Life and times in Rio de Janerio

So we arrived to Rio on Sunday....the land of beautiful people, turquoise water, white sandy beachs, and caprihinas....and its poured for 3 days. Jussssssst great. Surf lessons, forget it. Christ Redeemer, in the clouds. Sugar Loaf, not unless we want throw up.

So all rain aside, Rio has actually been very impressive. Our trip in to the bus station was a little scary....but once you get away from the downtown area and head out to Copacabana and Ipanema, Rio is gorgeous. Even the other suburbs of Santa Teresa, Botofogo and Flamango are very nice. We spent the last two nights a really neat hostal right on Ipanema beach and next door to the infamous `Girl from Ipanema` restaurant. The area is flooded with cool restaurants, bars, surf shops, and LOTS of havaianas (which by the way are so cheap, we both had to buy new pairs...think 5 dollars.) Since the weather has been so bad, and Rio is really an outdoor city, we´ve been wandering around and hanging out at our hostal watching CNN Global edition of all the Lehman and Merril craziness back home. Our cabin fever started to get to us yesterday afternoon so we decided to suck it up and head to Corcovado which is the site of Cristo Redentor (you know, that big jesus that looks over all the beautiful sites of rio).

Anyway, we wait for the bus, end up taking the wrong one. Somehow we were able to recover and change buses. The whole trip took an hour and a half, by the time we got there it was starting to get dark and they stopped selling train tickets to the site. Grrreat. So we convince a taxi driver to bring us up the moutain, see the sights, and then he´ll even take us back to Ipanema. It sounds great! We get up there...and of course, Cristo is totally covered inthe clouds. We cant even see a darn thing down below....but we got some very eery photos of shadows of a huge jesus figure in the clouds. So just as we´re moaning about wasting money to go up there we load back in with the cab driver and now its dark. And apparently he doesnt like to use headlights to see...instead just to flash them every once and a while to make sure he´s on the right track. The taxi also doesnt have seat belts. So there we are hugging the turns in the dark with our taxi driver that doesnt speak english, drives like a bat out of hell, trying to make it down the mountain. When all of a sudden he pulls off to the side to a secluded area and somehow conveys that there is a look out point here but to `follow him´. So Conor and I are following this guy in the dark, down some trail, and all i can think is...óh my god, this is everything the guide books tell you NOT to do`. Don´t go out after dark in Rio, don´t go to secluded areas, and you´re on a cliff....

Thankfully, we were not robbed, stabbed, or strangled...and instead our driver brought us out to a magnificent view just as the clouds were clearing, and the city was begining to light up. We could see all the beaches, the mountains, sugar loaf, and even cristo all lit up and coming through the mist. It was fantastic, terrifying journey.

So now we wander and surf the web hoping the rain will pass and just maybe we could take the tram to sugar loaf for some views. But it doesn´t look good....hopefully Buenos Aires will have better weather. Can´t win them all.