The Girl from Ipanema

We were joined by Dan's friend Federico on our flight to Rio de Janiero, and as our plane reached the city he pointed out the different sites and Jesus on top of the hill, which our plane circled before landing. The airport we flew into in Rio has its landing strip right on the water, which was both really cool and terrifying.

Rio has to be one of the most beautiful cities I've ever seen.

We headed straight to the hostel after agreeing to meet Federico and his friends for dinner. Our hostel by itself wasn't anything special. It was, however, three blocks away from Ipanema Beach, which made it incredible. Because Ryan was only going to be in Rio for two days before flying back to Santiago to meet his parents who decided to visit, he was given full charge over what we would do those two days. Obviously, the first thing we had to do was go visit Cristo Dedentor, which is the giant statue of Jesus on a hill overlooking Rio de Janeiro. We went to buy our tickets but still had a few hours until our train up the mountain departed. We hopped in a cab and went to Santa Teresa, a neighborhood on a hill overlooking the city. The views were pretty great. We found a cute little shop with some souvenirs, but most importantly we tried acai for the first time. You've probably heard of acai, the Brazilian super-fruit, but if you haven't tried an acai smoothie, RUN, don't walk, to the nearest acai dealer near you.

The statue in all its glory.

The view from Cristo Redentor hill.

The best photo we could get a stranger to manage.

We returned to catch our train and started our ascent to the statue. It was a gorgeous day and our views from the top of the hill were amazing. It was packed, so it was difficult to linger too long, but I wished I could have. By the time we left the statue to return to our hostel, we only had enough time to change quickly before going to meet Federico and his friends for dinner. We went to a restaurant that Ryan has been talking about for as long as he has known we were going to Brazil, Fogo de Chao. If you feel like you've heard of this restaurant, you're probably right. This Brazilian steakhouse has expanded and has more U.S. locations than in Brazil. We ate a disgusting amount of food, especially Ryan, before returning to our hostel and rolling ourselves into bed.

The group on Pao de Acucar.

The next day we slept off our food comas a little bit before hitting the trail once again. The boys ate more acai smoothies, and we all headed to Pao de Acucar, or the Sugar Loaf Hill. This is a series of hills reached by telferico (I thought I was rid of telefericos after leaving Ecuador) that offer a spectacular view over the bay. Aside from a few sprinkles of rain, our trip up Pao de Acucar was awesome. We spent the rest of the evening on the hunt for the perfect bracelet for Ryan before stopping at an Irish pub to watch a bit of the Superbowl before Ryan's fight left.

A delicious acai smoothie topped with granola.

 

Although we were in Rio the week before Carnival, the celebrations had already started.

Ipanema Beach at sunset. Awesome.

The next day greeted Dan, Sophie and I with rain and gray skies. We walked to sushi for lunch and had some acai, did a little bit of shopping, and decided that since we couldn't go to the beach, we would treat ourselves to seeing Les Mis at the movie theater. After the movie, which we all agreed was pretty great, we hunted down a restaurant where Dan could eat Feijoada, a typical Brazilian meat and bean dish.

Although it was still rainy and overcast the next day, we decided to walk along Copacabana beach. Even on a cloudy day, Rio is really beautiful. We did a little bit more shopping. Then we went to see a staircase in the city center. The unique thing about this staircase is that the same artist (from Chile, actually) has been making it into a tiled mosaic for years. Sadly, only a few weeks ago, the artist was found dead on the same stairs he spent years working on. It's still unclear what for sure caused his death, but his art is a testament to his talent and I feel honored I got to visit that beautiful site.

Beautiful Ipanema Beach.

Our last day in Rio, we woke up to fairly clear skies. We took advantage of the sunniest weather we had in days and hit the beach for a few hours. We bought our remaining souvenirs. I got a manicure, because: vacation. And we ended the evening with a nice Italian meal. The next day we were all sad to be leaving a place as beautiful as Rio and to be ending our South American vacations, but we were also really excited to head home. And then I realized that when I said home, I meant Santiago, and that was the strangest feeling of all. However, my adventure weren't over quite yet...