One house was set up as the chill house where our one young traveler and her parents were staying, along with Eve, Matt and myself. The other was considered the party house and had the birthday girl (Donna), Michael, Donna's son Jeff, the nanny (for Lali) and any other Brazilian friends of Donna and Michael's. Both places were set up so we could cook grand meals during our time there, which we did a majority of the time. And then there was the breakfast service we got every morning, which was awesome! Nothing like waking up to prepared breakfast every morning.
The other cool thing about our house was that we had lots of monkey friends that visited us every morning, especially since Lali would try to stuff them full of bananas all day long. They were absolutely adorable, but did start to get more aggressive and demanding if Lali wasn't up early enough to tend to their banana diet. They were so tiny though, and pretty harmless really.
Besides hanging out on the beach, lounging around our houses and drinking caipirinhas, we did some sight seeing. First, a bunch of us headed back into Rio to check out Sugar Loaf mountain in the bay, which has a glass cable car the runs from the base to the top of both peaks.
There are amazing views as well as a network of trails. We actually saw lots of wildlife up there, including lots of marmosets (little monkeys) which seemed to run rampant all over the Rio area, lizards and exotic birds too. We could even see the other famous sight way up on the other side of Rio, Cristo (Christ the Redeemer), which is a huge statue of Jesus; however, it was shrouded in fog for a majority of our time there. Jeff tried to check it out, but the best (and kind of creepy) picture he got of it was this: 
Otherwise, the rest of us headed back to Ipanema beach to try and catch some sun...which promptly disappeared about 15 minutes after we got settled. Instead, we got to enjoy being the whitest people on the beach, which entails getting constantly bombarded by beach vendors trying to get you to buy their stuff. You start out polite, and by the end you just want to throw sand in every single vendors' face as soon as they get within 5 feet of you. You can't actually just sit there and enjoy the beach because you have to watch your stuff and make sure no one takes it while the vendors are distracting you. This was something we thankfully didn't have to endure when we hung out at the Itacoatiara beach.
We did have some rainy weather there, being that time of year for them, but since it's tropical, we really didn't mind. We hung around indoors, at food, played video games, watched movies, surfed the internet, did some acrobatic yoga...yes, that's right. I said acrobatic. Eve and her sister are both yoga instructors and decided to do some yoga. After all, what better way to spend a rainy day in Brazil, right? I got to try this out and Eve actually go me into a kind of reverse half wheel pose that turned out pretty cool!
We also, ironically, did some shopping in San Francisco, another neighborhood in Niteroi...well, some of us went shopping, while Matt went and got another tattoo. For 3 of us (Eve, Jeff and I), the exciting part of the trip was going hang gliding. We drove over to the northern part of Rio and literally ran off of a platform made of 2x4's off the side of a mountain of our own volition. Yep, we are officially crazy.
The little specks on the side of the mountain are the platforms that you jump off of. Once I actually got over the fact that I was literally going to run off the side of a mountain into the air, it was a matter of just trying to enjoy the view, which was amazing! We got to glide around for about 20 minutes before landing on the beach down below. It was awesome! I had been sky diving about a month prior to this, but this was way more fun! 
The guy who Eve got to go with was the funniest man, who called himself Mosquito. He kept trying to joke and put us at ease before we took off and would tell us all about all the celebrities he had taken hang gliding. He even mentioned that he had been skydiving in the Bay Area. And, he posed in a picture with us afterward: 
Our time together was coming to a close, so we had a big BBQ at the Atlantico house. There was lots of food, lots of caipirinhas, and lots of cheesy 90's music to dance to thanks to Matt. It was pretty hilarious watching everyone try to tear it up on the dance floor. I'd say it was the best night down there since everyone was in rare form and good spirits and there was no drama to be had. Just good times, lots of smiles and being silly.
The last full day we spent in Brazil we decided to climb up the rock on the other side of the Itacoatiara beach. Michael had been climbing up the front side for most of the trip free hand...he's crazy, but an experienced climber and does this all the time...still crazy though. I guess we all get our adrenaline rushes in different ways. He had discovered there was a trail on the back side of the rock that the majority of us could climb up and get amazing views of the bay in Rio, downtown, Cristos, Sugar Loaf, Niteroi, etc. It was quite spectacular I have to say.
There were a few more adventurous people in our crew that wanted to join Michael on the rock face. Eve and Matt decided to give it a go. As they set off on their climb, the rest of us hung out at the top of the rock taking pictures, taking in the views and sunshine and were waiting for them to appear. First we saw Michael, then we saw the helicopter and the rescue squad. Michael told us that Eve had fallen and that Matt was stuck and needed to be rescued. We were all really freaked out to say the least. As you can see from this pictures, that rock face is about 1000 feet at least, and Eve had fallen somewhere near the top. 
Eve's sister Lucid, her husband Ronnie and their daughter Lali were the most upset obviously and we all were trying to calm them down and convince them it was best to head back down to the beach and make sure she was all right. She had dropped about 150 feet and suffered some severe "road rash" on both sides of her body, but was otherwise luckily in good shape. No concussion, no broken bones or even sprains. She had a pretty lousy trip home being so beat up and having to have most of her body wrapped up in bandages, but at least she was alive! Matt, was successfully rescued as well. It was a big lesson for everyone and a humbling experience for Eve and Matt for sure! Of course, all the locals were running around talking about the 'idiot Americans' taking the obviously wrong route up the rock face, but at least they were 'idiot Americans' who made it back alive! 
Well, we almost made it through the entire trip without any drama. The only other bit of drama was the nanny we brought along to help take care of Lali. She was a big mistake. Not only was she just an odd duck, but she secluded herself from group early on and would just hide in her room when she wasn't taking care of Lali. It was a bit strange to say the least, and after having spent lots of time with Lali, we all concluded that we would have been better off without the nanny since Lali is such a joy to be around and actually pretty mature for her age. She seemed more socially capable than the nanny for sure! You started to wonder who was the adult and who was taking care of who. The nanny was good at entertaining Lali, but otherwise ruffled a lot of feathers. From what I hear of previous trips to Rio, there has always been one person in the group that brings down the fun level a bit, so according to them it was inevitable.
In the end though, I have to say I was amazed at how well we all got along and how much fun it was. It helps when you know your travel companions really well that's for sure. It was such a great experience and I would love to go again if I had the chance. Since Michael and Donna head down there a couple times a year, I am sure that idea is not far from reality. Biejos! ;-)
1 comment:
A song to enjoy in Itacoatiara! http://t.co/hctbMqO
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