Jardim Botanico

Today I went for another quick trip to the Market to pick up some spices as a special request for someone who is supposed to make me dinner using them. With her culinary skills, I'm sure she'll come up with something great! In the afternoon, we went to the Botanical Garden (Jardim Botanico).








I discovered that using a flash with flowers produces quite a nice effect.



Sculpture in the garden. Quite lifelike, isn't it?

Brazilian cow

I spent the day shopping and didn't have a lot of photo ops, but I did run across this cow statue. Apparently Rio has a similar event to Seattle's Pigs on Parade and Vancouver's Orcas in the City. This was a leftover from that event.





Detail of one side.



Detail of the other side.

Two Things Challenge: In the Sky/On the Ground

These guys made the landing look so easy, I may try it someday.

Corcovado

At the end of the day we went up Corcovado which has the large statue of Jesus overlooking the city.





View from part way up.



Our tour guide being interviewed by a BBC journalist that I befriended on the tour.



The base of the statue was remarkably clean!



A bored employee.



You see a lot of this going on.



The rock is amazing!

The beaches

After lunch my tour friends and I walked to Copacabana beach before heading back to the bus. I love the sidewalks on this beach and Ipanema beach.

From the top of Sugar Loaf

Too bad it was so hazy.



You can see Corcovado in the distance.



Can you spot the mountain climber?

Urca Hill - the first step to Sugar Loaf

Unfortunately, it was a hazy day, so most of the photos aren't nearly as good as they could have been. We took two cable cars to get to the top of Sugar Loaf. The first goes up Urca Hill where I took these photos:


The old cable cars.






These kids were doing Capoeira. They were fun to watch!



This neighborhood is called Urca and is where the rich people live. It's at the base of Sugar Loaf.



School Girls (I'm assuming Catholic).



You can see Corcovado in the background.



Riding the second cable car to Sugar Loaf.