Paraty to Rio de Janeiro

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On Friday, the 5th of December (it's hard to believe that we're already have been traveling for more than a month together & that I by now have been away from home for exactly 9 months...) it was a time for us to say bye to beautiful Paraty and take a bus direction Rio de Janeiro. Although the trip took about 4.5 hours (a bit more then usually, because of the road works and the Friday traffic in Rio) but it wasn't boring because of all the views around, - changing beaches, changing types of forests, etc.
Once we've arrived in Rio, we were greeted by Rodrigo and Patricia, friends of mine whom I've skied whole season with in Bariloche.
So, what have we done since:
- The very first night we went to the Copacabana Beach (What a difference from the Copacabana in Bolivia!... :-) ) to walk their dogs and to have some dinner. The sea greeted us with about 3 meter waves (which, we were told is quite unusual for that beach).
- Next day (Saturday) all of us went to a small town about 1 hour drive away from Rio. On the way we've stopped at couple of beaches, but the sea was still mad, with huge waves crashing into the shores. So, no swimming (the water around here is colder too... :-( )
- On Sunday Asta and I took the bikes and went around. In Rio de Janeiro, at the main beaches half of the streets are being closed off for traffic and opened for people to walk, skate, ride bikes, etc. & believe me when I say that there were masses of people doing just that... In about 6-7 hours which we were away, we've done about 50 km but we didn't even really feel it...
- Monday, because the weather was still "holding" (For last 4 weeks Rio has been most of the time overcast and with rain almost every day...) we went to the Sugar Loaf Mountain. That was great!!! The views from both stations, the walks around... just awesome!!! & in the evening all of us decided to have a dinner at the lake Rio city puts up a Christmas Tree in the middle of the lake (the tree is made of steel, so in the light looks pretty bad, however in the night it does light up with different colors)
- Tuesday (today), Asta and I went to see another landmark of Rio - the statue of the Christ... both of us were the same opinion about it - It's OK... But we liked Sugar Loaf much more!

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Photos

View from the Sugar Loaf mountain
Copacabana beach behind me