Day 8 - Seeing the sights of Rio!

The president of Brazil is in Rio as they are trying to get the I.O.C. to approve their bid for the 2016 Olympic Summer Games. It started with a navy demonstration of this amazing vessel on the bay. Sorry I could not get a picture to show the actual grandeur of it!


The airforce put on a show across the beach.


May 1st is Labour day in Brazil and everyone got ready to party on the beach.






The palace below was built for the royal family before Brazil became a republic.



The train line up the mountain to the statue of Christ overlooking the city.




At 38 meters tall, the statue of Christ was built in the 30s and is one of the 7 wonders of the world!





How's that for a stairway to heaven!







The adventures continued with a stop at a great beach to watch the hang gliders coming off the nearby mountains to the sand.

We made great use of our time and extra Realis bills and got some great stuff from the street vendors.



Kelly was not only without his sweater vest, but actually had short sleeves and shorts! He jumped with both feet and got a coconut to complete the experience.


Sonya, our guide, pointed out her soccor team that is playing on Sunday in the Brazil finals. The whole town is in an uproar over this game!


Brazilian Favellos, are the slums areas of town that no one, even the police, do not go into unless absolutely necessary! This one is one of the biggest in Brazil with over 200,000 residents! It was featured in the Hulk movie with Edward Norton.










Mangue Seco was a great little restaurant across the street from the dance club. They have the largest collection of sugar cane wines in Brazil. The meal started off with shooters of the liquid sunshine and ended with a wonderful combination of rice, shrimp stew and crushed flower powder. Very Yummy!

It poured like crazy while we ate, which is the first for the trip but was done before we finished eating, which was nice, I spent a lot of time on my hair for the night!














The Scenarium is one of the 10 best night clubs in the world and it was not hard to see why. It was packed to the rafters; all three levels of an 19th century mansion. Lots of samba dancing. When we left after a few hours there was still a line up down the block of people wanting to get in!

The antiques covered every square inch of walls and ceiling. It was definitely a site to behold!










Sorry this video is so dark, the club was lit too dimly for the camera.