Arriving into Rio is quite interesting, you drive in through the favelas (slums), where the houses are just built on top of each other, all in this red light weight bricks. Then come into the nice suburbs of Rio with big apartment blocks and fancy buildings. It is a city of contrasts. It is quite a surreal feeling to see places like sugar loaf mountain and Christ the Redeemer, places that you know from photos and movies, and then to catch a glimpse of them on the skyline. Rio was a place that I had heard mixed reviews about, so due to what turned out to be unreasonable paranoia, I had booked us into a nice hotel just one building back from Copacabana beach. Now after dorm rooms this place was a palace! We were met
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