Brazil—Rio

"I'll take you to Rio, Rio.  Fly over the ocean like an eagle, eagle."  --from movie Rio

Day 1: Yay I am finally posting Rio!  We watched the movie the night before we came into port (ok so maybe I fell asleep halfway through but it's the thought that counts) and now this song is stuck in my head.  The morning we came into port we got food and then went to hang out with our best friends the Paul-Rios family.  They have a five-year-old girl and two year old twins (a boy and a girl) and one of their cousins (Heather) who came along to help babysit and they are an awesome family with really cute and fun kids so we hang out with them a lot.  We figured out that we were all headed to the same place so a little later that morning me, Danielle, Sarah, Briana and their family headed out to find an ATM which we thought would be nice and easy and we would be on our merry way.

Seven blocks and at least seven, if not more, stations with ATM's later we were about to give up until we found a station that actually worked.  There was at least on station on each block and each station had anywhere from five to twenty ATM's.  The problem is that most of the machines only accepted cards from certain companies and the CITI bank station wouldn't even let you in the door unless you had a CITI card—there was literally a place to scan your card and the door would only unlock if you scanned your CITI bank card.  SO after trying what seemed like dozens of ATM's we finally found the one that worked and then located the nearest subway station.  SAS told us to be leery of the subways but as it was Sunday morning and we had a big group we were fine.  To help pass the time I had the five year old countdown how many stops we had left by holding up ten fingers and asking, "If we have four stops down, how many more to go?"  She thought it was a great game and had fun announcing to everyone how many stops were left each time.  The twins were on Mommy and Heather's backs and were being entertained by everyone else.  The funny part was that most of the people on the subway kept giving us weird glances because they couldn't figure out which of us were the parents haha. 

Ten stops later we had finally reached our destination and after a quick stop by the Starbucks (yeah I know—typical American—but hey we haven't had coffee in awhile) we got to the Hippie Market.  It was definitely the best market we have been to so far and it covered the entire open park-like area in the middle of the open square.  Whatever you wanted, someone was selling it and I was very tempted to buy some corn on the cob but managed to refrain.  We wandered around there for almost an hour before heading to the grocery store to buy some stuff for lunch which we carried with us to the iconic Ipanema Beach. 

When we got there we set out all our towels, ate lunch and sun-screened up.  Then we noticed another family from the ship (they have three kids, a girl in fourth grade I believe, a boy in sixth and a fourteen year old girl) and moved our camp over to them.  Sarah, Danielle, the fourteen year old who we have hung out with before, and I took a walk to the tip of the beach where we watched a match of what looked like soccer and volleyball combined.  It was played on a volleyball court with volleyball-like rules but you could not use your hands.  Just your feet, legs, chest and head.  It was pretty intense and we were all fascinated by it and also the "muscle beach" near by where people were working out with dumbbells that looked like they were made out of cinder slabs.  As the fourteen year-old said, "it looks like the Flinstones." 

After walking back we played with the kids for a while before going out deeper into the water and riding the waves for awhile.  We had been there for about four hours before we decided to head back so we could put the kids down and get ready for dinner. It was Heather's birthday and we got invited to go out with them to celebrate.  We went to a bar near the Arches in Rio (I think it's called the Lapa district??) and had some really good pizza and drinks then went to another place with music and people watched for awhile—there were some crazies.  "Mom" is in a psychology class and she was analyzing the people there for a project she had and the rest of us ended up joining in.  We also swapped stories and heard about when they were in college, talked about how we need to stay in touch after and at midnight everyone shared what they love about Heather and we toasted her birthday!  Then "Mommy" Danielle and I got henna (as in temporary….got that mom, temporary) tattoos on our ankles.  They got flowers and I got a sun and they look awesome!  It was a really fun night and we plan to go out with them and some other people again in Manaus.

Day 2: is a secret surprise (mua-ha-ha) I will tell you about it if you e-mail me :)

Day 3: Danielle and I went on a SAS trip of the caves and waterfalls of the Tijuca Rainforest which is not a part of the Amazon, in case you were wondering.  As can typically be expected in a rainforest it was raining but it was awesome so no one really cared.  We were with a really fun group of people and we all talked and whatnot as we hiked and helped each other navigate the particularly muddy or slippery areas.  We hiked for awhile to reach one of the waterfalls where we took pictures and took a bit of a break before continuing onto the caves.  Unfortunately, due to the rain we could not go into on of the caves but we still got to go in………the BAT CAVE.   Yeah, that's right Batman lovers, I visited the bat cave (which was really just a cool cavern where bats normally sleep but lets pretend it's the actual bat cave for posterities sake).  We all started to sing "na na na na, na na na na, BATMAN" and it was awesome.  When we got there it was just a little crevice opening in the rock face but inside was a huge cavern that was a lot taller than it looked.  We all took pictures and shined our flashlights into every nook and crany looking for bats but sadly there were none (or maybe not so sadly as none of us got the rabies-prevention shot—oopsies).  Then we all stood in a circle and held hands as the guides explained how important nature is to them and how they want to preserve their natural resources like the forest.  We all shared how we felt in that moment and decided that peaceful was the best word, though soaked came very close :P  We snacked on cheese and crackers and granola bars and then headed back out into the rain to hike back down to our vans.  We ate boxed lunches from the ship on the way back but to be perfectly honest all we really wanted was the Capri Sun and then rushed in to take hot showers and done sweatshirts before our special BBQ dinner—which ended up being inside due to rain, fail :(  But it was still fun!

Miss you all and I will post some about ship life tomorrow

~Colleen