Day 12: At the Copa, Copacabana

It's finally our last day... quite sad. To prolong the goodbye, we spent the entire day on the beach of Copacabana. And we have absolutely zero regrets about it. We got coconut water, more caipirinhas, and delicious sauteed shrimp for lunch, and we even got serenaded multiple times by the men going up and down the beach with their instruments (note: this was not unique to us). It was a glorious 5 hours outdoors in the sand and sun, so glorious that we found it hard to leave. But leave we must :(

Of course we had to take more beach pictures. What else would you expect at this point? :)

We also were impressed at all the things these guys could carry up and down the beach. They must be in fantastic shape.

Flags! Of all the countries we'd been to (and then some)

And one of the lovely serenades. Complete with a foot tickle from some man... I was not amused and couldn't think of anything to say except, "That escalated quickly" because really... how do you respond to that? Perhaps "No me tocas!" (Don't touch me!)?

Delicious, delicious sauteed shrimp on the beach, and batatas fritas! And our legit coconut waters, they put the bottled/can stuff to shame. 

Since not much more of note happened today, we decided to dole out superlatives to the places we visited so that each of you, if you ever go to one of these destinations, will know what to expect! You're welcome in advance.

• Best mountains: Santiago! You can't compete with that view of the Andes
• Best coffee: Buenos Aires! Special mention being able to get coffee at a Harry Potter themed cafe
• Best place to meet up with a friend abroad: Buenos Aires! Meeting up and hanging out with Ryan was a game changer. The best person to know if you're abroad!
• Best beaches: Rio! I mean.... yeah.
• Most likely to rain: Buenos Aires! We didn't have a single dry day...
• Most likely to be sunny: Rio! Probably goes hand in hand with the beaches thing?
• Best food: Santiago! This one definitely goes to BocaNariz, although Rio had some yummy food as well
• Best waterfalls: Iguazu! You're kidding yourself if you think anywhere else in the world has more majestic waterfalls.
• Craziest hike: Rio! This one goes out to all the people who have done the hike up Corcovado, whether it was the jungle trail or through the favela.
• Best bookstore: Buenos Aires! You can't complete with El Ateneo, it's a freaking theatre! A theatre!
• Best service: Rio de Janiero! Fogo de Chau had some great service ;)
• Best wildlife encounter: Iguazu! We saw monkeys, coaties, and a TOUCAN
• Best empanada: Buenos Aires! Light and fluffy and delicious (although all other entries were quite yummy as well)
• Best towel: Santiago! Our hotel hooked us up with some seriously huge towels. It was awesome.
• Best Sky Club lounge: Rio! They have pao de queijo. Enough said.

If there are any other categories you'd like awarded... feel free to reach out and request a winner!

Day 11: Climbing Corcovado

For our second day, we decided to do the hike to see Christ the Redeemer. I knew it was a possible and Mari wanted to do a hike in Rio so this was it! I even found a nice TripAdvisor blog with instructions on how to access the trail, so were were like, this will be easy!

First, it was a struggle to catch a bus to the park we needed to go to. There was a bus parked (PARKED) in front of the stop so all the other buses just pretty much went around it or got backed up so it was hard for us to see the bus numbers we were looking for. That should have been our first hint it wasn't going to be as easy as we thought. It was like the universe was saying "just take the train!".

After 10 minutes, we gave up and grabbed a taxi and it let us out a little more than 3/4 mile from the park. Possibly hint #2? But we got to the park without issue, got instructions to the trail-head and we were off! We even stopped and put our names down for the security guard at the bottom of the trail. He kind of laughed at us (potentially hint #3) and told us it would take about 2 hours. No big deal, we thought, the TripAdvisor post said 60-90 minutes so we got this.

And then we began the hike in earnest. It was steep like the review said but nothing unmanageable, so piece of cake! And then we got to the top of the "waterfall". It was then like a ladder it was so steep. Thank goodness for the tree roots that created steps and hand holds for us. We had seen another couple just ahead of us and they must have been cyborgs because this trail seemed to be child's play for them. Not so for us. We went higher and higher and were like, we must be getting close! But alas, Jesus was still far above us.

