New Year's Eve on Copacabana Beach

we finally had a lazy morning today as we rested to prepare for New Year's Eve on Copacabana beach!! We are told that Two million people will be on the beach tonight so we will not be alone for sure... We are also told to be very vigilant about our stuff as pickpocketing is very much the norm at such popular events!! Everything can be lost; money, cameras, iPads, iPhones ... So the advice is to take very little and watch for moving hands... The weather is great today after a rainy one yesterday so we should have a blast...

View of the beach and hills near our hotel

Beach front road near our hotel

Our hotel for today

View in the back of the hotel

Back to Favela Central: Rio

We are back in Rio for New Year's Eve celebration before we head north to Natal!!! We stopped briefly in Sao Polo on our way from Iguazu. Our hotel is surrounded by Favelas but somehow the area is pretty safe??? Favelas are slums or shanty towns and in Brazil they are known for being extremely dangerous to venture in!! Our taxi driver explained that the favelas near us are "safe" because of the heavy police presence! We ventured out to eat and it was ok walking in the dark around here. There is a decent mall nearby and most people staying here are from all over the world! The biggest Favela in South America is just around the corner!! Our taxi driver told us that people living in favelas have the best views of the beach and ocean and pay nothing for that!!! Not so in the states, the higher the house, the more expensive it is.... 

One bad thing about our "luxury" hotel is that the Internet connection in the room is the worst so far, and that explains this late posting to my blog, it is midnight!!  I am actually sitting in the lobby as I write to this blog!

Bye Bye Iguazu

A lake outside Sao Polo

Flying over Sao Polo

Islands near Rio

Flying over Rio

Flying over Rio 

View from our new hotel in Rio

Another view from the hotel

..... and another view again

As I said the luxury hotel we are staying at in Rio this time is far from Copacabana but we will go there for new year celebration later today !! We are in Rio for Copacabana so we will do whatever it takes to get there!! All hotels near Copacabana were sold out so fast that we were left we no other option but this one so .....

Iguazu Argentina: Let There Be More Water

Well, for those of you out there wondering whether to visit both sides of Iguazu Falls; Argentina and Brazil; wonder no more because the answer is YES.... You have to visit both sides period!!! I think the order in which you visit the falls should be: Brazil first then Argentina, not because this is the way my friend and I visited them but because of the WoW-factor!!! On the Brazil side, we give it one WoW factor and on the Argentinian side we give it 3 WoW factors; i.e. WoW, WoW and WoW!! Another way to look at this is to think of the Brazilian side of the falls as the appetizer and the Argentinian side as the main course... Now if your budget is tight then the Argentinian side should be your choice unless you are already in Brazil!!!

Enough advice, let's get to today's story which actually started yesterday evening, when my friend and I scrambled to buy visas for Argentina on the web!!! We took a calculated risk of not getting visas to Argentina while in the US and we both regretted that... Argentina does require reciprocity visas to US citizens just like Brazil! We thought we could buy then at the border control but it turned out not to be the case! Luckily for us, we did manage to buy them on the website of the Argentinian government and printed our entry permits at the hotel and we were good to go.. In the morning, we woke up early again, had breakfast, changed money and headed to the border.. Our taxi driver was great, he waited for us as we got our passports stamped at the border and we were of to the falls.

A big difference between the Argentinian and the Brazilan sides is that the latter is more developed than the former, and that immediately made a positive impression on us!! There were several hiking trails and falls to visit on the Argentinian side, while on the Brazilian side we were all walking on the same trail and hence more crowded!!! The Argentinian side had an amazing network of elevated walkways everywhere, above water and sometimes above the jungle canopy !! What a wonderful way to visit the falls we thought!!! Last but not least, the FALLS!!! Wow, wow and wow we thought, just amazing everywhere we went!!! We saw them from above and we saw them from below and we saw them from the front!!! That is a 3D view without 3D glasses I thought. We got really wet at some falls too... And .... as if we did not see enough Falls in the last two days, there was the grand finally fall called; the Devil's throat!!! That was a Fall for the ages!! I will never forget the size and sheer volume of water running through this fall, just unreal!!!

