Trip to South America Part 7: Rio and the end!

I PROMISE IT'S ALMOST OVER!

Paul's in Zambia (gasp!) and I'm here nearly killing myself with the crushing amount of work I've taken on (I deserve gasps too, so "gasp gasp"!).  Tomorrow morning, I will wake up and feverishly begin writing the thesis and continue with the rest of the work.  BUT NOT TONIGHT!  TONIGHT, IS FOR BLOGGING!

So, we finish up our historic-ly epic and overly-winded trip to South America with the just as epic a city: Rio de Janeiro.  I'll be honest.  Rio is our favorite city in South America.  But not in the beginning.

We flew into Rio on January 5th around midnight.  Just looking out the taxi at the city was beautiful.  We make it to our AirBnB place and find we don't know how to get in...the doorman won't let us in.  We don't have keys, our guy didn't meet us, and obviously we don't speak Portuguese.  Luckily, Spanish is just as helpful sometimes.  Through a series of Spanish and ridiculous gesturing, the idea was given by the doorman that possibly, the key was under the mat.  It ended up that way and we were forever grateful to that patient doorman.

The next day we slept in and had a late lunch of hot dogs 'cause sometimes, that's all you need.  We went to the infamous beaches of Copacabana, Arparador, and Ipanema beaches to relax.

Copa...Copacabana

The Girl from Ipanema

Cristo el Redentor

The next day, we relaxed again on the beach and had an amazing confectionary coconut sugar rice thing that we couldn't get enough of.  Sadly, we only had it twice.  Coconut man was eluding us it seemed.

We then went up for a sunset trip to Sugar Loaf Mountain, a must do in Rio.  It was, of course, lovely and well worth it.  There were even monkeys!

Pao do Azucar...or Sugar Loaf Mountain trip

Taking the teleferic

On the second level before the top

Always a view to see Christ the Redeemer 

Yeah, that nice.

LIZARD!

Not half bad, right?

And there was much clapping and jubilation that the sun went down.  Literally.  I guess that's a thing.  Oh well!  Find joy in the small things.  We had dinner in and relaxed.

The next day, we went to see the second landmark: Christ the Redeemer.

He's a big guy.  

I refused to do what everyone else did and emulate Jesus's stance.  So, instead, I looked excited.  

Ugh...crowds...

It was something worthwhile though.

While we waited for a bus to take us down to the bottom of Corcovado (the large mountain Christ sits on), we tried acai juice, which is delicious and I love it.  New favorite juice.  We also saw a huge watermelon at that stand and debated for a while on whether or not Paul could punch through it.  The debate still rages on.  

Neat tree plant

A church

After our trip, we went to a restaurant called Colombo, a suggestion given to us by my friend, Tatiana, who is from Rio.  It was an excellent choice and the food and decor was wonderful.

After a nap, we went to watch the sunset on Ipanema.  It was our last day in Rio and our trip and we were sad to see it go.  But hey, we had a great time together: traveling, exploring, laughing, eating, drinking, sleeping, creating memories.  This trip will always be remembered fondly and we shall never forget conquering the continent of South America.  To end, here's the sunset with peppered in pictures of a dog that looked sad.

He hates fishing.  He wants attention from us.

He hates sitting on this rock.  He wants attention from us.

Yup.  Worthwhile.

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