So you have a visual of the trail, these pictures do an okay job of demonstrating some of what we faced. Like I said, thank goodness for the trees to make sure we maintained our balance. We also came up with a song, to the tune of Barry Manilow's Copacabana. Mine: Her name was Cheryl, she was climbing Corcovado, and she feared she would die as she made her way up high. Mari: Her name was Mari, and it was a struggle, she was careful of the roots, and tried not to toot. Pretty clever if we do say so... but the riotous laughter didn't help us catch our breaths much, oh well!

We could see the statue! But... not quite there yet. We made a friend though! We were excited to see the monkey until he kept getting closer to closer to us, then brought friends, and all we could think of was the crazy monkeys in Hunger Games 2... so then there was extra motivation to move quickly.

Eventually we reached the "rope" the guard told us about, which was a chain that you used to keep yourself steady as you essentially rock climbed for about 20 feet up the mountain. No big deal.

The famous rope chain. We conquered.

As you'll be able to see from the pictures, WE CRUSHED IT! A lot of sweat, some run-ins with monkeys, and maybe some blood from scraping a rock, but we did it! It ended up taking us about 90 minutes (less than the guard estimated for us, so there!), but we were quite proud of the feat. 2329 feet in altitude covered in a little over 3 miles. We're ballers. But clearly not as big of ballers as the couple who scaled it much quicker than us.

The tracks that  the lazy train takers use. We crossed as we were on our journey to climb to the very top. But hey, we got rewarded with this view! And once we chugged water and gatorade... we were looking pretty good if I do say so.

Yep. Started from the very bottom, and then there we are.

Selfie! And then some views of Sugar Loaf

Then we decided to get silly and do some funny poses...

Mostly to imitate the poses we were seeing around us. And the man who took at least 50 selfies (I wish I was joking) while holding prime real estate along the wall. Jerk.

After that feat, we went back to the beach and decided to reward ourselves with some chocolate and relaxation. It was glorious. We then filled up our bodies at a churrascaria because apparently climbing 2329 feet builds up quite the appetite.

I wanted to go to Porcao Rio but apparently it closed some time in the past two years so our hotel recommended Fogo de Chau. I know, I know, it's a chain but when you're hungry, you take what's on offer. And it turned out to be a great decision. We tried all the meat, and I even got Mari to try chicken hearts! And although I finished the ones on her plate for her, she did well and ate an entire one (though to be fair, they are quite small)!

We also had some celebratory caipirinhas, one of which was quite strong. We decided this may have been because we were joking with the waiters and they took a shining to us. This was especially apparent as we were paying the bill. One waiter that we hadn't even seen the entire night came over to tell us he hoped to see us in Lapa later (this is the nightclub district). Um, thanks? And then aswe were leaving, a horde of waiters all told us Boa Noite (good night). It was all extremely random but also flattering. Thanks boys for the ego boost! But we had no intention of meeting them in Lapa. I'm sure they'll recover someday.

Chicken hearts! And I guess who could blame those waiters with us dressed like this ;)

Day 10: Roaming in Rio

It may have taken 300 laps around Rio in the sky before landing but we finally made it to our last leg of the trip: Rio de Janeiro! Given that we'd had many an early morning, we decided to sleep in a bit before beginning our tour of the city. Many of you know I was in Rio two years ago as part of our World Cup trip, but I was very excited to be back! Especially since now I had more time to explore the city.

Views from the rooftop of our beach front hotel. Not too shabby, not too shabby.

So of course we needed to enhance the view by putting ourselves in it :)

We began our day by heading to the Centro and Lapa neighborhoods, to catch the beautiful steps of the Escaderia Selaron. Its essentially steps that look completely normal from the top, but if you catch them from the bottom, it's an explosion of red and yellow. There were tiles from all over the world, but sadly we didn't see one from Alabama, or Seattle for that matter. But they could also be there and we missed it, seeing as there were all the tiles.

World Cup! So many memories. But these steps weren't one of them, so I'm glad I got to add them to the list!

