November 10 - 12:30AM - Cristal Palace Hotel, Rio De Janeiro

After a crazy day of travel we finally made it to Rio. Our overnight flight landed and we caught a cab from the airport to an address that we had of a hotel in Copacabana. Traffic was pretty insane, it took an hour or so to get from the airport to where we were going and it was probably only a little over a ten mile trip. I slept most of the way anyways because I was tired from the flight. What I did see of Rio in the cab was first the Jesus statue way up on a hill in the clouds overlooking and I guess protecting the people of Rio. You can’t get a more iconic and recognizable image of a city than that statue, maybe San Francisco and Paris have it beat but not many others. Also saw a lot of graffiti, some buildings were completely covered but with hundreds and hundreds of small tags of a single color.

When we finally made it to the hotel we looked around the area, walked to drop off some laundry and just took in the city and Brazilians going about their day, paying no attention to us. The streets are clean, tile work of small white inch square stones makes up every single sidewalk in Rio and there are many trees lining the roads. It reminds me of a South American Paris just the way the neighborhood streets look. My back problem has actually turned into some cold symptoms. Back pain is gone but now I have a little bit of a runny nose. I think I have made it through the worst though.

Because we haven’t gotten any good sleep lately, two nights in a hammock on a boat and in a jungle plus one night sleeping in an airplane chair, we decided to shell out a few extra bucks and get a decent hotel. We took a five hour nap and then went out for a walk to check out Rio. The weather is very nice and so are the women. Some of the most beautiful I have ever seen and they are everywhere, a huge huge huge improvement from what we have been seeing. The city is cool, like I said almost European feeling and it is easy to just walk around and enjoy staring at things.

Our hotel is in Copacabana. We checked out the area and then walked over to Ipanema which is apparently the place to be in Rio. We booked a hostel for the next couple nights, looked at the miles long white sand beach lined with multistory buildings, very awesome, one of the best beaches I have ever seen, got a ham and cheese sandwich at a small empty bar playing American music on the stereo, walked around some more and then went to an Irish Pub called Shenanigans as it got dark that was recommended by a friend who visited Rio awhile back.

So, pretty mellow Monday night, I have a gnarly sunburn on my legs from piranha fishing in the jungle, I put sunscreen on twice but still got burned. Doesn’t hurt anymore but my legs are purplish colored.

Tomorrow we are going to go up to Corcovado, the giant Jesus statue and maybe go to a Brazilian BBQ joint. Good things to write about tomorrow.