More Brazil Vacation
Thursday, July 17th
We get up early enough to go to the airport and fly to Rio. This time, Bryan calls from the airport to make sure we have a hotel to stay at. The hotel he had in mind, did have vacancy. We go on what seems like a two hour bus ride to get to the hotel in Rio, to where we're staying. I was just amazed at all the small, run down places there were. Bryan says they're called Shanty towns, and it's basically where all the poor people live, and it's a lot of places. Every single building was made out of what's called wonder brick, and most of them have just some kind of wood or sheet of metal covering the top of the building. It was an eye opening experience to see what low class/poverty really looks like (you definitely do not see a lot of it in Salt Lake City, UT).
The bus gets to our stop, and drops us off. We debate on what to do, well mostly Bryan debates on what to do :) We decide to go to sugar loaf mountain, that's where the beginning scenery and sky cable car pictures are from in the Rio section of Bryan's photo album. Before we're able to go up though, we had a hard time finding an ATM that would take our card. The bank company that usually accepts any visa card, just was not working for us, so we spent a good amount of time doing that. While we're on this little ATM hunt, Bryan got us some churros from a street vendor. I do believe this was my favorite treat/food from the entire trip of Brazil. I didn't know they filled up the center of the churros with filling. Bryan may say he has told me before, but I must have forgotten. I got mine with just plain dulce de leite flavor, and I could have had at least five more! So good! Finally, we find that sugar loaf will take visa anyway, so we go ahead and get in line.
Apparently sugar loaf is a really famous historical geological formation there. Go here for more information on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mountain%2C_Brazil
They have a Brazilian site for it, but no English version for it yet. Basically, it's freaking A high up, and very steep on the sides. First you are taken to a smaller mountain, and you can explore a tiny bit, then you go up to the next mountain by way of sky cable car again. My mom would have a heart attack there, I don't think she could have made up to the first mountain. I was even getting a little light headed when in the cable car, just because you could see how much higher you were getting the whole time. It was cool, but freaky.
We were there for awhile, just relaxed and watched the crowds, and the sun for awhile. It was relaxing. Then we start heading back to town. We get off where we thought we had gotten on, and see there's a mall nearby. We go to the mall, and look around a bit. We got dinner at a self service place there. I think it's the best option as you can have the most variety of foods there to try. IF you don't know what it is, it's basically a buffet, but you pay by the weight of the plate. I definitely got more for my money that way then getting a seven dollar burger from McDonald's (which is very chicy there).
Then we go to find an internet cafe to check in with my family, and check to see if we have any urgent e-mails. We saw another street vendor that sold tapioca. Now, for you Americans, this is not Tapioca pudding, but actual tapioca. Here's a little excerpt from wiki:
In Brazilian cuisine, tapioca is used for different types of meals. The tapioca is stirred, drained through a sieve, fried into a tortilla shape, and often sprinkled with coconut. Then it may be buttered and eaten as a toast (its most common use as a breakfast dish), or it may be filled or topped with either "doces" (sweet) or "salgados" (salty) ingredients, which define the kind of meal the tapioca is used for: breakfast, afternoon tea or dessert. Choices range from butter, cheese, chocolate, bananas with condensed milk, chocolate with bananas, to various forms of meats and served warm. A restaurant which specializes in tapioca-based dishes (mostly fillings) is called in Brazil a "tapiocaria"
Then we start to walk home, but as we soon discover,we were in the wrong place. We also had no idea how to get to where our hotel was. Bryan figured he had an idea, so we start walking. AFter a very very long time, we realize we don't know where we are,so we hail a taxi, and bryan gives him directions to somewhere. The taxi drops us off, and we start walking. Again, we're not sure where we are as he had dropped us off at an intersection that we didn't recognize. So we walk a little bit more, not nearly as long this time though. We hail another taxi cab, and are taken straight to our hotel. At this point, we get in the hotel and crash.
We get up early enough to go to the airport and fly to Rio. This time, Bryan calls from the airport to make sure we have a hotel to stay at. The hotel he had in mind, did have vacancy. We go on what seems like a two hour bus ride to get to the hotel in Rio, to where we're staying. I was just amazed at all the small, run down places there were. Bryan says they're called Shanty towns, and it's basically where all the poor people live, and it's a lot of places. Every single building was made out of what's called wonder brick, and most of them have just some kind of wood or sheet of metal covering the top of the building. It was an eye opening experience to see what low class/poverty really looks like (you definitely do not see a lot of it in Salt Lake City, UT).
The bus gets to our stop, and drops us off. We debate on what to do, well mostly Bryan debates on what to do :) We decide to go to sugar loaf mountain, that's where the beginning scenery and sky cable car pictures are from in the Rio section of Bryan's photo album. Before we're able to go up though, we had a hard time finding an ATM that would take our card. The bank company that usually accepts any visa card, just was not working for us, so we spent a good amount of time doing that. While we're on this little ATM hunt, Bryan got us some churros from a street vendor. I do believe this was my favorite treat/food from the entire trip of Brazil. I didn't know they filled up the center of the churros with filling. Bryan may say he has told me before, but I must have forgotten. I got mine with just plain dulce de leite flavor, and I could have had at least five more! So good! Finally, we find that sugar loaf will take visa anyway, so we go ahead and get in line.
Apparently sugar loaf is a really famous historical geological formation there. Go here for more information on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sugarloaf_Mountain%2C_Brazil
They have a Brazilian site for it, but no English version for it yet. Basically, it's freaking A high up, and very steep on the sides. First you are taken to a smaller mountain, and you can explore a tiny bit, then you go up to the next mountain by way of sky cable car again. My mom would have a heart attack there, I don't think she could have made up to the first mountain. I was even getting a little light headed when in the cable car, just because you could see how much higher you were getting the whole time. It was cool, but freaky.
We were there for awhile, just relaxed and watched the crowds, and the sun for awhile. It was relaxing. Then we start heading back to town. We get off where we thought we had gotten on, and see there's a mall nearby. We go to the mall, and look around a bit. We got dinner at a self service place there. I think it's the best option as you can have the most variety of foods there to try. IF you don't know what it is, it's basically a buffet, but you pay by the weight of the plate. I definitely got more for my money that way then getting a seven dollar burger from McDonald's (which is very chicy there).
Then we go to find an internet cafe to check in with my family, and check to see if we have any urgent e-mails. We saw another street vendor that sold tapioca. Now, for you Americans, this is not Tapioca pudding, but actual tapioca. Here's a little excerpt from wiki:
In Brazilian cuisine, tapioca is used for different types of meals. The tapioca is stirred, drained through a sieve, fried into a tortilla shape, and often sprinkled with coconut. Then it may be buttered and eaten as a toast (its most common use as a breakfast dish), or it may be filled or topped with either "doces" (sweet) or "salgados" (salty) ingredients, which define the kind of meal the tapioca is used for: breakfast, afternoon tea or dessert. Choices range from butter, cheese, chocolate, bananas with condensed milk, chocolate with bananas, to various forms of meats and served warm. A restaurant which specializes in tapioca-based dishes (mostly fillings) is called in Brazil a "tapiocaria"
Then we start to walk home, but as we soon discover,we were in the wrong place. We also had no idea how to get to where our hotel was. Bryan figured he had an idea, so we start walking. AFter a very very long time, we realize we don't know where we are,so we hail a taxi, and bryan gives him directions to somewhere. The taxi drops us off, and we start walking. Again, we're not sure where we are as he had dropped us off at an intersection that we didn't recognize. So we walk a little bit more, not nearly as long this time though. We hail another taxi cab, and are taken straight to our hotel. At this point, we get in the hotel and crash.