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We've just spent a wonderful four days in Rio de Janeiro.The city exceeded our expectations with its ludicrously long beaches, soft sand, warm water, mountainous surroundings, modern air-conditioned tube system and high quality tourist attractions.For this short stint, we holed ourselves up in a very discrete B&B, located halfway between the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches.I don't think we could have found a better location and we were looked after very well by a lady we never quite caught the name of... after a certain point, it gets a bit rude to ask.
One of my favourite attractions was the Botanical Gardens, where we were able to get lost in a seriously-oversized tropical jungle, despite still being in central Rio!Here we met some cheeky monkeys, who chased Emma for her carrier bag of goodies... clearly hair conditioner is hard to come by as a stylish young chimp in the jungles of Rio.
Also impressive was the 130ft (40m) Christ the Redeemer statue, which looks down over the city.A packed and slow electric train precariously winds its way up one side of the Corcovado mountain to deliver "I'm-on-a-cross"-posing tourists (I was one of them!) onto a large and very windy platform.Very impressive but the magic wore off when the wind began to mess with Em's hair.
Rio's pièce de résistance, however, must be the Sugar Loaf Mountain - two modern cable cars efficiently ferry the camera-laden masses to a tall mountain over-looking the city.Sounds a bit like Christ the Redeemer, granted, but the essential difference lies in the facilities; namely the tables, chairs and Caipirinhas!Following the instructions of our tourist handbook, we arrived in time to witness the sun setting over the city - the photos won't quite do justice to how beautiful this was, but do please have a look.
All in all, we were very impressed with Rio.It's certainly the most advanced (modern, efficient and well-maintained infrastructure) and well-endowed (both tourist-attraction and body-beautiful-wise!) city we've visited so far.Ayla: in particular look out for the "beach" pic which Emma took for your pleasure only (she assures me) - be sure to be sat down and not holding a hot drink.
Saudé!
Chris
- comments
Lin Another fantastic blog and beautiful, breath taking photos !!! How do you manage to do it. In between trekking through the jungle, jumping on a plane every other day (or so it seems) you still have time to write up some really interesting and entertaining bloggs and upload those wonderful photos. I was going to pick out one or two photos to say how fantastic they are, but I can't. They are all so wonderful. It's making me feel tired just watching and reading about all your experiences, you must be shattered. Thank you so much for keeping us totally updating with your travels, we really appreciate it. Hope you keep enjoying yourselves - safely !! Loads of love to you both, XXXXX