Let me take you to Rio Rio, chillin' like a gazebo gazebo by Aaron

Wanted: Drivers needed to operate large slow semi trucks.  No experience necessary.  Actually we prefer you have no experience.  Must have eye sight better than 5,000/20 but we prefer it is no better than 800/20.  No arms or legs required.  IQ must be better than 12 and no better than 19.  Must be able to drive between Sao Paulo and Rio De Janiero without crashing over 33% of the time.

This is flyer that can be seen throughout all of southern Brazil on almost every street corner.  Well, technically I don‘t know any “Portuguese” (I’m still not convinced Portuguese is not just Spanish with a weird accent) so I can’t be totally sure that this flyer exist.  But from what I witnessed on the highway between Sao Paulo and Rio, one has to assume that this flyer exists.  During our 6 hour commute we came upon 6 crashes, most of which involved incompetent semi drivers.  To be fair, however, there had been a rain which can make driving difficult and Brazil gets very little rain so the drivers probably aren’t used to it.

We arrived in Rio the night of the 13th wary but excited at what the city had to offer.  Several people, including a missionary that very day, had warned us to be very careful in Rio because in their words: “Every single person there wants to steal your money and then kidnap you because it’s Thursday and that’s what they do on Thursday.”  As we checked into our hostel we quickly got the feeling that where we were staying was really not dangerous at all.  The worker at the hostel, a man from Grand Rapids, assured us that as long as we weren’t completely wasted at 5 a.m. we probably wouldn’t have any problem.  We decided that it wouldn’t be to hard to avoid that situation.  Excited to see the beach, we took the 30 minute walk down to Copacabana beach for some amazing Brazilian juice and just sitting on the beach.  Seriously, though, compared to Brazilian juice, all other juice tastes like bark and sweaty bicycle shorts.  That night we slept in what I think was described as the 3rd hell in Dante’s Inferno.  It was incredibly hot.  Also, one of our roommates seemed to have a really bad stomachache and headache that I’m guessing he got from eating too much ice cream because there is no possible way that a young German man visiting Rio would ever go out and party way too hard in a club.

The morning of the 14th we decided that we would prefer that another night was not spent in that hostel.  So the entire morning we drove around other parts of downtown looking for a single parking space so we could inquire in some other hostels.  They were all full.  Defeated we returned to the original street but instead decided to try the hostel two buildings down.  We were able to get a room to ourselves with air conditioning, which meant less partied out Germans in our room.  That afternoon, since the sun wasn’t shining, we decided to visit Sugar Loaf instead of the beach.  Sugar Loaf is the large shark fin-like mountain that rises up right beside the ocean in the iconic pictures of Rio.  There are two cable cars that take you to the top.  Wanting to spend as little money as possible, we hiked up to the first stop of the cable cars and then only paid for one ride.  Our depression surviving grandparents would have swelled with pride at our frugality.  It was an incredible experience from the top of Sugar Loaf.  Panoramic views of the city engulfed our every sense.  Actually, it only engulfed our sense of sight but it was still pretty cool.  After the cable car ride down where two people fell out the window and died, we headed back to the hostel to gear up for a night in the Centro (downtown).  It was great because we all knew that Andrew had one more night with us before he left.  Two blocks away from the hostel Andrew stopped.  “Oh shoot!  I think I leave tomorrow.”  Troubled, we headed back to the hostel to check online…and he had to leave the next day.  If I had a dollar for every time Andrew thought he was leaving an international city the day after he actually was, I would have about $7.  Because I think it’s happened in Syndey, Wellington, Tokyo, Calgary, Rome, Alexandria, and Minis Tirith.  Somewhat shocked, we realized it was his last night with us which meant we had to celebrate.  The evening was spent eating out, getting juice, and chilling on the beach.

Since Andrew didn’t leave until the evening, we had time to do some cool stuff in Rio with him during the day.  The first thing we did was visit Christ the Redeemer.  This is the giant statue of Jesus with his arms spread wide, overlooking the city.  It is impressive to see from sea level because the mountain is so steep on all sides and the statue of Jesus is just perched on top.  We raged up the mountain with a taxi service to get to the base.  There we witnessed the statue with throngs of people varying from the far east to Scotland.  Once again, it was a great view of the city and a great experience but there were so many people I think I may have ended up wearing someone else‘s shirt.  After raging down the mountain we headed off for the beach.  The waves at Copacabana were quite an experience.  They came in with great force and went out with almost as much.  We got thrown by the waves while standing only in waist deep water because it was dangerous to go further out.  The sun had finally come out and we had an outstanding afternoon there, eating mangos and swimming.  Sadly, we had to leave the beach so Andrew would get to his plane on time.  We dropped him off, shed some tears, threw some hissy fits, went through the five stages of grief, and then left.

The next day the sun was out, begging for us to enjoy the beach.  Unfortunately, Sheldon resembled a British officer in the Revolutionary war and was in too much pain to go out.  Hans and I enjoyed some time on the beach while Sheldon recuperated at the hostel.  We all then went to Centro, which was a lot more desolate than I thought it should have been.  We did, however, get to tour a battle ship that Brazil used in WWII.  Yeah, I didn't know they were in the war either.  Supper was eaten near some really cool aqueducts that predated the Romans.  Well that is Romans that were born after the mid 18th century.  A bus was taken to the beach, juice was consumed, and there was one last sit on the beach and watch the waves crashing down.  We headed back to the hostel for one last night’s sleep in Rio.  Thankfully it wasn’t Thursday so nobody kidnapped us.