friendly and fun loving, always wanting to joke around. 

 

The following two sunny days were spent packing in some tourist attractions. We headed for some hang gliding at a place called Pedra Bonita, a take off ramp (altitude of 520m) located inside Tijuca National Park (the largest urban rainforest in the world). Can't get much closer to flying like a bird than hang gliding! We were a little nervous at first but the flight was quite calm and somewhat relaxing. We soared in the air for about 10 minutes before landing on Pepino beach. It was amazing!  Such a great feeling...

 

Later that afternoon we visited the famous 40 m tall christ the redeemer statue, it was massive!  The statue is on top of Corcovada mountain that towers over Rio de Janeiro.  Kind of a cloudy day though so me missed out a little bit on the view, but no worries.  Afterwards, we bused through the nice neighborhood of Santa Teresa to Lapa where we checked out the Lapa steps which are made up of tiles from around the world, and were put together by a Chilean artist (who lives in Lapa) Selaron. The steps were beautiful.  A few designs on the tiles were of Canadian west coast native art.  The following day we took a walk around the famous Rio beaches (Ipanema and Copacabana) and afterwards took a cable car up Pao de Acucar (sugar loaf mountain) to watch the sunset.

The first two days started off with a bust, but we managed to make the most of the two beautiful days we were given during the weekend.   I know, we have it soooo tough...

To brake up our return trip to Sao Paulo for our flight to South Africa on the 19th we headed a small town along the coast called Paraty.  It was a really nice old colonial town.  A good place to stop before taking a bus, more like three buses, to get to our airport hotel for our flight the next day. 

Kind of sad to see the end of the South American leg of our trip, but of course really looking forward to the change in scenery and culture that awaited us in Africa.