Today we decided to go to see the statue of Cristo Redentor or Christ the Redeemer, the largest and most famous Art Déco sulpture in the world, which started to be planned in 1921 and was developed by engineer Heitor da Silva Costa. The drawings of the statue were taken to France, to Polish sculptor Paul Landowski who began sculpting the largest Art Deco sculpture in the world atop Corcovado. The monument was inaugurated in 1931. It is located at the Tijuca National Park, 710 meters high on Corcovado mountain and gives a sweeping panorama of sea and mountain, a world famous vista. The mountain is crowned by the statue of Christ the Redeemer, 32 meters high with an 8 meter pedestal and a chapel to honor our Lady of Aparecida, patron Saint of Brazil. This is the most iconic landmark in Rio. The monument opened in 1931 and is one of the New Seven Wonders of the World. The statue is weighs 1,145 tons. We took a bus and bypassed all the lines for the train ride through the rainforest up the mountain. It would have been nice to ride the train but we probably saved 2 hours by taking the bus, which was comparable to the hair raising roller coaster ride up the mountain to Eagles Nest in Germany. There are no words to describe the utterly spine tingling views. We took a ton of pictures of the area. I finally got to use my much anticipated selfie stick which arrived right before we left on the trip. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. The plan was possibly going to be changed because it was calling for rain. But our hotel staff told us to go to the roof and see if we could see the statue. We could so we set off. It was cloudy but the views were unobscured. It was very windy and my iPad was being buffeted around as I was taking pictures. I was worried it would be blown out of my hands but I managed to keep hold of it. After about 2 hours we reluctantly went to get the bus back to our starting point. As we were waiting the clouds rolled in and the views were totally hidden. We couldn't even see Cristo Redentor from the base of it. We could actually see the clouds roll in. Check out the pictures. We felt really bad for the people just arriving. There would be no spectacular views for them. We took the hair raising trip back down the mountain and went for lunch. 

Then we were going to visit Ipanema beach (remember the song "The girl from Ipanema"? Well I didn't but Vic did and I'm sorry he did. I googled it and actually do remember hearing it and hating it. But now I can't get it out of my head and I'm cursing Vic. Well we got ready to go to the beach and left our landlocked room to find it was raining out. We decided a little rain wasn't going to stop us but after about 15 seconds walking in it decided it was going to stop us. So we went back to the room and had a siesta until the cleaning staff knocked on our door. So while the room was being cleaned we went to the rooftop bar and had a caipirinha. The rain stopped after an hour so we went to a local mercado (supermarket) to get some vino. 

Tonight we made a reservation at a Brazilian Churrascaria restaurant. The food was fantastic. We were told to go to the salad buffet and then the meat would be brought around. The buffet had everything you'd want. We got our veggies and various other delicacies and then the meat started being served. There was at least 10 different types of beef and many other types of meat on skewers and on cutting boards - beef, pork, wild boar, lamb, sausage, fish, shellfish, calamari, breads, everything you could possibly want. And our bill was very reasonable for the feast!!