Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – December 16

Christ the Redeemer

partly sunny and 29 degrees - enough to get some colour on our pale Canadian winter skin! rain in the evening

Rio is in the Brasilia Standard Time zone, 4 hours ahead of Calgary. Not as much of a time change as we typically contend with on vacation, but enough that I feel a bit out of sorts when I wake up at 6:30 (my body thinks it is 2:30.)

Breakfast is included with our hotel room, which is a standard international hotel breakfast…egg station, pastries, fruit, yogurt, cheese. We were hoping for a few more Brazilian options, we THOUGHT that will have to wait until lunch – a Brazilian BBQ...that was not to be. We had 4 days of tours organized for our time in Rio. While we were travelling to Rio, we received notice that the tours had been revised due to availability of guides. This was hardly a surprise, and we were perfectly OK with it. However…when the guide picked us up this morning his information was that lunch wasn’t included for us. So, at one point we were dropped off and the rest of the van of 14 headed off to lunch. We weren’t too broken up about this and figured there wasn’t much we could do about it.

Maracanã Stadium

A visit Rio’s Christ the Redeemer statue was still part of our itinerary. We saw it as we were landing yesterday, but today’s visit is up close and personal. A van picked us up from our hotel.

Christ the Redeemer was constructed between 1922 and 1931, is 30 metres high and the arms span about 28 metres. It is at the top of Corcovado mountain in Tijuca National Park overlooking the city. It is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World – this makes 6 of the 7 Wonders that we’ve seen.

After a 15 min tram ride up Corcovado Mountain, we have 230 more steps to

Cathedral stained glass windows

climb – there is an elevator, but we opt for the stairs. The tram takes us through the Tijuca Forest, which is apparently the largest urban forest in the whole world. I’d call it more of a jungle than a forest…it is thick, lush, and viny. We’re visiting the forest during one of our other tours.

The viewing platform at the base of the Jesus lets us see most of Rio. It’s crowded, but not overly so. There’s also a chapel at the base of the statue that we check out.

Next, we make a photo stop at the Maracanã Stadium where 2 of Rio’s soccer teams play. Apparently when this place was first built in 1950, it held 200 000

Cathedral exterior

spectators!! Now it holds about 80 000. This place was more interesting to hear about than actually see (we didn’t go in, just a photo stop in front)…it was a pretty much a concrete circle.

Our last stop was to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Saint Sebastian, better known as the Metropolitan Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro. This place is like no other church I’ve ever seen. It was apparently modeled after the Mayan pyramids, so once you are inside it’s like an alter “in-the-round”. There are 4 huge rectangle, stained glass windows on each side of the pyramid and it holds 20 000 people!

The afternoon was spent wandering Copacabana beach, having a few beers and lunch followed by a visit to nap-town. It was rainy in the evening, so we stayed in. Beers here don't seem too outrageously priced...a 400mL for 3 Canadian dollars and a burger for $6. The cocktail I had last night at the hotel bar was $10...also not bad for a hotel bar.

ready for a Copacabana beach beer!

BTW…after anticipating luggage woes, we had NONE!! We put an airtag into each of our bags, which was interesting to follow, but thankfully we didn’t need them.

ps...our hotel is the tallest building in the distance - the Copacabana Hilton, it's not fancy, but fine and the location can't be beat!