Saturday April 19th 2025 - Day 3

630am alarms suck on holidays. 

Quick sunrise breakfast overlooking the coastline from the 26th floor and off on our tour at 7am. My rockstar wife booked several tours that pick us up at the front door of the hotel and I don’t have to drive in the insane traffic of Easter weekend in Rio.

Our amazing tour guide Monica speaks at least 6 languages and has been doing this 30 years.

6 stops picking up folks from DC, Birmingham and numerous countries which she communicated to

Us in Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, Italian and Japanese!

Thousands of cars, buses and motorbikes weaving in and out of traffic as we climbed cobblestone streets steep into the mountains to the Christ the Redeemer National Park.

Thousands of people queued up but we moved quickly in shuttle vans to the top.

It looks so much larger in movies but it is still a marvellous structure.

We took many photos/video before finding a little chapel in the back to sit and reflect on our blessings in this life. 

As we stood and left, in filed the Helsinki Finland University Men’s choir whose voices filled the tiny space with amazing acoustics. If only we had stayed a bit longer to be seated while they sang. 

It still sounded incredible from the entrance.

After an hour, we made our way down and the waited another 30mins for our shuttle as the tiny roads and hundreds of vehicles coming and going slowed everything down.

We took a 45 minute drive down cobblestone roads and then multiple tunnels through the mountainside to arrive at the base of Sugarloaf Mountain - named for the bao de acucar used to crystallize sugar many decades ago.

We made our way to the cable car and stood for a while in the 29 degree heat that felt in the high 30s with the 90+ degree humidity. The redhead and the Uke/Scot needed a couple more layers of SPF 60!

Onto the first team and up we went! Wonderful views. The second team car was amazing as we got some great video.

The top has absolute throngs of people everywhere taking photos along every railing.

Every blink a postcard was overwhelming to the senses. We only had 20 minutes on our tour before lining up another 30 minutes to get down. More great views and into the shuttle van for the trip back to the hotel.

We passed the massive staging being setup for the Lady Gaga concert May 2nd. They are expecting a million people. Our tour guide said there was 1.5 million for Madonna last year in May.

Arrived at the hotel, changed and jumped into the Atlantic Ocean for a while, then into the heated pool with drinks and some book reading time. Showered changed and supper in the lounge before heading back to Ipanema beach.

Over to Delirium Cafe for fries and beverages as recommended by our old neighbors Mike and Crystal.

We walked 15 blocks over to Copacabana Beach to find some wildlife and dancing but a deluge of rain put the damper on that so we bought some art at the markets and grabbed a quick drink and live band on a street corner waiting for our Uber.

We arrived back at our hotel and snuck into the lounge so Darren could beat his wife at Chess and sadly end up on the couch for the night. 

Another wonderful day in Rio with too many blessings to mention.