July 11: Sugar Loaf Mountain

Today was quite a breathtaking day. We didn't even eat breakfast at the hotel, we went straight to Sugar Loaf Mountain located at the mouth of Guanabara Bay. The ride to the top in the cable cars was amazing and Ryan even tried to play 007 from the movie MoonRaker but of course was nothing like him. When we were at the top we had a bite to eat and took lots of pictures. The mountain has a lot of interesting facts about it like how the "Sugarloaf" part came because of the sugar cane trade in Brazil. The mountain is also available for rock climbing but we had no experience whatsoever in the sport so we decided to pass. The original cable cars for the mountain were created in 1912 and lifted people for about 60 years. Sugarloaf mountain is 394 meters high. The name comes from the mountain’s resemblance to a concentrated sugarloaf, so familiar in the city during its sugar cane hey-day. 

July 10: Museum of Life (Rio)

Wow, today was such an interesting day! After eating breakfast we went to the Museum of Life in Rio! We heard tons of great reviews about it and it seems to be a lot like the Museum of Life here in North Carolina. They utilizes space, science, and society into the museum to make it an interesting place. They also try to teach technology, science, and health in a fun way for all people, young and old. The Museum of Life also has a Education Center. They are responsible for pedagogical orientation of the museums different visiting areas. They evaluate the education activities developed by the Museum. The Museum is also very kid friendly and has many programs for them like a park. We of course took full advantage of these things even though were all 21. After eating lunch there we stayed until closing time at 4 pm and returned to the hotel. As we were talking we remembered that there was a Rio movie and we really wanted to watch it again. For dinner we ordered room service and watched the movie Rio which brought back many memories and we even saw the Sugar Loaf Mountain in the beginning were we are going tomorrow!

July 9: The Slums

What We Did

Today we went to the slums. The slum we visited was called Rocinha. It was a very interesting experience. We walked in and the atmosphere changed. We shopped at the street vendors for a couple hours. They sell everything! Ryan bought a machete to use in case we ran into any gangsters or drunks. We stopped and ate lunch. Then we kept shopping. Shop til you drop. We all got some really cool things. We took a bus to the hotel and collapsed.
History and Culture
The slums are very interesting. They are a collection of houses that were built by the lower class citizens. Housing in the city cost too much so they built their own houses (illegally) and it turned into elaborate neighborhoods. There are a lot of slums around the big cities but one of the biggest ones is Rocinha. It has about 250,000 people in it and it is full to the brim. The slums are a huge part of the Brazilian culture because many people live in them so lots of people know what its like.

In the slums, the holidays are super amazing. Carnival is one example. Feel free to watch a short video of Carnival.

Carnival is similar to the Mardi Gras celebration in the US. It is believed to be the one day of the year that God turns his back and allows you to do bad things. There are amazing festivals and parades every year. It is too bad that we can't be here for it.

July 8: National Library of Brazil (Biblioteca Nacional do Brasil)

A Place of Knowledge:

After going to the beach we decided to go to the National Library of Brazil, it was a little afternoon when we got there and went right after. Library's can generally be boring places but it was really fun exploring all of the things inside the library. There was this one section called Teresa Cristina Maria photograph collection, that has 21,742 pictures aging back to the nineteenth century, THE NINETEENTH CENTURY! That was in the 1800's! It was also a very fancy place, there was nothing that looked odd and everything looked like it belonged there from the beginning. Who knew a library could be so interesting? Brazil has really blown all of us away and changed our minds on alot of things. As you can see from the pictures there are floors and floors of books. I wish we had cool old library's like this in Apex. After we visited the library we when out to dinner, it wasn't any where fancy. We're back at the hotel tomorrow and we'll be going to the slums which will be pretty interesting, but also pretty scary. Hopefully we'll be alive tomorrow to blog about it.

July 8: Copacabana beach & National Library

To the Beach!
Our hotel is the greatest! We live so close to the Copacabana beach that we decided to go there for the day, and were not disappointed!

As you can see the beach is quite amazing to look at, but even better to play in!

When we woke up we of course ate our free meal and then returned to our rooms to get ready for our trip to the beach. It was a very short distance so we decided to walk there. It was jam packed! Most likely because of the World cup going on, in which I was extremely exited to go to. We stayed at the beach for hour and then took a break to eat lunch at a small vendor that was walking by with his little cart. After that we stayed some more until about 3 o'clock.


Copacabana beach
Copacabana beach is such a wonder place that that has so many cool things about it. First of all is the New Years Eve part on of course, New Years Eve! It a really fun time where people stay up all night a socialize on the street listen to other perform. There is usually a huge concert with a well know band that plays, attracting a couple million people! Another cool thing about this beach is that it was originally called Sacopenapã which means "the way of the socós (a kind of bird)". There are also two historic forts build on both end of it, Fort Copacabana and Fort Duque de Caxias.

After the beach we dried ourselves and then wandered the streets, looking for souvenir shops to buy souvenirs. After we bought our little trinkets we headed to a fancy restaurant to eat and returned to the hotel to relax until we went to sleep.

July 7: Jardim Botanico Gardens

The Gardens

We then traveled to Jardim Botanico which is a beautiful garden in Rio. It has ​​137 hectares and over 6,500 species (Some Endangered). It is sometimes called "Suvaco do Cristo" which translates to "Armpit of the Christ". The park lies at the foot of the Corcovado Mountain far below the right arm of the statue of Christ the Redeemer. The park is protected by the Patrimônio Históricoe Artístico Nacional and was designated as a biosphere reserve by UNESCO in 1992. There is more than 6,000 different species tropical plants and trees and subtropical plants and trees, including 900 varieties of palm trees. Wow! One of the tour guides told us that the 750 Meter line of 134 palms forms the avenue of Royal palms leading from the entrance into the gardens. Also the tour guide said, "these palms all descended from a single tree, the Palma mater, long since destroyed by lighting." The story was very interesting! After just walking around the amazing city and hanging out we hit the hay and enjoyed a nice long sleep.

July 7: The Christ Redeemer

History and Culture
The City of Rio de Janeiro is a wonderful and rich city of culture and history. It was built in 1565 by Portuguese explorers and in the 1800s it started to grow very rapidly and began to look like it does today. It used to be South America's most visited city but it hit a peak in the late 1900s and began to decline. A really popular place to visit there is the Copacabana beach. Every year it is just full to bursting on New Year's Eve.We might visit it later. It's just a couple blocks down from our hotel. The most exciting thing about Rio right now is the FIFA World Cup. The streets are packed and the hotels are all full. But more of that later.

What we did

We woke up and ate the complementary breakfast at our wonderful hotel. Then we all got in a taxi to make our way to the first stop of the day, The Christ Redeemer! Its a huge statue in Rio that was first suggested in the mid-1850s. It was finally finished in 1931 for a total cost of $3,300,000 (in today's money). It is 30 meters tall and 28 meters wide. It gets 2,000,000 people who come and climb to the top each year, there are 220 steps to get to the top. The Christ Redeemer is a great historical site and shows how religion is important in Brazil because all of the money used to build it was donated from the private sector. When we were done look around at the Christ Redeemer, we went to a nice restaurant called Mr. Lams's to eat lunch.