Descent of Speed

I have met the perfect buffet, and it is the Brazilian BBQ!

The day started off early, but with the sun shining. I decided to check out the Christ Redeemer statue today. I left my hotel fairly early, about 9 am or so, and started off walking along Copacobana. Despite the early hour there were already beach goers claiming there spot. There were also quite a few tourists gathering outside their hotel waiting for their tour buses.
There is a train running up the Corovcado every twenty minutes. The place was pretty bus when I got there, and I had an hour wait for my train. At the half way point, the train switches tracks to allow te down train to pass the up train, and a small band got on board playing for tips.
The Christ Reedemer is a large statue on top of one of the many mounds of granite in the area. The statue can be seen from everywhere in Rio. There is a small platform right at the base of the statue, and another platform out in front. I assume to give people a better look at the statue. The platform right at the base was fairly clear, but the other platform was jam packed with tourists. Half of them had their hands out spread, the other half were trying to take pictures. The statue is fairly impressive, but the view is even more impressive. You can see all of Rio, the Sugarloaf, Copacobana, Ipanema, downtown, and everthing else.
Apparently the middle of the day is the wrong time to visit, as I had to wait another hour to catch a train going down. During that time, the two trains coming up were only half full.
I made it back to my hotel in time to meet a local friend of mine. He showed me around the area a bit, and treated me to some energy drink. I can’t remember what it was called, it was made out of a small berry. The first thing was some sort of smoothie. The berry is supposed to provide you with engery. It tasted ok, sort of a bland taste though. My friend ate his with a little bit of granola. We finished it off with a drink made from the same berry. Again, just a bland taste. Nothing too special.
Then he asked me if I liked BBQ, I responded with a resounding yes. After he showed me around some more, we went to a restaurant for dinner. I thought we were going for BBQ, so I expected a a smokey joint. The restaurant we enetered was a clean upscale establishment. We sat down, and my friend ordered some apetizers. Then he grabbed his plate, and said lets go.
I saw the buffet table, and was pretty hungry. First thing I saw was some salad fixings, but no dressing. Then there was some antipasta and a few other items like that. There was some cold cuts and some bread. I barely have anything on my plate, and I am wondering what I was going to eat. On the other side of the table was a series of the silver serving containters that sit on top of sterno. My friend pointed at the first one and said fish. I opened it and found some shrimp and something else. The next one has some filets and a pasta with shrimp. The next three also had fish. And then there was some sushi.
We get back to the table, my plate is barely full. I am wondering what I’m going to actually eat. I’m pretty disappointed, as apparently we didn’t go to a BBQ place after all. And then the magic happened. A waiter walked up with two huge skewers full of meat, one had sausage, the other was chicken. He asked me if I wanted any. I smiled and said yes. I got a few bites into it, when another waiter walked over with a skewer of pork. I had another bite, when a waiter came by with a skewer of cow. Every few minutes a waiter comes buy with a skewer of meat. He cuts off a slice of hot, sizziling meat. At this point my friend suggested I slow down, he says the meat will keep coming, so eat it before it gets cold. Fortunately they keep bringing the meat by, but sometimes they slow down.
This is the best buffet, because they bring the meat to you. The meat is hot and sizziling on the skewer. And there is a huge variety of it. Different cuts, different animals. This is a great reason to return!
Today I got up early to head up to Sugarloaf. This is another large piece of granite at the north end of Copacobana. A few years ago someone built a cable car to the top. There is a small observation platform that takes up most of the top of the hill. The views up here are almost as incredible as the ones from Corvacado, but with a better view of the two big beaches.
I decided to take a taxi back. He quoted me a reasonable price, and we took off. As soon as the taxi got underway, he pushed some button up front, and a video screen popped up, 007 style. And he turned it on and started to watch TV!
I skated along Ipanema. There is a bike path along the beach is real nice and smooth, it was a great ride. On he way I stopped for a coco. They appear to be pretty popular, and they are only 2 teals, about 1$. The chilled coconut milk tasted a little like regular milk, but thinner. There was a lot more milk in there than I thought!
I finally got a chance to take a dip in the ocean, and that was all it was. The water was freezing!
My friend dropped by in the afternoon and took me up to a couple of the roads he rides. One of them is the road he hosted a race on a few years ago. Both of the roads were a lot of fun, but I was a little wary about riding on narrow open roads with oncoming traffic. We got in a few rides in a news crew stopped by to take some pictures and do an interview for a local newspaper!
I was thinking of trying to go to the Hard Rock for dinner, but the hotel staff said the taxi fare would run 50-70reals EACH way! Thats $50-$70 round trip. I walked to a nearby pizzaria, which was a bit upscale. The pizza was good, but not worth the price. The hotel recommended the pizza place, actually they recommended a place alittle further away because it was cheaper. I didn’t realize how expensive the place I ended up going to was.
Tomorrow I head off to Porto Alegre and Tuetonia for the race.

