A little sunshine in Rio

Just chillin' with Jesus

So it finally stopped raining.

We had already bought our tickets to Christ the Redeemerfor 10.30 today in hope. 

We tried to catch the bus there, but firstly could not find the bus stop, then when we did find one the bus would not stop, so we hailed a taxi. 

Bonuses of the weather - there wasn't 2 hour (as expected) wait to get on the train to the statue. Just about 15 of us. Brilliant. So it wasn't crowded at the top and we took some photos, would have even better with sunshine.

We then decided we'd take the bus to the main bus station to buy tickets to Ilha Grande tomorrow. Got stuck on the bus for over an hour in Rio's finest traffic, the driver and money taker (2 bus people on busses here) were great, had translation problems but we managed just fine, people are ally friendly here. We finally got to the bus depot, which by the way is right a beside a favela, is a building site and one of the most confusing places we have ever been. After spending 30 mins here and not finding a bus to where we need to go tomorrow, we jumped on a bus back to Ipanema only to again get stuck in traffic for 2 hours. And during this time the sun came out. (A note here; travel during the World Cup and olympics is going to be horrible if you are coming! They said London was not ready!!!!)

Finally getting back to the hotel we booked a transfer to Ilha Grande with reception, R90 each (50% more than the bus would have cost...if we found it, but this takes us to and onto the ferry and saves us cab fare back to the station. So justified..)

Ipanema Beach

We then dumped our day stuff and just took money and our camera to Ipanema beach to watch the sunset, but clouds came over again. It was still lovely, we sat watching the kids play football and volleyball on the beach, surfers doing their thing and just general people watching. On the way to the beach we stopped at Mil Fruitas, our guidebook told us it was the best ice cream in all of Brazil. It was tasty but at R18 (£5) for 2 scoops it had want to be! 

Walked the 2 blocks back to the hotel after eating some local food for dinner - fried cheese thing (pastal) and bought some snacks for the bus tomorrow. 

Tomorrow looks to be very sunny and hot.