Christ or Sugar Loaf

The following day's weather was a repeat of the former as the rain continued to
fall and grey clouds persisted in the sky. Unfortunately this was our
last sightseeing day in Rio so we had to see the view from atop one or both of the
iconic mountains. A quick glance from our street showed us Christ the
Redeemer was just visible through the clouds so a taxi was promptly
hailed and we were on our way! 20 minutes and 20 Real later we
disembarked at the base of Christo Redentor only to be told the tram
to take us up the mountain wasn't running as the heavy rain in the
night had caused a tree to fall across the line. So the only way up
was via two taxi rides and a walk. Also we could see Christ and the

mountain he topped was in thick cloud.
These events made the disappointing decision for us and there would be no Christo on this
trip and the news was broken to the disappointed children.

Sadly we climbed back into a taxi and headed for Sugar Loaf mountain
which we were advised was lower than Corcavado (where Christ sits) so
may not be in cloud. Very soon we found ourselves in a
vertigo-inducing cable car making our first climb up the mountain.

A quick pit stop in the middle was filled with a drink whilst we awaited
the cessation of the rain, then we boarded a second cable car to the
summit of Pao de Açucar. As if by magic (but probably due to Ibby's
lucky stone - she tells me), the clouds cleared and the sun came out
revealing an amazing view of Rio. Even Christ popped his head out of
the clouds from his mountain some miles away. At last things were
going our way!

Back down the mountain we followed a walk around a little explored
area of town in the foothills, viewed more Portuguese architecture and
even experienced our first cafe in a backstreet with no tourists in sight - or English speakers! A tasty and cheap meal of beef stroganoff, black beans, rice and fries was consumed
surrounded by Cariocas- a great experience!

Our tour continued along the seafront then through a coastal forest path where we
witnessed capuccian monkeys in their natural habitat. Also we were
joined by a plethora of Brazilian joggers getting their daily exercise
or stretching out their limbs (I cannot tell you how often you will
see Brazilians stretching out their legs wherever you go!).

Tired and hungry, we took our last taxi of the day back to Ipenema and
after a quick pack up of our things we were back out on the bustling
nighttime streets in search of noodles. This had to be my favourite
day so far!

Centro

Well, sorry I've been quiet for a couple of days but I'm sure you'll
agree Gareth has held the reigns more than adequately (in fact you may
prefer that he was writing - but hey-ho). It's just we've packed so
much into every day that when we arrive home, we're utterly exausted
(or zorstid as we O'Neill's like to say - actually it's just me,
zorstid isn't catching on as I'd hoped...).
So as G will have told you, our third day took us on our first experience
of the metro (where a crazy person told to 'avoid crazy people' in Centro) and
our destination was Centro which is the old centre of Rio and has
some impressive stately buildings. The side streets are also
interesting as you can see the Portuguese heritage in all of the
architecture.
We stopped off for sustenance at an amazing restaurant with ornately
high ceilings, mirrors adorning every wall and more Portuguese
architecture. Even the Brazilians took photos. But soon we were
absorbed by plates of toasted bread, jams, fabulous cakes and tea from
china cups.
Our walking tour of the city took us through a market selling
everything you could wish for but the girls and I were only interested
in the shops selling Havianas! Flip-flops purchased we visited a
Charlie Chaplin exhibition that we all enjoyed then repented our
consumer avarice in a gorgeous old church.
With aching feet and cold from the heavy rain that had commenced, we
re-embarked the metro back to Ipanema to eat a strange but satisfying
home made meal of scrambled egg, cheese, olives and bread.

The girls take you on a tour of our apartment in Rio...

 Just to clarify, this was on Erin's camera and is unedited, a childs eye view on the apartment

Cake and tea

On our walking tour of the the old centre of Rio today we came accross this stunning tea room.

Confeitaria Colombo

We stuffed ourselves with the set tea which included sandwiches, breads, jams and honey, cakes, biscuits, wafers, tea and all in mirror lined art nouveau surroundings:

Here's some girls looking forward to some of the cakes:

 Here's the whole spread...I feel full all over again! It was meant for two but was plenty for all four of us.

This is a family portrait in one of the unfeasibly large mirrors!

Oh, and it was just round the corner from this little beauty! No flecked trousers though...

Food so far

mmm well its been 3 days now and the food has been mixed. Over all great though.

