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Published: October 7th 2009
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Copacabana beach
The great view from the roof of Orla hotel. Friday 2 October 2009 - Well the day had finally arrived and after some packing and repacking (due to suitcases being a little too heavy!) we set off from Tiverton, Devon with Sally & Neville (the Mundy’s senior). We met up in Windsor in Brown’s for a farewell late lunch with both sets of parents, Liz’s sister and husband as well as little Christopher, who did a very good job of stealing the attention, and also Lyn, our good friend, popped along. After this we headed over to Heathrow with both sets of parents and after another a set of ‘au revoirs’ we headed through the gates for the evening flight on TAM airline (very good service we thought - good food, friendly, attentive air stewardesses, and great selection of movies/TV on demand)...
On Saturday 3rd having caught up on some much needed sleep on the flight we changed planes at Sao Paulo and then eventually arrived in Rio - after two circuits of the city from the air - just as we were coming into land the pilot decided that he wasn’t too sure about landing the plane and so we ascended up to the sky again and did
Andy waiting for the tram
On the trip to the Christ the Redeemer statue. a second circuit of Rio. After finally landing in Rio we were met at the airport by our tour guide, Luiz, who was very excited about the news that Rio had just been awarded the title of host of the Olympics in 2016! Luiz was highlighting various areas and sites to see on the way to the hotel and also information on what was happening in Rio. Andy was informed to watch out for the lady boys and I was to watch out for Andy! The guide’s favourite phrase was ‘Why simplify when you can complicate!’ - this is the Brazillian way of doing things! We were happy when we arrived at the Orla hotel in Copacabana with the beach and the beautiful Rio coastline being right in front of the hotel. The hotel was very nice and good value so if anyone is thinking of a trip to Rio in the future it is one that we would recommend. The breakfasts were especially nice with lots of fresh papaya, pineapple, mango and melon plus lots of pastries and a cooked section too.
Sunday was a partially cloudy day, so we hoped that it would clear a bit before
we reached the top of the mountain with the Christ the Redeemer statue on top. Even though it wasn’t the best weather we still enjoyed the trip up there on the tram through the rainforest (largest urban tropical rainforest in the world!) and seeing round the statue and the views that were partially visible from the top.
With the thought that the weather wasn’t too hot (I mean it was only 25 degrees C on a partially cloudy day!) Andy decided he needed to catch up on some running and set off on a 5 mile run along Copacabana beach! To be fair though even though it was 25 it didn’t feel quite so hot as it would do in the UK, which we suppose is due to the humidity being lower. It seems Andy had remember his rugby sidesteps too, as seeing that Rio had been selected to host the 2016 Olympics a stage had been set up on the beach with thousands of people watching the show and Andy claims he had to sidestep armed police with machine guns that were guarding open top coaches with music bands on. In the evening we had a great seafood
View of Rio de Janeiro
View of Rio de Janeiro from the Corcavada mountain. meal next to Ipanema beach and watched pro surfers who were practicing for the international competition that was starting the next day.
On Monday 5th Oct we took a pre arranged trip up to the top of the Sugar Loaf mountain, the cuttle fish shaped mountain that is usually shown on any pictures of Rio. Roger Moore, as Bond, did a fight scene on one of the two stage cable cars up Sugar Loaf back in 1973! Andy was very restrained on our cable car trip - no Bond stunts this time! Even though there was a little bit of cloud that seemed to cling to the mountains around the coast we saw some great views stretching around Rio from Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, all the way round to the airport and the towns on the northern coast of the bay. On our tour we also saw some of downtown Rio - the pyramid cathedral, the oil company offices (Rio has lots of offshore oil rigs), the historic area with theatres, and the samba schools (used for Carnival parades) and the shanty towns.
Tuesday 6th was a day of leisure with no trips planned so not needing much
View of Rio
View of Rio de Janeiro from the Corcavada mountain. of an excuse we crossed the road from the hotel and spent the day enjoying life on Copacabana beach. The weather was great and we enjoyed just chilling out and enjoying lying on the beach, cooling off in the sea and watching all that was going on, including a helicopter stunt that took place 500 metres from us where 2 guys jumped out of the helicopter about 10 metres up and were then ‘fished’ out of the sea with the helicopter carrying a big fishing net!
On Wednesday we had to celebrate Andy’s birthday with a 2am wake up alarm, which unfortunately we had to have to get us checked out of the hotel and then on to the airport in time to catch our 5.45am flight to Lima in Peru.
The flight was good and we had some fab views of the snow covered Andes mountain range….
Inca trail and Amazon trip up date to follow……
Adios Amigos!!
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