Week 29 Summary: Rio de Janeiro

Monday, 8/1

Obviously, another beach day close to the beach volleyball stadium!

To be honest, we didn’t really do much here except hanging out at the hostel with a few of our friends and hang out at the beach. We have been making a habit of cooking our meals and after that we read a little, hung out a little more, then went to bed.

Tuesday, 8/2

For breakfast we went to the restaurant right outside of the hostel and called an Uber to take us to Christ the Redeemer. 

Uber is definitely the way to go in Rio. For about a 45 minute ride the bill was only $17 R (which is around $6).

Our goal was to hike up and exercise that day so we ended up hiking partially up the hill to Christ the Redeemer. Unfortunately, we didn’t get great direction because the next thing we know, we get pulled over by a few of the police at the park saying that we weren’t allowed to hike up that specific road – I still couldn’t tell you which road we were supposed to take. 

Fortunately, they decided to give us a ride all the way up! So much for exercising!

When we finally got up it was $24R to get inside.

The views were incredible. It was a nice day albeit windy. The statue itself is beautiful and it was nice that you can see it all around the city. We could see the entire city from that view and we had fun picking out the places we’ve been, stayed, or walked.

Afterwards, we hiked all the way down through the National Park that Christ the Redeemer.  The hike itself was actually really difficult. I felt sorry for those few brave souls that decided to walk all the way up and down. It was slick, steep, and long.

It ended in a beautiful place though. It was the Lage Park (including the British House building during the Olympics) and there was a nice little pond, a miniature aquarium, and some beautiful grounds where we spent some time. 

Afterwards, we went to the grocery store and cooked dinner again before going to bed.

Wednesday, 8/3

We spent half the morning packing and hanging out at the hostel before we Ubered to our new apartment on the other side of the city. We pooled with a few guys who were headed to the soccer game and then finally to our new apartment.

They were literally plugging in the kitchen sink when we got there and to be honest I thought I was going to be okay with the arrangements but was not. 

That’s the whole thing about hostels and Airbnb. You are rolling a weighted dice, but sometimes it just doesn’t roll your way. Luckily, our host did as much as she could to correct the situation and we got a few free nights out of the deal. We ended up sting there all evening trying to figure out the area, arrangements, and how to get to our Olympic events.

Thursday, 8/4
Today, we went to the beach again for a little, but when we got back to the apartment Luke had a fever. We had some sandwiches and snacks and he rested.

We hung out the rest of the evening reading, sleeping, and updating our social media.

Friday, 8/5

After some needed rest yesterday, we went to the beach again today and hung out at our favorite Uruguayan sandwich shop. We spent all morning and some of the afternoon soaking up the wonderful winter sun.

That night we decided to go out to Lapas which was a bus and a subway ride over we saw a few wonderful buildings along with a massive aqueduct before we wandered around the area.

It was a wonderful busy area with a lot of places to eat. It was a little pricey but it is the area where people go out to have a great time!

We ended up settling at a restaurant near the aqueduct to have pizza and some beer to watch the opening ceremonies.

After that we finally went back to bed.

Saturday, 8/6

Yay! We got to attend one of the first Olympic games which is one of my favorite things – archery.

We watched a few of the teams compete and we got to really enjoy the diversity of the teams there.

Afterwards we had an entire beautiful day ahead of us.

Since we didn’t want to go back to the apartment and be lazy, we decided to go to the park near the huge Maracana stadium. We couldn’t go in but we tried to admire it from the outside!

Anyway, the park was amazing. It was a HUGE park with amazing greenery. It also had a zoo which provided an amazing assortment of rare birds, monkeys, etc.  Not a huge fan of caged creators but if you want to see an assortment of animals – this is the place to go. We were worm out by the time we were 2/3rds of the way done. We defintely forced ourselves to finish it and a peacock even gave us a show of its beautiful feathers! Luke spoke to so many animals! It was so funny!

Not only did it have a zoo but it also had a museum which was a great place to be. It had amazing fossils and ancient history and really too much to see to describe here. I fell in love with this whole area. We spent the whole afternoon here before we headed back to the apartment – grabbing Subway on the way home. 

Sunday, 8/7

We spent the day wandering the area and getting to our soccer games!

The amazing thing about the Olympic tickets here is that they include more than one competition. We got to watch both Portugal vs Honduras and Argentina vs an African country. Everyone cheered for the African country because Brazilians do not like Argentinians. It took pretty much all day but we had no problem with that. 

We spent much of the night trying to wait for a bus to get us back to our apartment and then went to sleep!