After the Devil's throat fall, we headed out to town for an all Argentinian dinner: Stake! We celebrated our great visit to Iguazu falls with a grand meal with all the trimmings !! Our taxi driver came back to pick us up and dropped us back at the hotel!!!

Here are some pictures from today's visit to Iguazu Argentina!!!

Elevated walkways all over the park

Several falls on the Argentinian side

Wider view of the falls

Mist rising from the falls

More up close views on the Argentinian side 

Monkeys playing on a posted sign 

More spectacular views of the falls

Water gushing down rocks and under a bridge 

Up close to a beautiful water fall 

Tourists getting wet under an amazing water fall 

Devil's throat water fall 

Water rushing to the Devil's throat 

A rainbow over Devil's throat water fall 

Massive amounts of water rushing through Devil's throat 

Our trip down to Iguazu is nearly over :( !! My friend and I declared it a total success!! We loved both sides of the falls but both agree that the Argentinian side has more WoWs than its Brazilian sister!! Tomorrow we head back to Rio to get ready to welcome the new year on Copacabana beach!!

Enjoy the pics!!!

Iguazu Brazil: Let There Be Water

Today was Iguazu day and what a day it was.... My vocabulary is not sophisticated enough to describe the Falls but I guess I can use; spectacular, awesome, out of this world, never seen before.. All these apply to what I saw today!!! Eleanor Roosevelt described Iguazu Falls best by saying "Poor Niagara" after visiting  Iguazu!!! Nothing prepares you for the size of these falls. It really does not matter whether you have seen pictures or a documentary or whatever else, you will be left speechless once you see them in front of you!! Just amazing... The falls are the largest in the world in terms of volume of water and number of individual falls and the sound is deafening!!

We started our day by taking a taxi to the Brazilian falls, it was a 1/2 hours ride from our hotel. We stood in a line to buy tickets for the Iguazu national park and then walked towards the place where they sold tickets for helicopter rides. We bought tickets for a 10 minute ride over the jungle and the falls. We then patiently waited for our turn to fly and it was all worth it as the pictures will show... Once back on terra firma, we headed to the bus stop for Iguazu national park. We took a double decker bus for the short ride into the park. We were dropped at the first observation point and walked slowly towards the last and most spectacular observation point on the Brazilian side of the falls. The following are few pictures for you to enjoy .....

Flying over the Amazon jungle in a helicopter

Iguazu falls seen from a helicopter 

High above Iguazu Falls 

Different angle from high above Iguazu Falls

Another view of Iguazu Falls from the helicopter 

Ground level view of the most spectacular falls in the Western Hemisphere 

View from the observation deck 

Another view from the observation deck 

One more view from the deck 

And yet another view from the deck 

Jungle animals roaming around looking for food 

Another jungle animal roaming around in the park grounds

I can now say and after the first day of visiting Iguazu falls that Niagara Falls are no match for Iguazu in any head to head comparison and that a visit to Iguazu Falls is well  worth all the trouble and the expenses! Tomorrow we venture to the Argentinian side of the falls which everyone seems to  agree that they are even more speculative !! We shall confirm that tomorrow and certainly hope they are right again... 

From sunrise on Copacabana to sunset on Iguazu Falls

We got up at 5:30 this morning to a beautiful sunrise over Copacabana beach! What a view from the restaurant of our hotel !! Just awesome... The breakfast buffet was unreal with three different areas to consider, hot foods, fruit salads and all sorts of cold foods and off course my must have strong coffee!! Once checked out of the hotel, our car service was waiting for us to go to GIG airport.  Our airline this time is GOOL, which is local to South America !!! The flight is about an hour 45 minutes!!

