Rio

JULY 14, 2012

It was 6:30 a.m and we were already late to go to the airport. We barely had breakfast, rushed through the door and got inside the car in 3 seconds, literally. Mr. Lira dropped us off at the local airport called Congonhas around 7 o clock and half an hour later, we were already in the plane. Thank God the trip was very short, the distance from Sao Paulo to Rio and viceversa is only about 40 minutes. So at 8:30 we were out in Rio!

When we arrived, Tsu, Claudia's mom's friend, picked us up at the Santos Dumont airport and soon after, took us to his favorite cafeteria named Cafeina. It was reallt nice! I had hot cocoa and a small pastry filled with chicken known as Empadinha. Clau´s mom had coffee and some kind of croissant and Claudia only had watermelon juice.  After having our petit café da manhã (that´s how you say breakfast in brazilian portuguese), Tsu drove us through the Niteroi Bridge, which really reminded me of the Panama Canal; You could see classy yachts, boats, little ports and even huge containers surrounding it.

Later on,  we went to an art museum. It was okay... Most of the paintings and sculptures were somehow difficult to understand, very abstract, I'd say. Anyway, my favorite thing about this museum was the view from its windows. You could see the beach and the famous Pão de Açucar Mountain from there. 

After visiting the museum, Tsu took us to the hotel. We checked in, left our stuff in the room and walked towards the beach. While walking around, we saw  these little restauranst and decided to much something. We drank some coconut water and ate french fries and fried calamari. The food was good, but the sun and the beach were way better.

Around  2:30 p.m. we went to the already mentioned Pão de Açúcar or Sugar Loaf Mountain, a peak at the mouth of Guanabara Bay peninsula rising 396 metres above the harbor (Thanks Wikipedia). When we got there I couldn't believe my eyes, the place was insanely crowded. The line to buy the tickets to ride the cable car was longer that the Niteroi Bridge, just kidding, but yeah it even continued throughout the whole parking lot. Luckily it moved pretty fast. Around one hour later we were already waiting to ride cable cars. 

And with Sugar Loaf we ended our lovely day.

COPACABANA!

Pao de Açucar

Yayy Sugar Loaf!