A shopkeeper broke open a coconut after we drank the juice, and Katia showed us how to eat the 'meat' out of it. It was a beautiful drive back to Rio.
After Eraldo and Katia dropped us off, we ate all we could eat at Carretao, a churrascaria less than a block from our hotel. The food was basically barbecued, and the variety was wonderful and delicious. I ate a lot more meat back in those days. My dinner included beef, possibly lamb, chicken hearts and other chicken parts as well as salad including palm hearts. Sara had some ice cream for dessert. We took a short walk on the beach before returning to our room and watching the ongoing carnival parade at the Sambadrome on television.
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February 10 Monday: Sugar Loaf, Samba Parade
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Rio de Janeiro
This morning after breakfast we went to Copacabana beach. We were a little nervous from all the crime stories about leaving even what little we had brought with us alone, so we took turns going into the water. There were young boys nearby, but they too took turns going into the water.
The waves were huge and cold. I got quite a noseful. My sinuses were still draining salt water later in the day. A woman came up to Sara to express concern for her pale skin -- we stood out quite a bit from the locals. We were there for over an hour -- enough for me to get sunburned on my back where I hadn't applied the SPF 15 lotion. When we left, one of the younger boys behind us said tchiao to Sara.
Back at the hotel I showered. At 2:10 PM we went on the Sugar Loaf tour. Rosemary met us in the lobby. We saw two British women we had met on the Corcovado tour. The bus collected more people from different hotels on the way. I'm not sure if our route took us to Botafogo or not.
We had to take two cable cars to reach the summit. The half-way point was like a plaza where we could walk around and enjoy the wonderful views. Sara was stressed out by the other tourists. There were some loud and obnoxious Americans around -- yes, they annoy other Americans as well. At the top there was a small park which included a bamboo forest that was a treat to explore. The bamboo was so thick that it blotted out the sun so much that it was like being in a cool forest. At one point we saw a small monkey (Tamarin?) scampering between tree branches.
By the time we got back we decided we would try to get tickets for the second night of carnival samba parades at the Sambadromo. We hadn't been sure we wanted to spend the money, but we decided it was a once in a lifetime opportunity, so we went for it. We were able to get tickets and arrange transportation at the hotel desk, but for a while it seemed like the prices kept changing which very much annoyed Sara. Eventually, we ended up paying about $200 per person in cash and travelers checks. Rounding up the money was a bit of a hassle, but it all worked out. Sara used 3 $100 checks. I cashed a $50 check and used $80. It was $150 for a sector 11 ticket and $40 for transportation.
We were pressed for time, so dinner had to be fast food. I ran over to McDonalds (which did not make Sara happy) and bought us a couple of McChicken value meals for R$9.70.
We were in the lobby after 7:00 PM waiting to be picked up. We met a man whose name was something along the lines of van Bruckner. He was from Detroit working in construction in Brazil for the past 1 and 1/2 years. He said he might soon be in California.
Our transportation to the Sambadrome was a van with a woman and a driver. They were a little late. We drove around to pick up four others. Traffic to the Sambadrome was pretty hectic. When we approached it, we had to change vans to one with a special permit to get inside the grounds. We each got stickers stuck to our shirts that served as tickets for transportation back to the hotel when we wanted to leave. We would just have to make our way back to the area where the vans waited.
I think it was around 9:00 or 9:30 when we actually got there. There was quite a crowd. An usher looked at our tickets and helped us get our bearings. A parade of ornately dressed samba dancers was making its way down the long way through the Sambadrome past the crowd on both sides. They and their floats were brightly illuminated by overhead white lights which lined their path. The music was loud and rhythmic. It was quite a scene. I could hardly believe we were actually there. With some difficulty we climbed the crowded steps all the way to the top of sector 11 where vigilant police lined the back railing without smiling.
The parades would go on all night. There were sixteen samba schools competing. Eight had gone the previous night and the final eight were going today. We weren't sure how long we would stay. Unfortunately, we had to stand much of the time. It was hard to take a bad picture. Each float and its costumes were unique. The costumes were amazingly ornate and colorful. We took a lot of pictures. There was time between individual schools to sit and read from our guide book to make sense out of as much as we could of what we were witnessing.
Just in front of us were a Brazilian woman and her 14 or 15-year-old daughter named Fabiola(?). They noticed us reading and helped to explain much of what was going on. Their English was much better than our Portuguese. Fabiola told Sara we made a cute couple. We ended up talking quite a bit between parades. Fabiola told us that because she looked older than she really was she was able to get into night clubs often. Often the parades would spread out quite a bit before they reached our sector, and each lasted about 80 minutes.
