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Well everyone, it looks like we’ve made it to our last stop on the tour. I couldn’t think of a better way to end a great tour than in Rio! This is a place that I’ve heard so much about and it’s great to finally be here. We arrived Sunday evening and everyone was so tired that we just got dinner and called a night.

Mondays are days off for us, so we decided to get some sightseeing in. As we were riding from the airport our host, Victor Tamm, suggested that we at least check out two of the city’s attractions - Cristo Redenter (Christ the Redeemer) and Sugarloaf. We took him up on his offer and had a great time! Here are some pics from the day!

Oh wait! Before we begin. I was about to brush my teeth and saw this bottle of water:

So uh, you replace the comma with a period, divide the number by about 1.6 or so (because the dollar is continuing to weaken), and there you have it!…. an $11.04 bottle of water! I later found out that we are staying in arguably the best hotel in Rio.

Since it was night when we arrived, I couldn’t really see the area that we were staying in. I could smell and hear the water but I couldn’t see it. When I woke up I was able to see this from my hotel room:

Playing jazz gigs, you always get a person that asks “Hey, do you know The Girl from Ipanema?” And always respond “Yeah, but don’t believe anything she says!” I know it’s corny, but most people seem to enjoy it. It’s one of those songs that some people will request because it’s the only jazz tune they may know by name! I now have a connection with that song because we are actually staying in Ipanema!

We arranged for the hotel to provide one of the tourist guides to show us around the city. His name was Carlos and he was great. Our first stop was at Cristo Redenter. You can see it far off in the distance:

Most people view this and say that Christ is blessing the city of Rio. This statue is on a “mountain” called Cocovado that stands about 730 meters in the air and the Statue itself adds another 30 meters or so. This is the equivalent of over 2100 feet in the air. It was funny for us to hear people around us speak about the altitude of the monument, especially with us only being 3 days removed from a city that’s close to 6 times the altitude of Cocovado!

There were many stops on “The Road to Heaven”, as we were told it was called. Here is AFAR at one of those stops:

At another stop a little closer, we were able to see a breathtaking view of Rio:

The city is absolutely beautiful!

We finally made it to the city’s star attraction:

The statue was so large that we had to lay on our backs to take pictures with it!

From there, we went to Sugarloaf, a place that was specifically used for military operations in the past. It now provides another unbelievable view of the city. Here we go again with the cable cars!

Sugarloaf is directly opposite Cocovado, so we had a great viewing point of more of Rio. Here’s the city and the local Yacht Club:

This is the airport for domestic flights only:

Jahah posing in front of the city (photo by yours truly, lol)

uh, I do weddings, receptions, turkey day parties, etc.

The next picture really looks like something you would see the guy painting on those PBS shows. The mountains don’t even look real!

Now, the thing about Rio is that to me, it looks like a mix between two cities. These pics make me thing of New York:

And these pics remind me of Miami:

And lastly, what would fun be without friends?  Too bad we had to travel to Rio to meet people from Atlanta!  We also met a couple of people from Uruguay that just wanted in on the fun!

A great day!