The day we saw christ...the redeemer statue

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Today we were due to change hostels again, this time moving away from the main beach area and into the pleasant suburb of Botafogo. We had already been there acouple of times this week so we were very comfortable with the area. After a couple of bad weatehr days in rio we were hoping we would wake up to nice weather as we wamted to get to see the christ statue, which you can only see when it is a clear day.

Today our prayers were answered. We woke up to see there was not a cloud in the sky. We were determined to make the best out of the day, so we got up at 9am and planned to make ur last walk around Copacabana, strolling along the beach front and enjoying the gorgeous surroundings together.

Unfortunately we had to get back to the hostel and pack for our move across town;

So after our bags were packed, breakfast consumed and we hd checked out, we made the jurney to our new hostel. We arrived and got ourselves checked in straight away. We had our own room together, it was nice and clean but a little small. You couldn´t swing many cats. But the main thing is that we had a/c so were still happy as this is an essential feature to a room.

Our main tourist activity together was to see the Christ the Redeemer statue and with the need to feel like a backpacker we went against organized tours and decided to do it ourselves. So we got a taxi to teh small town of Cosmo Velho. Here was the train station where you can catch trains up to Corcovado- the hill that the statue is on. We arrived around 3 but trains were fully booked until 5;30, so we sat and waited patitently in the park until it was our turn. We were not bothered about waiting as it meant we could see the sun setting whilst we were up the hill.

The trains were pretty cool looking. They were the only ones in Brazil that use logs to connect it to the line. It took roughly 20 minutes to take us up the hill. The journey was not as pretty as i thought it would be as the trees lining the track meant we didnt really get a good view until the top.

When up at the top the views of the city were very breathtaking. They almost made us forget about the reasons we went up there in the first place. The satue was as impressive as i imagined it to be. He was even kind enough to have his picture taken with the both of us. The most amazing thing was when the clouds went by as we were just above them. When they passed we could not see anything through the mist. Even the statue would disappear. This made us realise why people dont come up on cloudy days. We also got to see the sun setting over the hills whilst we sat on a wall together, it was very romantic.

The whole area was very entertaining and very worth while; we were very happy the weather cleared up for us to see the sights.

We decided to get the 7pm train back down which meant we got back to the hostel for 8. we just went straight over to the shopping centre where we had a fine selection of restaurants to eat at. We settled on a place called B52 which did random foods. After eating we pretty much went straight to bed.

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