Written Sunday 11 May
Crazy busy Sunday, managed to squeeze 5 hours of travel, Christ the Redeemer, Santa Teresa neighbourhood, Escadaria Selaron (the famous steps!), Sugarloaf and a farewell dinner all into one hectic day.
Catching my first glimpse of Rio was really exciting; unlike Machu Picchu when I was worried I'd feel like I'd seen it all before, I was dying to see what I've seen in pictures/media/movies for real. Within about 10 minutes of arriving at the hotel we were whisked away on a city tour of all the key tourist stomping grounds, starting with C the R - or the Jesus statue as I appear to keep saying, makes me 'seem' embarrassingly uneducated (I later asked whether the Colosseum was in Athens...it's not). Jesus statue or modern wonder of the world (it was officially debuted to the public in 1931), it was really cool seeing it up close, especially when you stand right under it and look up, up, up at a never-ending Jesus. We were really lucky that the sun came out just as we started the tour, giving us nice blue skies for the pics.
However, not being religious in the slightest meant that I personally appreciated the AMAZING view more - deep blue sea, lush greenery, sparkling white buildings and Sugarloaf wowowow. Could have stayed there for hours.
Had a very brief walk in the Santa Teresa neighbourhood before strolling down the famous and beautiful Escadaria Selaron which was awesome. Wish we could have had more time to browse the tiles but our tour guide was keen to get to Sugarloaf...
Think the plan was to get us there for sunset but a timing fail meant we ended up watching it from the van instead :/ but...this did mean we got to see Rio at night, in all its sparkling glory.
Rio is SUCH a beautiful city from above, by day and by night <3
Managed to make it out for dinner with my faves but my stomach did not take kindly to the wine (or the food, come to that) so instead of joining the others in drunken merriment I had to go home - on our last night together! Was so gutted I actually cried! Not sure whether I was sadder about saying goodbye after over 3 weeks together or not being able to drink! I'm getting really bad stomach pains every time I eat still - and I'm prone to the same when I go a long time without eating. Win...!
Despite this, I LOVE Rio. In fact, I love Brazil. Don't ever want to leave!!
