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Published: December 13th 2006
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Because I'm doin just fine in Brazil! We've moved on from Buenos Aires once again and finally made it to a real beach... with real sand, and waves! No more rocky craggy ports or bizarre dirt/grass beaches. Rio is without a doubt the most naturally striking place we've seen yet. Tons of beautiful beach, mountains jutting out of the ocean, island chains just off the coast, coconuts growing on the trees that line the streets, and the gigantic statue of Christ the Redeemer high upon the hill watching over it all.
The first two nights we spend on Ipanema beach. Ever hear the old bossanova song "The girl from Ipanema?" This is the place. This is a pretty high class / fashionable / expensive part of town. There's a ton of good shopping around here.. and some of the nieghborhoods could easily be mistaken for Westwood or Santa Monica. We've found brazil to be pretty expensive all the way around. We could find a steak meal in argentina for 3-6 bucks. On the beach here you're not going to eat for any less than 10, and probably more like 15-20 bucks if you want something decent. Also it costs
First drinks in Brazil
My Caipirinha (the national drink of Brazil), and Devin's Pina colada. Leave it to Devin... Haha about $2.20 just to start the meter running in the cabs here. Thats as much as it cost us to get all over town in Buenos Aires or Montevideo. Also if you don't watch it, the cabbies around here wll try to not use the meter and hustle you. There seems to be more of this street hustling going on here than in any other place we've visited.
For the second two nights in Rio, we relocated to Copacabana beach to see a little different side of town. This beach is less ritzy and things are slightly cheaper over here... including the hotel, which is why we didn't stay all 4 nights in Ipanema. Weve attempted to do some shopping around here, but most everything is so Americanized that it really wouldn't be much of a souvegnir. Weve visited a ton of malls, including one with 600 stores which is reputedly the largest mall in Latin America. We thought maybe we'd find some shirts with some Portuguese on them or something.. but there are NONE. The shirts are ALL in English. Everywhere. It's bizarre. Ive been past probably 1000 stores in brazil.. and have been unable to find myself
a single shirt with writing on it that wasn't english. I take that back, I did see a shirt that said "Carpe Diem". ANyhow another odd factoid about Brazilians is that they apparently just loooooove pizza. 80% of restaurants here are pizzarias.. and all the biggest restaurants are pizzarias. They love their pizzas.. the just can't seem to make one. All the pizza here seems to be more reminiscent of a quesadilla than a Pizza. Very very thin, very floppy, lots of cheese and little to no sauce. Not necessary all bad, but definitely not a pizza as we think of pizzas.
I'm happy we managed to get out and about here and check off a lot of our siteseeing goals for the place. We made it to the top of sugarloaf mountain, which gives an incredible view of the coastline, city, lagoon, and mountans all at once. We also took the cable car up to the foot of the "Christ the Redeemer" statue. An even more awesome view.. that is, when the fog / clouds would allow for it. It was very overcast the day we went up, and I had my doubts about whether or not we'd
see anything at all. When we got to the top the visibility was zero. Luckily we waited awhile and a few breaks in the fog developed long enough for to get some decent views and take some pictures. The view from Corcovado (the mountan the Christ stands on) is probably the neatest thing I've seen since I've been in South America. Seeing the Andes from the air is pretty awesome as well.. Another goal I checked off the list was to drink something out of a coconut. Done! One more thing on the list was to eat at one of the churrascarias here that operate on the rodezio system. These churrascarias are steakhouses. They cook endless kinds of meat over a spit, and the waiters roam around the room with the giant skewers in hand. When you see something you like coming by you flip over this disc that you have on the table from the red side (which means no thank you) to the green side (which means stop and gimme some meat), and they'll stop and carve you off some tableside. This continues on until you can't handle it anymore. We ate at an awesome one called Porcao.
Rios sidewalks..
Have to be the best in the world. All hand laid stone, in different intriguing patterns is all over the city. I believe in the one meal, I had about 4 or 5 different cuts of beef, some lamb, chicken, sausage, shrip, salmon, and more. It was a pretty pricey place, but you WILL leave satisfied.
Anyhow I believe I've rattled along enough for this chapter. By the next time I make another entry we'll be at our last stop before returning home, Santiago Chile. Until then, I miss you all back at home. Hope you enjoy the pictures. Stay tuned for the next installment! Byebye for now.
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Dad
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More Meat
Churrascatias huh?