2 Days in Rio de Janeiro

Thursday: We arrived in Rio around 6:30 PM and it was short ride to our hotel. We were right on Copacabana beach. A couple of things to note about the beaches in Rio – the first thing is that the beaches have lights and it’s common to find people on the beach at night. The second is that they clean the beaches each night and make sure there is ample garbage bins to collect the trash that accumulates on such busy beaches.

We had seafood at an open air café, having a drink and watch life go buy. A great way spend a Thursday evening - especially after 3 fairly intense evenings in Sao Paolo.

We wondered the board walk after dinner and found an open air market until it started raining and then went back to the hotel.

It is quiet this time of Summer in Rio due to the proximity to Carnival - which happened 2 weeks ago - they say that it will become very busy again in a another week or so.

Friday: The days start off warm at about 80 degrees with 110% humidity and it gest warmer from there. I went for a run and managed to catch the beach before it came alive.

According to our cab driver - this is one of the warmest summers on record and extremely dry. Of course they are expecting more rain again tonight and were very thankful for the rain the previous evening.

We were successful in our meetings with the Sun teams and Oracle teams in Rio and that evening decided to try and get some sight seeing in.

We decided to take the Gondola up to Sugar Loaf "Pao de Assucar" (pictured right) and get a view of the city. It worked out to be much more entertainment than we expected. We did make the trip to the top as the Sun set and a storm made it's way in. We had a fantastic view of a lightening storm coming our way.

We were captivated by the view of Rio at night as the storm approached. As a comparison the picture on the left is just before a strike.

Now the same picture on the right during a lightening strike - looks like the the lightening is trying to take out the Jesus statue - no worries we went and visited the next day - no damage)

By the time we realized this may be a bad time to be stuck on top of a big rock with nothing but the largest lightening rod (Gondola Cable) within 200 miles as our ride down - we were a bit late.

We did make it down from the top to Urca hill, but we were stuck there for about 90 minutes while lightening repeatedly hit various parts of the gondola cable - sent sparks flying, knocked out power, knocked out the backup generator for the top of the hill, and blew up a few light bulbs. (stuck in Gondola loading station pictured left)

After all the excitement we had dinner a bit later than planned, but it all worked out. I was still able to connect up with a fried from U of M Business School who was been down in Brazil since graduation working for McKinsey & Co - currently taking a sebatical to work with the Mayor of Rio. Felipe took us out for our best meal of the trip to Forneria Sao Sabastiao.

We visited a few bars near Felipe's house afterward - he made a few recommendations so we tried them all.

Saturday: We decided to make our way up to Corcovado to see the grand statue of Jesus. It appears to be quite the pilgramage for tourists.

We did make it to the top, but there was a layer of clouds and fog on the way in, which obscured the view a bit - second time that happened for us on the trip.

We then wen to the beach for an hour or so. Every vendor on the beach tried to sell us something. Mike being the savvy buyer that he is - bought 7 styrofoam airplane kites for 5 real (about $2 US). That was about as much Sun as we could handle. We grabbed lunch and watched a number of people playing volley ball, before making our way to the airport for the 15 hour flight home.

It was a good trip, but it's also good to be home. There are so many hours of work behind the scenes - these pictures really on portray a small portion of our time spent in Brazil (but I figured this is the more entertaining portion)

For more pictures click here.