Blogs from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, South America - page 221

Hi friends and family! This is my first trip to South America and I have been here for about 5 days. One word can't describe it, but what comes to mind is Incredible! Where do I begin?! Flight was actaully fine considering that I had to take a zillion anti-nausea pills. The crew...Scott(Mr. brazil)...could not have survived without this guy...absolutely a must have kind of guy for such trips...a walking stud who is resourceful. "Crash" would not have been here because of him....LOVE the guy...Truly "a Brother from another mother". He loves the conference here..is actually learning stuff about regional anesthesia. Sam....another bro who is implicated in my being here in Brazil. He keeps you cognizant and real. Ok, just a skeleton of the past 5 days: Day One:Went to the beach.... awesome...and caught some rays ... read more

march 3 2006 well its the third and final day here in paraty. paraty is at the end of a gold trail that lies on the south atlantic. the portugese found gold in a state called minais gerais, about 2500km from this town. they got black slaves in from africa to build a paved road the total distance. the road rises fro sa level to about 2,5km high in the mountains and most of the trail still exists today and tours are oganised on it by companies. we didn t go on any tours of it but we did head up into the hills a little bit to find a river that flowed down from the mountains to pass paraty on its way to the ocean. we got bikes from our pousada and headed of. now ... read more

The Carnaval in Rio is a competition between 14 samba schools from all over Brazil, 10 of which are from Rio. It is much more commercialized than the carnaval in Salvador, but still amazing in many ways. The Carnaval takes place in the Sumbodromo, which is a huge stadium that was built especially for the Carnavals. Each school has something like 2,000 - 3,000 dancers. A school starts the preparation for the carnaval a year in advance: first it chooses a theme, than draws a competition to compose a song for it, and at last invents different customs and samba dances for the song. This competition is a very serious business in Brazil. When the winning schools where announced on the TV, the streets were empty and quiet, like during the final 4 in Israel. This ... read more

Hi everyone, Well, we´ve arrived safe and sound in Rio and already we´ve much to tell...... On Day 1 we hit Copacabana beach and did a bit of altitude and heat training (a mere 32 degrees). In the 3 hours we lay on the beach front we were greeted by the many ´entreprenuers´that walk the sands. Towels, drinks, bikinis, hats, coconuts, prawns, sunglasses, basically we could have done our weekly shop right there and then..... Much to Anna´s disappointment she was not surrounded by pec-perfect Adonis´s that she was hoping for. But on a positive note, the women displayed more cellulite and over-hangs than Chicago´s on a Friday night.....we´re hoping for better down at Ipanema. Day 2/3 was our first spot of sight-seeing. First, we took a cable car to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain ... read more

At sunset I went to the Sugar Loaf - a mountain that oversees Rio, and the view from there was great. It amended the clouded view I had a few days ago from Corcobado. Sugar Loaf & Corcobado are the 2 high points from which you can have the best view of the city.... read more