After 16 years I finally got to go back to my beloved Brazil. This was a dream come true for me. David had to go as part of his school program and as soon as I knew he was going, I knew I'd be tagging along. We went the week before his program started so we could enjoy the sites together. This picture was in the airport ready to board our flight.
On the plane I was giddy with excitement over our arrival. We took a red eye flight, so as soon as it was light enough and I knew we were close to landing, I took my first glimpses of Brazil from the plane. I could not believe I was actually going to be there soon! Before our trip, when I was planning all I wanted to do, I was so worried that David would rely on me the entire time to get us around, since I speak the language. But honestly, I was pretty rusty. Now in hindsight, I did pretty awesome!! The first day or two were rough, but by the end of our stay, I was pretty darn proud of myself.
Just off the plane, the first place I saw was this Casa do Pao de queijo and I immediately stopped and bought some. They were actually a disappointment... I think they'd been sitting in the case for too long. But we definitely got our fill of yummy ones throughout the week.
We actually has a layover in Sao Paulo and then flew into Rio de Janeiro. By the time we got to our hotel and felt settled, it was nearly dinner time and we were starving. We set out to explore around the hotel. We stayed in Copacabana. We found a place that I felt like I could probably order us some dinner. I wish I'd taken a picture of the giant platter of food they brought, but it was so delicious that we devoured it pretty quickly.
Then we bought a couple of Guaranas and walked down the Copacabana beach.
I was surprised how empty it was. In my mind I imagined Copacabana being packed with people sunbathing in suits that barely covered anything. It was early spring, so not super warm yet. But the beach was mostly full of people playing soccer or volleyball, or a combination of the two. We decided to head back to our hotel and go to bed, because the next day was going to be long.
The next morning we were up early to go on a full day tour of Rio. We had to meet our tour guide in front of our hotel. She spoke English very well and did an amazing tour for us.
Our first stop was the Christ the Redeemer statue. This place has been on my bucket list ever since I knew it existed. It was surreal to finally be there. We were lucky there was no fog this morning, apparently most of the time it's too foggy to even see the statue. We had beautiful clear skies and we were there so early that the crowds hadn't arrive yet.
And the view was incredible from the top. You could see all of Rio and Sugar Loaf Mountain. I could not stop smiling and was just in awe that I was finally back in Brazil. This country will always hold a special place in my heart and in my memories.
We then left to head to Sugar Loaf Mountain. We had to take two different cable cars up to the top. The one stopped here, at a smaller little mountain. And then we caught another one to the actual top.
Here I am in the cable car. It was huge and probably held 75 people.
From there we had a pretty amazing view of Copacabana Beach, where we were staying. You can see in the picture below that the beach is pretty secluded and cut off by the mountains. Copacabana was originally a little fishing town, that didn't have great access to Rio de Janeiro. But once tunnels were built through those mountains, it grew into a large tourist location. You can't see too well in this picture but Ipenama Beach is just around that top point of beach in this picture.
I'm not really sue what this little guy is, but he was cute and definitely unexpected to see him there. We later saw more and more monkeys and creatures in the trees and just walking along the paths.
Our tour then took us to this church. I'm not sure I understood why we went there, but it was so intricately decorated. All the details in that place were amazing and well preserved.
After the church we went to the Sambadrone where Carnival is held. It's so funny to see the actual place, because on tv and in pictures the location looks huge and so crowded. Of course Carnival wasn't taking place and the it wasn't decorated to the nines, but we were still shocked at how small the actual venue was. It was fun to learn about Carnival.
Then we arrived at this church, which seems less than beautiful outside. In fact it was pretty ugly and unusual looking.
But that odd cone shape gave way to some gorgeous stained glass windows inside. These pictures don't even do justice to just how beautiful they were. This first picture is looking up at the ceiling where the four windows meet in the middle, creating sort of cross.
And our last stop for the day was the Selaron steps. These steps were created by an artist who initially started by using only blue, green and yellow tiles, but soon people from all over the world were sending him tiles to use. Now every color of the rainbow can be seen and there are tiles from all 50 states as well as many other countries. It was in a super shady part of town, and was way over crowded. We only got to spend maybe ten minutes there. I wish we had gotten more time. I think I could have spent several hours there. It was just so pretty and I liked seeing where each different tile came from. The stair case when up the whole side of the hill.
After that long day of touring we got a couple of chairs and sat on the beach taking in the sounds and smells around us.
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