We awoke REALLY early today because we had booked an excursion tour at 7:30 this morning. Yep, some of them leave pretty godawful early in the morning. We were up having breakfast at 6:30 to make the tour.
Our tour today was "Rio Highlights," which would take us to the famous Christ the Redeemer statue high above the hills of the city on Corcovado Mountain. Incidentally, one of the first things we learned on coming to town was that Corcovado means "hunchback." The Queen of Portugal thought the mountain was shaped like a hunchback, and named it accordingly. I suppose it does have that shape.
Anyway, in 1926, construction began on the amazing Art Deco statue atop Hunchback Mountain. It is the tallest religious statue in the world. And here's another interesting factoid - it was built exclusively on funds collected by the Catholic community of Brazil. No public money used. That is a pretty impressive feat.
So, we all piled onto our tour buses and made the trek to the tram station for a long, slow ride up the mountain to see this famous icon.
It was hot and crowded in the tram cars, but after a half hour ascent, we made it to a platform where we had a choice between an elevator ride further up to the top or walking 225 stairs. David opted for the stairs
while Karen roughed it on the elevator. :)
At the top, it was really chaotic. A crazy mass of people and hardly room to walk about or take good quality pictures. Of course, everybody wanted the money shot - high fiving the Christ, a nice selfie with the statue perfectly aligned in the background, etc. But it just wasn't gonna happen. Too crowded to do it justice. So we did the best we could.
It was pretty cloudy at the top, so we didn't get the great vista shots of the city we were hoping for, but as we started our descent back to the tram station, we caught some really fabulous views.
Once we got off the tram and back onto our tour buses, our driver gave us a brief city tour. One interesting thing we kept seeing at many street corners were the unusual looking city pay phones. It was odd to see so many pay phones in a city that purportedly has more cell phones than people, but there they were. The locals call them "the big ear," and they really do have the look of a big, funky blue ear.
We drove by the famous Ipanema beach next. To be honest, it wasn't quite the glamorous beach I had in mind from the song. Maybe it was back in the day. But it was a perfectly nice beach with perfectly nice sand, people walking along the path, people with beach chairs and umbrellas, food vendors, and volleyball courts (beach volleyball is very popular here).
Karen's brother-in-law Terry made a special request for a picture of "the girl from Ipanema." So here she is just for you, Terry.
So, we all piled onto our tour buses and made the trek to the tram station for a long, slow ride up the mountain to see this famous icon.
It was hot and crowded in the tram cars, but after a half hour ascent, we made it to a platform where we had a choice between an elevator ride further up to the top or walking 225 stairs. David opted for the stairs
while Karen roughed it on the elevator. :)
At the top, it was really chaotic. A crazy mass of people and hardly room to walk about or take good quality pictures. Of course, everybody wanted the money shot - high fiving the Christ, a nice selfie with the statue perfectly aligned in the background, etc. But it just wasn't gonna happen. Too crowded to do it justice. So we did the best we could.
It was pretty cloudy at the top, so we didn't get the great vista shots of the city we were hoping for, but as we started our descent back to the tram station, we caught some really fabulous views.
Once we got off the tram and back onto our tour buses, our driver gave us a brief city tour. One interesting thing we kept seeing at many street corners were the unusual looking city pay phones. It was odd to see so many pay phones in a city that purportedly has more cell phones than people, but there they were. The locals call them "the big ear," and they really do have the look of a big, funky blue ear.
We drove by the famous Ipanema beach next. To be honest, it wasn't quite the glamorous beach I had in mind from the song. Maybe it was back in the day. But it was a perfectly nice beach with perfectly nice sand, people walking along the path, people with beach chairs and umbrellas, food vendors, and volleyball courts (beach volleyball is very popular here).
Karen's brother-in-law Terry made a special request for a picture of "the girl from Ipanema." So here she is just for you, Terry.
She's in her seventies now. These days, she's more like the granny from Ipanema! :))).
Maybe this isn't what he had in mind(?)
Anyway, we got back to the ship in time for a nice dinner, and before we knew it, the ship was setting off from Rio for our next port.
Good night all!
With love,
Karen and David
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