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What a night! Lapa put on quite a show for us last night, Rio is definitely one of the party capitals of the world! I arrived home at about 5am, had a few hours sleep and then got up to head to breakfast.
At around midday we got picked up to do a tour of the main attractions of Rio de Janeiro. First up was the Christ Redeemer - the huge statue of jesus on top of the mountain over looking the. It was absolutely massive when you stood right next to it, and it really was beautiful. The view of the city was also brilliant. We then headed to the lovely town of Santa Theresa, which is on the side of the mountain. It used to have these yellow trams that drove around the town, but after a big accident where the brakes failed killing 4 people, they have ended all trams in Santa Theresa. These were heaps of arty shops to buy overpriced but really original art and craft, and most of the streets were decorated with really colourful graffiti which was so awesome.
Next up we visited the Metropolitan Cathedral in Lapa. It didn't look anything like the generic cathedrals, with a kind of cone shape, it actually looked pretty ugly from the outside. But inside it was really nice, stained glass windows and all that. It was huge - it was fit 10,000 people in it! From there we visited the Lapa steps which was a definite highlight of the tour. They were designed by a mad artist who still lives in one of the houses on the sides of the steps. The mosaic type tiles on the steps have tiles from all over the world including a few from good old nz. They were so colourful and original I really loved them.
After that it was time to head home, because later that night Amanda and I were heading out to meet up with our biker friends from Paraty to go to the worlds largest Harley Davidson convention. Tickets to this ridiculous show were well over $150US so there was no way I'd pass up a free entry to the show, even if I have absolutely no interest in motorbikes at all. They had a popular Brazilian band playing and there was over 30000 people there. When that ended, a guy we met piled us into the back of his paddy wagon style van and drove us to Lapa to continue the night. I love Brazil!
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