Rio de Janeiero-Brazil, part2

Now I see that I will have to make more than 2 parts for all of my Rio pictures. Here is part 2 (more to come soon).

I met some good people and made some new friends during my stay in Rio. I was eating dinner at a restaurant called Nativo, and I was invited over to a birthday party by a local family. I met the family and all of their friends and heard some great live music. Later, I was also invited back to their home. I had a good time and just want to say how great it was spending time with them. Thanks to Carla, Luiz, Zaka, Dini, Jean-Marc and everyone else for all of the great hospitality!!!

During my stay in Rio, I was at the Hotel Sheraton Barra. This hotel is located in the Barra da Tijuca section of Rio. The hotel faced the Barra da Tijuca beach. Here is a picture of the front of the hotel.


This hotel was designed so that every room faced the beach (at an angle). Here's the view of the beach from my room's balcony.


There is a tiled walkaway down the entire length of beach. They had fish patterns made into the tiles of the walkway at Barra da Tijuca (other beaches had tiled walkways as well, but they used different patterns). Here are some pics from the beach in front of my hotel and the walkway.








Along the beach walkway there were many kiosks that sold drinks and food. One of the specialty drinks there was coco drink. It was the juice form a coconut. They chopped off the top of the coconut and you have to drink the juice directly from the coconut with a straw. It is suppose to be good for your health. I tried one and here is a picture of it.


Rio has many beaches. The beach where I stayed was called Barra da Tijuca. On my tour, the tour guide tried to explain the meaning of Barra da Tijuca and I think he was saying that it meant something like "way to the beach". Barra has good beaches and many surfers like it for the waves. I saw many places on the beach where you can get surf boards and even take lessons for surfing.

Some of the other popular beaches are Copocabana, Ipanema, Sao Conrado, Leblon, etc. Here are some pictures of some of these beaches that I took on the tour.










Check back later for part3

Rio de Janeiro-Brazil, part1

I worked in Rio de Janeiro for 2 weeks in August. I stayed over the weekend so I could do some sight seeing. I have so many pictures from Rio that I will probably make two blog posts just for Rio.

Part of what makes Rio so beautiful is how the mountains come down to the beaches and contrast the rugged sharp drops from the mountains with the flat, white, sandy beaches. It really makes for some beautiful pictures. Of course pictures can't be exactly as good as being there, but they can be close. Here are a few pics that show the contrast between the mountains and sea.
***Remember that you can click on each picture for a larger version if you like. Just remember that you will have to click the back browser each time to go back to my blog page:





I took these photos while I was on a tour. The first picture above was taken from the top of one of the tallest and most well known mountains called Corcovado. This mountain has the well known statue of Christ on top. It is known locally as Cristo de Corcovado. The statue can be seen over much of the city of Rio. It took 9 years to build the statue. It is 120ft tall (38 meters). The Corcovado mountain is 2300 feet tall (700 meters). It was opened to the public in 1931. It was meant as a symbol to encourage the acceptance of Christianity. Here are some pictures I took of the statue and some more views from the mountain top.











Our tour guide had a specific spot that he insisted that we use to pose for our picture with the Cristo statue. Here is mine!


Also, in the base of the Cristo statue at the back, there is a small chapel. I got 2 pictures of the chapel here.




The Corcovado mountaintop is one of two mountaintops that are the most popular tourist attractions and great locations to view the city. The other mountaintop is called Sugar Loaf.
Here is a pic of Sugar Loaf (the tall pointed mountain on the left). I took this pic was from the top of the Corcovado mountain.


As part of my tour, we visited the Sugar Loaf mountain. The Portuguese name is Pão de Açúcar (loaf of sugar). One popular belief of where the name came from is that it resembles the shape of sugar loaves. Sugar cane was a popular crop grown in the Rio area and when it was cured it was usually in this shape. Another theory is that this name was first given by some of the native Indian tribes before the Portuguese settled there.

The Sugar Loaf mountain is a popular location for many people to climb too. We saw a few climbing the day we were there.

The Sugar Loaf mountaintop is accessed by cable car ride to the top. The cable cars held about 30 to 40 people each. The cable car ride is two stages. The first stage took us to the smaller mountain beside Sugar Loaf. The smaller mountain is named Babylon Mountain. This next pictures are the entrance to the cable car facility and a picture of one of the cable cars:




Here are some pictures of the cable car ride up to the top and the views from Sugar Loaf and Babylon Mountain:

















It was getting late in the day when we were ready to leave the top of the Sugar Loaf mountain. We could see the Cristo statue on the top of the Corcovado mountain. Here are two more pictures looking back towards Corcovado mountain.




I have more pics from the many beaches in Rio, from my hotel, and other interesting places. I'll post part 2 with more soon.