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Rio de Janeiro/recovery
While in the stands, we also met an older American man, a widower who beat cancer. We also met an American woman around my age (I was 30 at the time) from New York who went to Rutgers like Sara had. There were also a couple of Asian guys near us, one of whom looked exhausted.
Fabiola's uncle was in one of the schools. After his school finished, he ended up sitting with us. One of the highlights for us was when two of the costumed dancers came up and posed for a picture with Sara. We stayed until the end watching the last school go by as the sun came up. Fabiola and her mother didn't stay that long. It turned out that the music from the last school was our favorite of the night. The crowd had thinned quite a bit by then. It was 7:30 AM when we left. I was falling asleep on the drive back to the Windsor Palace Hotel. I had taken over two rolls of pictures during the night.
On our way up to our room, we stopped at the restaurant to pick up some breakfast food before we went to sleep. Sara, who does not do well on less than 8 hours of sleep, surprisingly got up before I did. I got up around 2:30. Sara went up to the pool. I joined her after a while. We both had guaranas. I wrote some notes before joining her in the pool. We took a few pictures and called to have our room done. Ibo had called to confirm details for tomorrow.
We tried to find a good inexpensive restaurant that took credit cards and ended up at Mab's on Atlantica. Sara was exhausted, so dinner was pretty quiet. She had eaten a lot of candy earlier which did not help. We had to wait a long time for our veggie pizza which didn't help. We also had an onion, tomato and lettuce salad and coffee. It cost about R$19.
On our walk back along the beach we shopped for T-shirts and shorts. We ended up at an outdoor cafe where we drank quite a bit. We were probably dehydrated since we first had strawberry fruit drinks (R$2 each). Then I had a mango juice and Sara had a mixed fruit juice. Then we shared a bottle of carbonated mineral water. By the time we were finished walking along the beach, I bought a Rio T-shirt, and Sara bought a pair of short shorts (one size fits all) that were the style there.
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February 12 Ash Wednesday
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Rio de Janeiro -> Foz do Iguassu
We were able to see Alpha Centauri from the street and the hotel rooftop again before we returned to our room and packed. I got to bed around 3:00 AM after Sara and was up before 7:00 AM to shower. Ibo met us at 8:12 AM as we were settling our bill in the lobby. He and a driver took us to the airport for our 11:15 Varig flight 251 to Iguacu.
We were very early, so we spent time window shopping. I exchanged $150 in travelers checks and gave Sara $100 worth. Our exploration of the airport took us to the chapel and observation deck there. We eventually sat down to wait for our flight. Sara crashed in her seat while I read from our Lonely Planet guide book. I was falling asleep myself when I noticed we weren't at the correct gate -- the lack of people in the room provided a major clue.
We were in seats 5K and L (Sara got the window). Our plane made a stop in Sao Paulo. The meal we had on the second flight was pretty bad, but the pilot made up for it by giving us a flyby around the amazing waterfalls. The view was great and revealed the lush vegetation of the region.
It definitely felt hotter and more humid here. A woman named Tina (Ernestina) met us at the airport. She and a driver of a rather nice car took us to the San Martin Hotel where we checked into room 418. The hotel reminded me of a lodge. We had to rush (which Sara didn't like at all) to make a decision on spending $86 per person for private car touring with Tina and her driver for the rest of that day and tomorrow. It was an unexpected expense, but I didn't want to take a chance on depriving ourselves of some sights we might otherwise not easily be able to get to.
We had to quickly settle into our room to be able to visit Itaipu Dam. We had some difficulty figuring out how to lock the room door, and I also ended up throwing a towel out the window of our first-floor room with a moth that was 'bugging' Sara.
Tina and the driver took us to the dam where we missed about half of the 20 minute 4:00 PM movie presentation on the dam. I'm not sure if Tina was just pushy or well connected because she made sure we got front seats on the dam tour bus (#6). The bus ride took us over the dam and gave us awesome views of it and the water thundering through it. The bus route actually took us into Paraguay as we drove over the dam. I ended up taking a lot of pictures here.
Later Tina took us into Paraguay over the Friendship Bridge for some shopping. The language in Paraguay was Spanish which fortunately Sara can speak. Sara looked at sunglasses and leather bags. I ended up buying 12 leather coasters, 3 postcards of the dam and a cute small leather box for R$20.
By the time we got back to the hotel, I was pretty tired. Sara ended up going for a swim in the hotel pool where I joined her (after getting better settled in the room) but didn't go in. I wrote a little more. We took some pictures by the pool as the sun was setting.
At dinner in the large dining room we chose to order from the menu instead of going with the popular Italian buffet. |
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