Rio

The giant city of Rio de Janerio has definitely been one of the most magnificent highlights of this exciting trip. I am sure you have heard of this famous and beautiful city, famous for its crazy week long Carnaval holiday, and beautiful ocean. It is placed among multiple steep mountains that tower above the rest of the city, including the famous mountain of Sugar Loaf. Sugar Loaf, Pao de Acucar in Portuguese, looks similar to the containers that were used to transport sugar blocks from Brazil to Europe a long time ago. There is only one way to get up to the peak, and that is by a gondola. There are actually two gondolas that you have to take, one to a mountain near Sugar Loaf, and then one from that mountain to the taller, bigger mountain. Sugar Loaf opened in 1912 as a tourist attraction to see the city from above. People from all over the world come to see the breath taking veiw from the top. Many years later, (In 1932) another famous tourist attraction in Rio was built. It was Christ the Redeemer, or Corcovado in Portuguese. Christ the Redeemer is one of the tallest and biggest statues in the world, weighing at an amazing 1,000 tons, and standing at 30 meters high. The statue is very important to the people of Rio, for they are very Catholic and worship Jesus. Christ stands on another large mountain, overlooking the entire city. Unfortunatlly, it was cloudy when we visited the statue, so we couldn't see the veiw very well. But the other days we were in Rio, we could see the statue looking down at us from all parts of the city. The sight is truly amazing. Rio also has two world famous beaches that attract hundreds of people every day. Those are Impanema beach and Copacabana beach. Another beach that we visited was Lablon, which was connected to Impanema. As many people know, Brazil is very famous for futball (soccer), which is why the World cup is being held here in 2014, and the Olympics in 2016. I really want to come back later to maybe see those phenominal sports events. All in all, Rio was a magnificent and fun place to visit and stay. I think everybody should have the chance to visit.