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Wow, a lot to update on! It´s been a hectic 3 days. We started the second day as we ended the first blog, got up a decent time and headed out with walking boots and rucksacks, thinking of maybe 5 mile stroll around town! This prety much developed into a 12 mile hike aorund Rio! And it was awesome. We go to see all aspects of the town (minus the Favelas), the good bits and the rough bits. Just a fantastic experience, with great views and really friendly people... locals who speak English are always coming over if we are looking at a map to see if we need help!
The morning target set was to see the steps at Santa Theresa, the Cathederal and the Sugar Loaf that day. We headed towards Santa Theresa, and afer 9 miles walking and a quick ride on the Metro we made it to top of Santa Theresa, great views of the ciy. We were hungry though! We passed a little 2 table local resraunt and decided to go in! It was good food, fun to test out our language skills (which = zero!) and sit overlooking Rio!
Once the food had settled we toodle off in search of the steps, we had to go to a few deadends but eventually we found them! Tip - if you go to Rio get a good map, the ones from the tourist info are useless! We got to the steps and they were amazing - it wasn´t too busy so plenty of opportuniy to take photos and pick out some the tiles!
Once happy we´d found some English and Welsh tiles (failed on the Maltese tile finding =(!) we headed across the way to the Cathedral. It´s huge and extremely steep from the outside, and to be honest a bit ugly! BUt you can see why they´ve used the design once you are inside, it is beautiful. The 4 stained glass windows are set at 90 degrees from each other and span the heigh of the building. Each one has a different colour base (red, green, blue and orange) and the are so vibrant! And the calm in such a big place is amzing, quite a contrast from the sreets surrounding!
After this we headed off down the Metro to the Sugar Loaf. We missed out on good weather sadly, but the stormy weather added a lilttle drama to the views! Alex nearly pooped himself on the cable car... not quite sure if a bungy jump is such a good idea! At the top we had good views, although the stromy weather was quickly closing in. By the time we got in the cable car to go down we were surrounded by clouds, was pretty cool. We grabbed a corn on the way out and got a taxi home! The feet, particually Carlys needed a rest!
The next morning we got up at the crack of dawn to get the first train to Corcovado, Christ the Redeemer! We got the firs train up the mountain... weather wasn´t great again, but we cracked on! When we go to the top we were quick to get shots of him without anyone in the way! We mooched around for a while but as the crowds came and the weather worsened we headed back down to the hostel. The rest of the day we didn´t do too much, worked out where to head next and booked up some rooms! We´ve now got an extra night in Iguazu and we are then getting a night bus down to Floranopolis, the gateway to Ilha de Santa Catarina.
We finished the night in a local pub for a few beers, was a nice chilled way to end a great few days...
Now we move on to Iguazu, with the plan being a few beers tonight, the falls tomorrow and the dam the day after! We will write more when we can
Much Love
Alex, Carly, Dave and Dan
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