Rio de Janeiro, Part 1

It's been way too long catching up on these posts, but I'm finally getting around to it.  I wasn't as good about documenting each day specifically, but the events in Rio are a lot more isolated anyway (churches, museums, famous landmarks, etc vs a whole bunch of similar-looking beaches :).   So I'm just going to upload pictures of stuff and try to write a bit about them. Enjoy!


Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountain):
When Kaitlyn, Lisa, and I went to Rio in 2012, we only had a few days there, and we decided to do Cristo Redentor while I was there, and if they wanted to do Pão de Açúcar, they could do it after I left (I flew out a day or two before both of them).  Well they decided to do it, and thought it was so cool, Lisa and I made it a priority of our trip this time.

So our first day in Rio....we went up!  It was awesome.

The view was spectacular, but still hard to compete with the cute band of monkeys running around!  Look at his little face!! 

We were bummed to be going up so late in the day, but it ended up being great, because we were up there just as the sun was setting...

...so we got to watch the city light up.

What a beautiful city!

Parque Lage, Corcovado, and the Cristo Redentor!!

Fun fact:  Corcovado is the name of the mountain where the Christ Statue stands.  The name of the mountain is a reference to the "humpback" shape.  Kind of interesting. :)

Anyway, Lisa and I had already been up to the Christ statue last time, so we decided not to do it this time around (it takes kind of a long time to ride up, plus money, etc..and the views are arguably cooler at Pão de Açúcar anyway).  Instead, we went to a part of the park that surrounds the mountain.

There was some really neat plant life, including these cool mushrooms!

cool castle-y turret thing we played in for a bit

I love this picture.  Doesn't it look like such a magical place?  It sure felt like it!

After wandering around the park for a while, we found a trail.  It said it was about 2km and "difficult".  Well, we're from Utah and figured how hard can it really be (especially for only 2km)?  

The answer?  VERY. FREAKING. HARD.

Haha.  I'm pretty sure it was way more than 2km, and there were some crazy steep parts.  One section even had a chain bolted into a rock so you could use it to pull yourself up.  Man.  But...Lisa and I were on an adventure, so we continued. :)  Plus, we found out that the trail went all the way up to the Christ Statue, and we kept thinking "we've got to be getting close!", so we never wanted to turn around. 

Anyway, here are some pictures from our adventure:

Lisa took this picture and said, "it still doesn't capture how steep the trail is..."  Sheesh.

Crazy hair after a long/hard/unplanned hike, but we made it!

We almost didn't go in because it cost money, but it's like R$60 from the bottom (to catch the train) and only R$10 (about $3) once you're up there, so we figured we might as well enjoy the fruits of our labor :D

Beautiful sky!

The view of Pão de Açúcar from Cristo Redentor

And of course...what's a hike in Brazil without a few monkeys? :)

We didn't stay up at the top long because it was getting late and we knew the trail wouldn't be any easier in the dark.  Haha.  Thanks to a combination of promptings and good planning, we luckily had a flashlight with us (otherwise I think we would have died haha).  But it was a fun day of adventure, anyway! :D