Still Don't Speak Portuguese

Trip Start Aug 10, 2008
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15
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Trip End Sep 20, 2008


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Where I stayed
Castelo Valentim
(Rio de Janeiro hotels)

Flag of Brazil  ,
Monday, September 8, 2008

Still in Rio. Today's our last full day, we head to the airport tomorrow for a brief stay in Lima before we move on to the Bolivia/Peru chunk of the trip. I am looking forward to being somewhere Spanish speaking again. My Spanish isn't good, but I can at least read menus and talk to cab drivers and hotel staff in Spanish. Portuguese, not so much.

Yesterday we went up Corcovado, which is where the giant statue of Jesus with outstretched arms is (if you've ever seen pictures of Rio you'll know what I mean). It's also one of the highest points in Rio so you can see the whole city stretched out in front of you in 360 degrees. It was cool, though extremely crowded.

Afterwards we went to Ipanema and wandered our way up the beach, and part of the way up the Copacabana boardwalk. It was a weekend, so the beaches were crowded even though it's winter. The water was cold though, so we stuck to walking along the water's edge instead of swimming. In the afternoon we saw 4 swimmers being rescued by helicopter (they were fine, but the currents are very strong and they couldn't get back to shore) so we were pretty happy with our decision.

We had planned to take the cable car up to Pao de Acucar (Sugarloaf), but the weather turned gray and cold and the mountains were completely clouded in so we skipped it as we wouldn't have been able to see anything. Today is also looking cloudy and rainy, so it doesn't seem to be in the cards for us.
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