Rio de Janeiro 2005: Day 1
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Thursday, November 24, 2005: On Thanskgiving Day, we arrived in Brazil, stopping first in São Paulo. It is a massive city, with high rise buildings in all directions. | |||||
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The Brazilian countryside is lush and green. | |||||
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After the short flight from São Paulo, we arrived in Rio de Janeiro and checked into our hotel, the Miramar Palace on Av. Atlantica along Copacabana Beach. Our local guide, Marcelo, gave us an overview of the tours we had scheduled for the following days as we sipped caipirinhas in the lobby bar. | |||||
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A caipirinha consists of lime juice, sugar, and cachaça, which is a strong Brazilian liquor made from sugar cane that tastes much like tequila. Cheers! | |||||
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Marcelo also gave us souvenir jewelry from H. Stern. | |||||
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When we checked into our room, we were thrilled to find that by sheer luck we had a balcony on the top floor with an incredible view of Copacabana beach and Sugar Loaf mountain. | |||||
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Looking down at the beach below, you can see the distinctive black and white tile design that makes up the Copacabana sidewalk. Ipanema beach, which is just south of Copacabana, features a similar sidewalk but with a different design. We changed and headed down to enjoy some beers at the kiosk on the left. | |||||
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On our way back, we had a late lunch/early dinner at Bob's Burgers, situated just across Av. Atlantica from the beach. Two burgers, fries, Coca-Cola Light, and an Ovaltine shake really hit the spot. | |||||
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Rio has a number of poor neighborhoods called favelas. This one, named Cantagalo, was behind our hotel, so we photographed it daily. We called it an early night and went to bed. |
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If you'd like to jump ahead in our story, click on the
beach to go directly to the destination:
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Copyright © Deborah Schilling/Thomas Bundy