Rio!

Last stop in our most excellent adventure - Rio de Janeiro. It's summer, it's warm, and we're staying in Ipanema, a couple of blocks from the beach.

First stop, Christ the Redeemer via cog-wheel tram. Then all around town, driven by Suzannah. We looked at just about every sight on Deanna's list.

The tram up to Christ the Redeemer

Huge stadium for Carnival

Petrobras building. Supposed to look like an oil platform. Many sour faces when mentioning Petrobras.

The cathedral reflected in the skyscraper across the street.

246 feet high, 103 feet circumference, and 3 cm thick glass pieces

The Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian reminded me so much of the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. Is that blasphemy?

One beach after another. Gentle surf for bodysurfing. Lovely sand.

Ipanema is the nearest beach. Suzannah told us that the Girl from Ipanema is 77 years old, married her sweetheart and has 3 kids, and owns the rights to everything "Girl from Ipanema" except the song itself. She's a nice person.

Lunch was a barbecue a la Brazil, where servers slice meat for you at the table

The lunch was barbecue - with a name that sounded like "rotating" or "rodeo" to us. An awesome salad bar for vegetarian Deanna, and servers bringing chicken, beef, pork, lamb, and sausage on skewers and slicing some for me. Ice cream on fruit was dessert. We rolled out of there, and took cable cars up Sugarloaf. We were up in the clouds, so the views weren't the best. We looked down on Red Beach and across to Copacabana.

Heading up to Sugarloaf takes two cable car trips

Sugarloaf is named for its shape. If you pick sugar cane, put it in a basket and press out the liquid, then dump the remains - that's the shape. Or, another story, the Portuguese transported blocks of sugar in conical molds - that's the shape.

Red Beach, and over the hill is Copacabana

After the tour, we bought one more outfit each, appropriate for 95 F temperatures! Then we found a nice restaurant. No wild parties for us. We just crashed.

19 March. Last day of vacation. We borrowed towels and an umbrella from the hotel and were on the beach about 8:30 am. Perfect! We took turns standing in the warm surf while the other watched our stuff. About 10 am, our umbrella shade got too small for both of us and we headed back to shower and pack. Sad.

The hard thing about writing this blog is all the stuff that has to be left out. If you want to see more of our 2000 pictures, maybe the Buddhist temple, or more of Lima, whatever, leave a note below. I'll send you a link or two. Any comments are very welcome!