Hi there!  I woke up to yet another beautiful day in Rio! After another fabulous breakfast (this restaurant really knows how to do brekfast!), our tour group gathered together for our drive to Sugar Loaf Mountain, which sits at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. To get to the top, one must take two cable cars. The first leg of the trip is from Avenida Pasteur in Praia Vermelha, the Red beach District, which takes you to the top of Urca Mountain. Once there, you get the first aerial view of Copacabana and the Christ statue.

The second cable car takes you from Urca to the top of Sugarloaf with an amazing 360-degree view of the region. These are just a few of the many amazing pictures…

And then, off in the distance, you can see Copacabana Beach..

After we descended, we took a drive around the financial district, saw the US Embassy, which, according to our tour guide, is the most secure and guarded place in all of Rio. He did not explain why but I am guessing that the United States has its reasons.  We then drove through the vast areas of parks throughout the city finally stopping at the Cathedral of St. Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro which, as you can see, has a rather unusual look for a Roman Catholic church. But, the interior glows with spectacular stained glass.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we drove through St Teresa,  a quirky little neighborhood to Escadaria Selaron, also known as the Selaron Steps. Chilean-born artist, Jorge Selaron, originally started tiling the dilapidated steps in front of his residence using tile scraps from construction sites. He became obsessed and sold some of his paintings just to fund the project, eventually asking visitors to send him tiles from their home countries. The tiles cover 215 steps and include over 2,000 tiles from 60 countries. Many were hand painted by Selaron who was found dead on the steps January 10, 2013. The steps were even featured on Amazing Race 18 where teams were tasked with finding a tile resembling a route sign. I didn’t find that one but I did find Florida and New Orleans!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Today is a short one as we have to be at the airport by 5:00 AM for our 7:00 AM flight to Iguazu Falls.  So that means getting onto the transport at 4:15.  The hotel is providing us with a limited breakfast so at least there will be coffee.

Rio has been fabulous, quirky, and friendly.  There is great coffee, beautiful beaches, awesome scenery, and very tasty food.  It doesn’t seem to me that very many people speak English and Portuguese seems a little tougher with pronunciations than Spanish.  Of course, now that I’m almost ready to leave, I have finally mastered obrigado (thank you), tchau (good-bye),  banheiro (bathroom), vinho branco (white wine), and socorro (help).

I have noticed that a lot of hotels outside of the United States have this energy-saving mode whereby lights come on the the hallways based upon your motion and, in the room, the electricity does not come on until you insert your room card.  Seems like a good idea to me.

I am finding that I am very definitely enjoying this being with a group.  It is flexible in that you have plenty of free time yet the included and optional tours thus far have been remarkable.  One thing I am loving is that we do not have to stand in line for anything.  The tour people got our tickets ahead of time and basically attend to our every need.  It is nice to have other people to talk to.  Also, for the included meals, we are not eating at “group” buffets but rather in actual four and five star restaurants.  I am finding he tour leaders to be extremely knowledgeable with plenty of little “fun fact” anecdotes.  Speaking of tour leaders, I have attached a picture:  Carlos is our Rio guide and Carol is our complete tour guide as well as our Buenos Aires guide as she lives there. I need to try and get some sleep so TCHAU!