My Adventures and Travels

I have some leftover pictures that I like, but they don't really go with any of my other posts. So, here they are.  After days of rain, the clouds start to lift. This was my first view of the mountains around Rio! Beau and I saw tons of these critters in a park. What are they? There are tons of these mega sandcastles along the Ipanema and Copacabana beaches. Often they want a donation in exchange for a picture. Drinking water out of a coconut was on my Rio bucket list. Watching the guy hack it open was impressive! These last two pictures are from the trendy Lapa neighborhood. We went out one night with our new friends Rob and Chrissy. Check out how busy the streets below are-this was at about 4 a.m.! 

One of the nice things about Rio (and a huge change from Paraguay) is that it's a huge tourist destination. Now, on the downside, there are tons of tourists. But on the upside, it's really easy to attend events and outings without having to do all the planning on your own. Plus, some of the said tourists turn out to be awesome people who even speak English to boot! This is Chrissy. She's awesome. One of the events we found online and decided to attend was nicely called the "Sunset Boat Cruise." But I have been on this type of thing before-it's all about the drinking, who are they trying to kid? Anyway it was really fun. :) We met these nice people Chrissy and Rob early on in the week, and this was the 3rd time we made an excuse to hang out with them! I'm really glad they came because they have this weird scheme to get everyone drinking and partying. Ladies only can go to the top floor of the boat and have all they want free drinks for the first hour....

We were so excited that the sun was shining (plus we missed a few days of touring around due to the weather) that after hang gliding, we kept on moving and booked a tour bus up to the Christ the Redeemer statue. It is huge and pretty cool, but the view was my favorite part. Good Friday. SO. MANY. PEOPLE.   I really love this picture. The statue is behind me, and the sun is behind it, casting this shadow on the clouds below. Lots of people come up to the statue at dusk to watch the sun set... But as the sun was setting this wall of clouds started moving in It came in and totally blanketed everything, including the statue. We headed down and were glad we got there in time to see the view....and felt really sorry for the people just arriving in their tour buses!

  So in case we didn't get enough adventure in through scuba diving, the very next day we decided to jump off a mountain (above right) and hang glide down! Because it was the first beautiful sunny day in about a week, not to mention Good Friday (a work holiday in Latin America) the place was packed and we spent hours waiting around. However, my guide or "pilot" was great and it was SO MUCH FUN.  The craziest, and really only scary part, was getting into the air. We had to run off the ramp, below, as fast as we could and into thin air. As the guide said, my only job was to run. If you don't run, you just sort of fall at the end of the ramp. That was all the motivation I needed!   We stuck the landing!

I'll be honest with you. I took scuba diving as a P.E. credit in college, and I was totally weirded out by the whole "breathe through your mouth" thing. It all made me pretty claustrophobic. So much so, that when I decided to go on a sailing trip in the British Virgin Islands (probably some of the best diving in the world) I opted to see this world from the surface and only snorkelled. We're laughing because after I got all strapped in, I tried to stand up. That was harder than I expected! Then we started planning this trip and Beau said one of the things he wanted to do most was dive-but they have a 2-person minimum to take you out. I hemmed and hawed and explained my slight phobia-and finally I decided to do it.  The tour group we arranged it with had what they call a "discovery dive" for newbies like me. I've read a lot of terrible reviews about these. Many resorts, especially in Mexico, basically give a crash diving course and bring a big ...

After I left you last, we went to a fun nightclub called Zero Zero, where we met some super-nice Americans (who you will see later in this blog), and stayed out until somewhere in the neighborhood of 4:00 a.m. The next morning, we had a favela tour planned. Some certain members of our party, I won't mention any names here, didn't feel so hot the next morning, but we were up and at 'em anyway for our tour! Favela is basically another word for shantytown, and Brazil and Rio are pretty well known for them. Many are extremely dangerous, but some have been pacified by the government and a constant police presence, and are safe to visit. Tours are a pretty popular thing to offer and there were many options, so I chose one that donated profits to an after-school program in the favela.  The first favela we saw was called Rocinha, and it is the biggest in Brazil. Side note: since all the favelas are built on the sides of mountains, they have some of the best views of the cit...