Rio Travelogue

So, here is how my son describes Rio de Janiero, Brazil.

So Rio’s an interesting place. If you like sand. And water. And sexually (and mosquitoly) transmitted diseases. Really pretty from a distance. Beautiful scenery, but unfortunately there’s this old dirty city thrown in the middle of the rainforest covered, mountainous coastline, which, if you’re standing way back so you can see the hill with the structures precariously strewn across it, is gorgeous. Once you get on the bus and start driving through the slums (gotta be like 80% of the friggin overpopulated burg) it’s not so pretty anymore. To be fair, every building that I walked through was nice and clean, but even the good buildings (except for the ones that are obviously new or beachfront property) look really grimy and rundown on the outside. The tour I went on went only to a few stops, but apparently there aren’t that many safe tourist spots in the area anyways, since the non-tour area was limited to a the beaches Copacabana and Ipanema and a few blocks in from that. The first thing we went to was this cathedral that was constructed like a giant steel and stained-glass teepee. The outside’s not that spectacular looking, but once you go inside it’s just like any other massive church with a huge vaulted ceiling and statues and such. The open air design works out pretty well for how hot the climate there is. After that we went to these two mountains connected to the valley below by cable car. We could get a view of the entire area from the second, but it was a rainy day so the second mountain was completely encased in a cloud and we couldn’t see anything at all from up there. Then we went to a restaurant (the first place I had one of the national drink: the Caipirinha which is made out of lime and some crazy strong local liquor. Kinda tastes like a margarita. You’d probably like it. [aside - I probably would] On the way out I was also accosted by the license plate guy for the first time, and the dude wanted 60 real, like 37 bucks, for the silly thing. Actually followed the tour group to the hotel we were dropped off at later and remembered me specifically, still not lowering the price much. Next day I was able to get it from another guy for fifteen. I dislike very much the street vendors.) After the eating we went to the giant Jesus, which required a train ride to the mountain it sits on and then climbing a load of stairs (there’s an elevator, too). It is a really big savior, I’ll tell ya that. Kinda silly, though, the way most of the people weren’t at all reverent of the situation and were merely posing in silly positions with the Christian son of god (you don’t nipple tweak Jesus, I don’t care who you are). Would’ve expected a little more lightning at that point. It was still super cloudy, so we couldn’t get any good shots of the town or shoreline from up there (Interesting tidbit: the great big ol’ Jesus faces the sea, but I found a postcard in the tourist shop that has the picture of the shoreline with the big lug facing the camera. Guess the Brazilians aren’t above photoshopping their national monuments. Related note: there’s this completely unphotoshopped picture one guy took of a statue holding a rifle and clutching his heart like he just got shot. Taken from the left side, this looks like a guy with a gun between his legs, actively thrusting. Funny stuff).

Back to me. Hopefully, I'll get something similar about Chile.