Rio - part 3

Ugh. The rain! The hail! The snow? Errr...hardly. But I still think we could all do with a few rays of sun this morning. So I'm taking the Rio recap one day further. To the day we went to see the famous Corcovado statue, among other things.

The actual statue seems much smaller in person because it's standing on a very tall pedestal, but still well worth the climb up fifty flights of steps (ish. The heat may have made me exaggerate a little). And the view! Breathtaking.

We didn't know it at the time, but the next day we would be trekking along in the middle of that broccoli-filled jungle up to the top of Mount Tijuca. With our very own thunderstorm and everything.

This was our last full day with the main group (the afternoon was spent at the botanical gardens but my camera had run out of battery, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it was beautiful) so that night we headed down to a very swanky club called the Scenarium for a bit of partying. A huge and beautiful old building filled with all sorts of random memorabilia, furniture, collections of all kinds and, well you can see for yourself here and here because it's pretty hard to describe. These are my best shots.

The next day we said goodbye to the Windsor, our daily chocolate on the pillow and the view of the Copacabana beach huts from our bedroom window.

Because it was time to say hello to a new little slice of paradise: the Um Meia Tres bed and breakfast (run by an English couple, strangely enough) up in the Santa Teresa area of Rio.

So much more personal and charming than the Windsor if you ask me! We even had our very own balcony with views of the city and the erratic electrical cable system that seems to reign over Rio.

I can't really decide what I liked best about this place, the nice cool room, the friendly owners, the amazing flower garden, or the pool that basically backed onto the rainforest...

Oh no, I remember: my favourite part was the wildlife! We found this little guy in our bathroom after coming home from dinner on our first evening: 

And in the morning, we were awoken by a strange noise that I initially thought to be birds, but turned out to be a bunch of these:

This one was trying to tell us to get out of bed and join him for a breakfast of freshly picked banana.

Stay tuned for more pictures of marmosets and other Riocan adventures!