My adventure to Brazil began a few weeks ago. I needed to get a visa, but I had to wait until I returned from England to send off my Visa. I had less than three weeks. I decided to use a local agency, I figured it was the best way to make sure I had all the forms and stuff. I dropped my paperwork and passport off two days after returning from England. The lady at the agency told me it takes 10 business days, sh said I had PLENTY of time! Nevermind that I was leaving in 13 business day. Well 9 business days later I got my visa in the mail!
My flight to Rio was a combined 15 hours. I flew to DC, then down to RIO. When we left DC they said that we would be landing around 9AM. I slept for a good portion of the trip. When I woke up, they said we would be landing at 10AM! I wondered why we lost so much time. When I got to the hotel, there was a sign in the hotel, mentioning Brazil had “sprung foward” last night!

Since I was sitting in the back of the plane, I was one of the last people off the plane and through passport control. There was already a long line of people trying to go through customs. I got my bags and waited in line. There was one person, and apparently they were questioning everyone. When it was my time, she was about ready to wave me through when she noticed my snowboard bag. She asked me a question in Porteguese, and I responded with “I’m sorry?” She just looked at me and waved me through.

Immediately outside of customs were a set of taxi stand pay stations. I decided to go ahead and get a taxi this way, it may be slightly more expensive, but I know I won’t get gouged any more, as I’ll know how much I am paying before hand. And the price matched a price I saw in a guide. I decided to go and get some cash from an ATM before heading to the hotel. I wandered through the bottom level of the airport, and didn’t see any ATM’s. I found a guide and it implied there were a dozen banks, so there had to be an ATM. I went up to the second floor, found a large eating area, but no ATMs. As I was looking for another set of elevators, to check out the third floor, I spotted off in the corner a group of ATMs! There were about 8 ATMs from 6 different banks over in a corner. Of course I ended up trying them all, before I found one that would give me cash!

Welcome to Sunny… errr Rainy Rio! After dropping my bags off at the hotel, I wandered around Ipanema. It wasn’t exactly raining, but I could barely see Sugarloaf, as the clouds were pretty low. This is not a good sign! I didn’t do much else, and turned in early.

The weather today wasn’t much better. It wasn’t raining, but the clouds were still fairly low. I decided to head into downtown, and take the tram up to St Theresa. I walked over to Copocobana and took the metro to downtown. One of the sites downtown is a cathederal, that looks like a pyramid from the outside, and is hallow on the inside. I took the tram up to St Theresa, which is supposed to be a nice neighborhood. The tram was an old school electric contraption, that by the end of the run had about twice as many people hanging off of it as I am sure it was designed to hold! I spent most of the afternoon wandering around the neighborhood. I am sure I missed something, but it didn’t seem that spectacular to me. There was supposed to be some ruins up there, but it turns out they were closed today. Either because it is monday, or it is a national holiday. After spending some time in downtown, I came back to the hotel, where I am currently watching MNF in Porteguese!

Evidence of a high crime rate is everywhere. Almost every building is surronded by cages and bars. It seems that every store has at lease one if not two security guards. Any decent size apartment building has its own guards. And cops litter the streets! It seems like everything is graffittied. Some of the graffitti is really nice, but most of it just looks like lame tagging.

I am hoping the weather improves over the next two days. I want to visit the statue as well as Sugarloaf, both of which will be nice if there aren’t any low lying clouds.