Redeemer de Christo

January 26, 2011 (Day 3)

I woke up this morning and headed to the Christ the Redeemer Statue. We caught a train up to the top, which took about 10 minutes. The view at the top was even better than the one that I had seen the previous day at Sugar Loaf.  I took a lot of pictures, including one of me holding the hand of Christ the Redeemer. Later on that night, we ended up catching a cab to a club called Zero/Zero (the 40/40 equivalent of Rio apparently). The club was empty at first but it eventually got PACKED! The people in the club tried to charge me 50R$ but I wasn’t having it once I found out that the locals were only paying 25R$. When I got to the front door to pay (you pay after you leave the club in Rio, which is backwards), I brought my point up. Lets just say that I walked away that night without spending any money, though I can’t say the same for my friends.

When we got back to the hotel, we had an hour to get ready to leave Rio. The plane ride was the worst experience that I’ve had flying thus far. We waited on the plane for 50 minutes without air, got kicked off of the plane only to go right back on, and sat again without air for another 35 minutes. Finally we reached Manaus and I boarded the ship, reuniting with friends that I had met a week plus back. When I walked in my room, there was a sign on my wall that read “ Welcome Back”, from some of my friends on the ship, which was cool.

To sum up my experience in Brazil, it was very memorable, scenic, filled with people in Speedos, small bathing suits (some fit and others not), Portuguese, churros con dulce de leche, poverty, prostitutes and parties. It’s a good thing that I was able to use my Spanish skills to navigate around, pretending to be Dominican, which made me “blend in” more and not appear to be a tourist. I shall return again someday.