The plane was a little disappointing, I normally love airplane food - those little containers of fun all waiting to be unwrapped! Sesame chicken and rice...quite nice. Ham and cheese wrap with chives for breakfast, not so nice...why I didn't go for the omelette I dont know! Ibby obviously agreed as she vomited it back up around 40 minutes after eating it - which was 2 minutes after we landed and as everyone else was rushing off the plane Ibby was vomiting into the motion sickness bag! We hoped this wa not an omen.

Undaunted we headed for the supermarket for essentials, by essentials I mean the things that you can't get here and if you cant recognise it, even better. So amoung other things, we got some grape fanta (nice), some chuchu - not too bad, some recheadinho - like fig rolls but with chocolate instead of the fruit - good(see dark photo above). And some other fruity thing to make up for it - I like a laf, not tried this yet:

Today for lunch we ate some fried chicken bits - not sure what part of the chicken they came from but most chunks had bones in and skin on and the man in the beach front juice bar didnt speak any english and the phrase book only gets you so far...probably best. Makes chicoland look like prime breast fillet.

This evening we ordered tuna koni - and as Suz mentioned we got a lot of raw tuna, which was actually delicious - we all liked it but the look of it for Suz was enough - she did eat the raw salmon sushi rolls though!

OK tomorrow - must eat safe food! No raw food, no dodgy bits of fried chicken from the beach shed! I was tempted by the man selling hot dogs out of the back of his car round the corner from out apartment but the kids said it looked to clean and not enough rusk...more culinary adventures to come...

Bison 

Back in the Saddle

Up at 6:30 today as the sun dictated and after umming and ahhing for some time we decided on a walk to Lagoa Rodrigo de Freita (that's the lake to you and me) with the intention of hiring a four seater bike to circumnavigate said lake. However, on viewing the foursome bike and after a short discussion on how we had not seen a single one in operation in two days and how foolish we would probably appear, we plumped for three ordinary bikes (one with a child seat on back) and set off around the lake. In spite of initial misgivings from Erin and I who are not natural cyclists, this proved much easier than walking and with the wind at our backs we were cool on so many levels!
A short and rather hairy cut off brought us back to Ipenema beach where we took a pit stop to strip down to our bikini's (and Gareth's offensively tight trunks), then back on the bikes again.
Soon we reached our destination of Copacabana which though lined with better cafe's than Ipanema, felt rather more hectic and the beach-vendors selling sarongs and other trinkets were far more pushy. Lunch and more agua de coca consumed, it was back on the bikes, back around the Ipenema coastline, up the hairy intersection to the lake and bikes dropped off just after four. Phew!
Showered and sun kissed, it was time to head out after dark for food. We hit upon 'Koni' which was mainly a sushi bar (which I love), but unfortunately I also ordered a 'tuna koni' which was pretty much a seaweed cone filled with a huge mound of raw tuna which I could barely bring myself to look at, let alone eat. Still, ice cream a few stores along helped to put the nauseating tuna from my mind.
Kids now in bed, blog duly posted, it's off to my ice-cold air conditioned bedroom to dream of more site seeing tomorrow, hopefully not brown fish flesh and saddle soreness.

Ipanema

Today...

Oi Rio!

Well, it was an arduous trip. There are so many ways to get comfy in a standard class aeroplane seat...oh no, actually there aren't. Only Ibby managed any real sleep (being five years old she could virtually make her chair into a bed). Gareth, Erin and I simply suffered for the duration of the twelve hour flight whilst rotund Brazilians snored the night away beside us.
In spite of this, we managed to arrive at our destination to our rather plush apartment in Ipanema to be greeted by the manager, possibly the most unfriendly woman in all of Rio (at least I hope so). We left to check out the local area with her words of how easy it is to offend Brazilians ringing in our ears.

However we have enjoyed our day of scouting out Ipenema - buying dubious food items from the supermarket (Gareth's favourite hobby), trooping mile after mile of beachfront whilst watching tanned, lithe Brazilians run past us in the 30 degree heat and being rewarded with agua de coco (a coconut with a straw sticking out to consume the water inside) at a beachside cafe.
Right now I can barely keep my eyes open so I apologise for my incoherence but hopefully I will make more sense in the morning. Do they have mosquitos by the sea? I'm itchy...

Sunday is D-day (or B-day).

Bags crammed to bursting, fake tan daubed badly over body, children at fever pitch, husband working through 'which shorts?' dilemma. I'm almost 72% certain we're ready to go..?