It was clearly quite dfifficult to get pictures without anyone in them. So for some, we contented ourselves with getting pictures of them taking selfies. I don't quite think a selfie could do these justice.

Texas Tech, really? But no Alabama? Come on.

A beautiful mosaic of the Brazilian flag. We just couldn't get enough of the tiles.

And then we have this very artistic and not at all accidental photo of the steps. Very modern. Probably should belong in a museum based on what I've seen.

Swaziland! And then I wanted to climb to get my picture with the "Brazil, I love you. -Selaron" tiles.

Ohio and Georgia for all you folks! And Mari found Texas! We also found a "Solomente Sexy" Mafalda for Ryan!

And Iguazu Falls was also represented! Been there done that now.

After that escapade, we headed to find the Municipal Theatre, Library, and Cathedral. The Municipal Theatre and library were easy enough to find but we had a harder time finding the Cathedral. This was probably because it looked more like an Aztec Pyramid than a Cathedral. No offense to Cariocas, but the outside of this thing is, how shall I put this nicely, ugly. However, the inside is full of fantastic stained glass! So that was very pretty! So I guess you could put this up to "don't judge a book by it's cover".

  

Fun signs and graffitti. I especially love the presence of Mona Lisa.

Potentially the artists behind the amazing graffitti. They had some great stuff in their shop, truly impressive what they are able to do with a spray paint can.

  

The Arches of Lapa! And  then us with the fun Rio Olympics 2016 mural. Very sporty.

We decided to play around with the arches.

Someone decided to walk in front of my pano, so my phone decided to cut them into pieces. Lesson learned.

In front of the Opera House! The pictures don't really show it, but it's a very fabulous theatre. Lots of gold and Baroque architecture.

But unfortunately, we were way to early for an english speaking tour :(

So we went inside the library instead! In the Top 10 for biggest libraries in the world! Although... there wasn't much to see other than the fab entryway. We tried to go to some of the floors and look around but, we weren't researchers so... oh well.

I mean, does that really look like a cathedral to you? I think we can be excused for not realizing it was the Metropolitan Cathedral. It even had this guy outside who was a little appalled at the design. But, as mentioned, the stained glass windows were on point.

3 of the 4 big panesls.

After that, we decided we needed some lunch so we stopped at a spot I'd previously visited, Cervantes. It's home to some amazing sandwiches and famous for its filet mignon with pineapple sandwich. So of course we had to get that one, and a chicken with pineapple one. Both were humongous and so satisfying. And since it was like 3pm, we were pretty much set for the day.

Now these are sandwiches. A must if you're ever in Rio!

It's probably a good thing we followed up the humongous meal with a walk down Copacabana. We walked the entirety and then some, following the curve around to the beginning of Ipanema. And as luck will have it, the sun was starting to set so we got some seriously stunning views as it started to get darker. It was perfection.

Their names with Mari and Cheryl... Copa, Copacabana.

And then we stumbled upon a mural memorializing the 2014 World Cup! Mari with her Argentina.

The whole shebang, or at least mayeb a 1/4th of it.

Immortalized forever: Luis Suarez, the Uruguaian biter; John Brooks, the US's savior against Ghana; and Messi, one of the best in the world.

Then we made our way to Ipanema! Just in time for the sunset.

We took their advice. You should too.

We wrapped up the evening by walking back and grabbing a small bite to eat on the beach. We had bolinhos de balcalhau and empanadas (of course) and mango caipirinhas. Now, a traditional caipirinha is made with lime, but I've also had strawberry, kiwi, and some brazilian fruit versions, but never a mango. Our advice? Skip the mango caipi. Maybe it was the cachaca they used, or something else, but it was not tasty. We managed to get down a manageable portion and then we were done. And even that was a struggle, especially with all the pulp in the glass. There may or may not have been multiple occasions where pulp got stuck on my face since it got stuck in the straw. Yikes.

Obviously these two were taken before we had actually ingested  the mango caipirinhas. I'm sure just a few seconds later our faces would have looked much different... but the food didn't disappoint!

But all in all, a great first day in Rio!