Day 11 – Leave for Rio

Sept 8th

Late to bed, early to rise
After a long night of dancing the night away, I woke up at 4:45AM to catch a plane to Rio. Regardless, I had no complaints. They served us orange juice and chocolate pastries in the Union as we waited for the group to gather. After a two-hour flight, we meet our tour guide Fernando at the airport. On the bus ride to the Golden Tulip Regente hotel, we watched as the progression of countryside turned into the favelas (slums) into the middle class homes into the high rise city and finally to the beach of Copacabana.

First Impressions
Famous for having one of the most beautiful city settings in the world, Rio definitely makes up for that claim. Sprawled between enormous, gum-drop shaped mountains, Rio infrastructure nestles nicely into the valleys between peaks. Most of the buildings are decrepit and clearly in need of repair, but the actual geography of the tropical city is breathtaking. Because of the hazy on the first day, we couldn’t see Christ the Redeemer although Fernando reassured us that he was still there. As soon as we arrived at the hotel, my roommate Allison, Corey, Alex, Sara and I headed out for the closest churrascarias (traditional buffet/steak house), which happened to be the Grill Inn. After getting a plate, you serve yourself as much as you want from the buffet and weigh your food to record how much you have to pay. This was a great way of trying tons of local dishes. I don’t know what half of them were, but as long as there were no uncooked vegetables I eat it! To go along with the festivities, we all ordered a local drink called a caipirinha (rum made from sugarcane, sugar and lime). Under the impression it was an enjoyable cocktail similar to a mojito, we all took swigs of it after a toast to Rio. Well, Rio sent us gagging as locals looked at us in bewilderment! Let me just say that the drink does not taste like a mojito, but more like straight rum. The sugar just nestled at the bottom of the glass and the lime did nothing to add flavor. One caipirinha was all we needed for the day! After lunch, we stumbled out to walk along the major boulevards behind our hotel. Surprisingly, there were not very many tourist shops as I would have expected. Rio bustles with the everyday traffic of locals, rather than rely on the cultural tourism in Salvador. It was nice not being hassled into buy something on every street corner.

Copacabana Beach
Once Allison and Sara headed back to the hotel for a nap, Alex, Corey and I headed to the beach to check out the waves and view of the bay. Because of the poor weather, it was absolutely deserted except for a few runners and guys in speedos. Well, there was nothing else to do but test the water, so we stripped down and hopped in for a taste of the salty waves. While watching the beach, we saw a man dig a hole, poop in it and then cover it back up before heading back to the water. Totally grossed out, we decided not to taste the water anymore. After a quick shower back at the hotel, we explored the city streets as little more and visited Shopping Rio Sul, which is an equivalent to the Westchester Mall. We stayed long enough for an espresso and went back to meet everyone for dinner.

Dinner and Night
Everyone meet in the lobby at 7PM to head to Vinicius, a beautiful outdoor restaurant in the middle of the Impanema district. We spent the night chatting away and sharing new food discoveries, until we headed out to wander colorful Impanema. The most beautiful part of Rio was seeing the tropical, vein covered trees that sprung up along the streets. During our venture, we found an Irish Pub called Schooligans that seemed to find every SAS kid in Rio, including the ones doing it “indy” (independently). It was quiz night, which was a lot of fun, but Allison, Corey and I headed back to the Golden Tulip for nightcaps of suco do maracuje (juice of maracuje–my favorite new juice) and watch the waves on the beach.

Highs and Lows
My “high” was watching a man poop in the sand. My “low” was not getting to go hang gliding on our free day because the weather was bad.