Samba !
Olá !
How are you folks ? Enjoying the sun ? I hope so ´cause we´re not. Yesterday was better than the day before. We decided to go to the famous Copacabana beach and take some pictures of Christ the Redeemer, a huge statue of Jesus with the arms extended situated on top of a mount, symbol of Rio. Of course you know, it´s on all the postcards !
Having booked the tour with the hostel for the afternoon, we went to Copacabana beach in the morning. It´s a nice beach, much cleaner than the Botafogo beach, near our hostel, where swimming is forbidden. There were only a few people as the weather wasn´t so good. No rain but very cloudy and a bit windy. We walked on the white sand and we both agreed that it must be very nice to sunbathe there when the weather is fine. Again, it´s not as unsafe as people say and we merely suffered some laughs from the Cariocans when they saw us with our trekking boots, trousers and pale skin. Copacabana is a beach. Not the best one in the world, not the worst either, just a beach. We hurried a little as we had to pick up our clothes from the laundry (it´s so good to wear clean clothes freshly ironed ! ) and the tour to Christ the Redeemer started at 12:30.
The second part of the day started with a misunderstanding. We don´t know the people from our hostel so well and it is sometimes difficult to say who´s staying at the hostel and who´s working there. At 12:15, four guys told us (in Spanish) to follow them to see the Christ. We thought that they were staff members doing the tour. We realised only 15 minutes later, getting on a public bus instead of the car advertised on the leaflet, that they were also tourists ! Carole and I rushed to the hostel to get our money back (we had prepaid) and we cancelled the tour, explaining that we were going with our new spanish friends. So there we were, on our way to heaven (that´s my view of heaven : Jesus welcoming you with his arms wide open on top of a mountain. The part with the naked girls comes later ; ). 
Our team starred a Peruvian, an Argentinian and two Basques (don´t tell them they´re Spanish ! It´s another country). We took a bus, and then a train climbing the mountain, while chatting about our trip and what we should see in Argentina and Peru. The statue is huge and the view is breathtaking. It might even be better than the one from the Sugar Loaf. For me, that´s the symbol of Rio and this was the place where I wanted to go to when we planned our trip to Rio de Janeiro. If you ever go to Rio, don´t forget to go up there ;) In the evening, we had a chat with a french-speaking brazilian who is studying medecine. He told us about his culture, poverty in brazil and the presidential elections. He also mentioned a strange phenomenon which I already knew from Ireland : getting burnt despite the clouds and cold weather.
When we woke up this morning it was very sunny and I still looked like a lobster, so we decided to go to the beach to finish the cooking ! I had a sunblock shower and we left the hostel at 11 am. Great ! As it was Sunday, the streets were filled with body-builders and a few (only a few ! ) dream-like creatures walking their poodles (they dress them and even make shoes for them !) If you´re a man, you´d be disappointed. Mc Donalds is also in brazil and you can see it on women ! If you´re a woman you´ll be amazed. All men are tanned, with huge muscles and blue eyes. A nightmare ! We walked on the beach for three hours and right when we decided to stop...it started raining. Again ! We ended up in a small market where I bought a nice brazilian flag as a souvenir. I really hope tomorrow will be sunny and warm.
Thanks for the comments, it´s nice to know that someone is reading our prose.