The Seafaring Duo: We go to Rio, Rio, Rio de Janeiro and At the Copa, Copa Copacobana da da da!

Sunday, 26 February 2012

We go to Rio, Rio, Rio de Janeiro and At the Copa, Copa Copacobana da da da!

Sugarloaf at dawn.

Everyone was on deck at 6 am as we sailed into the natural harbour of Rio. What a sight, Sugarloaf Mountain, Corcovado Mountain and the statue of the Christ Redeemer all aglow plus the lights of downtown Rio. It's a huge City with areas of lovely architecture and then the Shanty Towns with many slum area's. Sure is a difference between the rich and poor.

Not a good photo, but there are several areas of these slums and they are a City of their own over 180,000 people live there and the police don't go there, no wonder we didn't do too much walking around Rio!

This is Gloria's photo of the delightful sunrise as we sailed into Rio (what a photo) Tony was down in the gym getting the surplus off)

Sugar loaf Mountain from below.

The cable cars, there are 2 sets one to a smaller peak 220 meters high and then another right to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain which is 396 meters high, another experience to behold. Only downside we queued for about 2 hours in the sun and it was 38 degrees!We had a typical Brazilian lunch in Impanema, a suburb which consisted of about 20 different salads and then the waiters brought out all of these long skewers about 2 feet long with chicken, beef, ribs, quail and then sliced off portions onto your plate with a huge knife. Bit frightening. Phew we were up to here!

Our photo of the Statue at Corcovado Mountain of Christ the Redeemer. We rode a cog wheel train for 20 minutes to the base and then an elevator plus 4 sets of escalators to the statue.

Yesterday there were 5 ships in port and docked behind us was Oceania Insignia, the ship we cruised the Norwegian fjords in July last year. What a coincidence, sure brought back some fond memories we had on that trip.