Rio de Janeiro - 6 to 7 August 2015

So we arrived in Rio fairly early in the morning and immediately got a taxi to our hostel. The room wasn't ready yet, so we didn't get a chance to rest...which really sucked because we both wanted a short nap since neither of us slept much/well on the bus....

We did decide to take a city tour while waiting though.... The tour started in the afternoon and took us to a few notable Rio tourist attractions. Our first stop was the Christ statue where we fought the crowds for some pics....

Afterwards, we drove through an area called Santa Teresa, saw a cathedral, hung out in the Lapa Steps and then went up to Sugar Loaf to see the sunset.

The Lapa steps were pretty cool...they were created by a Chilean artist. Apparently the love of his life died and he started collecting tile from around the city. He created murals in her honor. My description doesn't do it justice....so I suggest you Google it...it really is neat...

I don't remember much about the cathedral, but it was the weirdest church I'd ever seen...and Sugar Loaf is a peak with great views of the entire city...so we were definitely fighting crowds for pics there as well.

We had some interesting humans on our tour...

We had a group of obnoxious Australian girls...who ended up being extremely rude to an Argentinian couple who happened to be a few minutes late back to a checkpoint...

We had an obnoxious English couple that thought they were special. They sat in our seat and tossed Jaime's sweater back to her...Jaime did not appreciate this maneuver. They also took more pics and took longer than anyone else.

There was also an American. He grew up about 5 minutes from Keith in Atlanta, but he too was obnoxious....Jaime informed Keith he was being rude after Keith quickly started ignoring him. Keith did not know he was being rude, but was ok with it after this fact was brought to his attention. Keith felt like the guy was an asshat...and it turns out Keith is usually right about these things.

After the tour, we went down to the beach and had a nice dinner. We attempted to have a repeat of the fish stew that we enjoyed with Drezza amd Patrick...unfortunately, this version wasn't nearly as good.

We called it an early night since we were still short on sleep from our night bus and got ready for the next day.

Our final day had us lounging on the beach enjoying cocktails and walking around the beachfront. We left for the airport in the late afternoon and after a brief haggle with the taxi driver, we caught our flight to Miami. There were no issues with our connection to Atlanta and we are currently back in the states.

It was a good trip, though it truly was exhausting. I'm finishing this blog about 36 hours after our return and we are both still a little sleep deprived. Also, apologies if this entry isn't as entertaining...but the writer takes solace in the fact that you will get over it...

This blog doesn't address every facet of the trip, so please email us know if you have any questions.

We hoped you enjoyed reading about our adventure....and surprisingly, we enjoyed documenting our trip...but remember....if you learn one lesson from our trip, please let it be this...

STAY OFF OF SOUTH AMERICAN BUSES!!!!

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