Sunrise over Copacabana beach, Rio de Janero

I love taking pictures from planes high above the ground. The following are few of them on our way to Iguazu. We flew along the east coast of Brazil until Sao Polo then we veered west south west towards Curatiba then Iguazu. The sky was getting cloudier the farther south we went. Near Iguazu the sky was very cloudy with lots of turbulence while landing. From high above Iguazu, one can see the Amazon jungle in all directions; lush green and dense vegetation with lots of exotic animals; Piranas, anacondas and whatever else is crawling down there... I joked with my friend that if we  crashed their will be a feast in the jungle!! Once on the ground, it was suffocating heat and humidity! I felt like I was back in July or August in Bama.. We arrived at our hotel around 2 pm and we decided to immediately get busy looking for things to do. Talking to the tourist office at the hotel, she suggested going to the Itaipu dam where the largest hydroelectric power plant was built between Brazil and Paragway! 80% of the power needs of Paragway come from this plant while only 18% of Brazil power needs are supplied by the plant .... In the meantime the rain was coming down in buckets, typical of the jungle weather!!! After this first tour, which was worth it, we went back to the hotel to plan for the next day! We found out that we needed a visa to Argentina which we both don't have but we can buy it on the web so that was the immediate problem to solve...

Leaving Rio with GOOL airline

Flying over southern Brazil near Sao Polo

Near Iguazu 

Iguazu falls in a distance 

Iguazu falls in a distance with the Amazon jungle everywhere

Itaipu dam near Paraguay

Our day in southern Brazil is over but lots of things happened today, left Rio for Iguazu, visited the Itaipu dam and breafly entered Paraguay ! The hydroelectric power plant was gigantic and the dam was huge... Tomorrow we go to the falls on the Brazilian side, we plan to take a helicopter ride over the falls, a boat ride, that my friend is dreading because we will get soaked and need to change clothes right after the ride.. We will also walk around the Brazilian side and take in all the scenic views... So lots waiting tomorrow...

Hello from Rio

As I said in my earlier posts, the hardest part of any trip is getting to the final destination, this time is no different!! When I left Huntsville Friday morning, it was raining so hard that I thought my trip was in jeopardy! There were flash flood warnings and streets under water everywhere, but by noon I was able to get a cab to show up and take me to the airport. At first, the flight to Atlanta was delayed but then it actually took off almost on time so not bad I said.. Once in Atlanta, my friend was waiting for me at gate F-08. We went to lunch and then coffee and headed back to the gate. The flight was on time and all the passengers boarded just fine, but then as the plane pushed-off from the gate, the pilots noticed an unusually high temperature reading in one of the engines and so the technicians were called in to check the problem. Well, the suspense lasted about an hour on the Tarmac and then we got the bad news that we had to de-plane and board another plane at gate E-26!! Well, that ordeal pushed our departure time by Four hours!! To appease us they provided us with "junk" food which I threw to garbage anyway... By midnight we were in the air and on our way... I did not know that the flight was going to take 9.5 hours !! That was torture ... But I was in an aisle seat so I stood up and walked around the plane while most people were sleeping. We arrived in Rio at around noon time, 4 hours later than we were supposed to. My friend and I took a cab to our hotel where we checked in, took a quick shower and were out on street to get a first glimpse at this famous beach shown on every picture of Rio de Janero. It was packed with people, swimming, playing soccer, Volley ball..... Etc. It was a hot day, 95 degrees so everyone was out... Our hotel is great and the front desk people were first class, they gave us an upgrade to a room facing the beach and on the 35 floor so great views indeed... We only stay one night this time but will be back here on the 4th of January for four more nights before heading back home on the 8th of January...

Here are few pictures I just took..

View from our hotel room on Copacabana beach

Another view from the hotel room

Evening stroll on Copacabana beach 

Another picture from the beach around sun set

We leave tomorrow morning bright an early for Iguazu Falls where our true adventure begins! We have a direct flight which should be just a couple hours. Iguazu Falls are near the borders of Argentina and Paragway so we will enter both countries as well. We will stay four days down there before returning to Rio for New Year's Eve! Enjoy the pics and send comments by email if you would like. Tomorrow will be another fun day!!!