The Third Day

I did a tour of the city today and was able to bring the camera with. The day started off at Sugarloaf Mountain, where despite the sky appearing cloudless from the sky we discovered one of the downsides of Rio. I'm not positive it was pollution, but there was a haze over the entire city in the morning that was obscuring my view of the centro area of the city. What I was able to see however was how sprawling, the city is. Archetecture wise there is much to be desired. The city is dominated by highrise concrete blocks that are quite simply ugly. Yeah the city has great hills, and I believe the largest urban forest, but at the same time would it kill them to use a little glass in construction. I guess this is where you realize this is still a developing country, abeit thanks to the exchange rate with prices essentially the same with those in Chicago (I might as well be in Europe right now it would probably be cheaper the way the Euro is right now).

To get back to the story of my day... We had an hour and a half up on the Sugarloaf. This lasted from 10:45 to 12:15 and by the time we were headed back down the city central was just coming into view. I guess my tip for this would be to do it in the afternoon instead. From the Sugarloaf Mountain we headed to a Brazilian Barbeque for lunch. Delicious it was; nothing like neverending portions of mystery meat. Stuffed from the feast we then headed to Christ.

Christ, was expectedly disappointing.  Not being able to speak Portuguese I can only speculate as to what is going on.  My guess is he needed a shower and is getting ready for his big dance when the world cup comes to town.  So his little minions are getting out the cotton swabs, nail clippers, and comb to make him look all pretty for the party.  Anyway this is all I got to see:

After Christ we headed to Maracana stadium, I'm going to the game on sunday so I will talk about then.  Next was the sambadrome where the carnival parade is held.  It's just concrete stands and not very intersting. After that it was on to the cathedral (can't remember it's name so I will refer to it as "the cathedral").  It was big, it was beautiful, it was moving to be inside.

Finally we headed to Lapa, and the Lapa stairs.  Supposedly it is legal to smoke grass on the stairs between the hours of 8 and midnight (hence Snopp Dogg and Pharrell sitting on them in this video).  Although it depends on who you ask as to whether or not this is really the case.  Anyway our tour ended here with a beer at the bottom of the stairs.