Chilling in Rio

The previous post on this series is here..

After a hectic all day tour of Rio which ended in Sugarloaf, we were all tired. After our Europe trip in 2018 when the kids made a new rule that there will be a "rest day" within the trip if we walk more than 6 miles a day for a few days in a row, San had put in a rest day.. Hell, she put in two rest days before we flew out as that was what was available ticket wise..

So we ended up spending Christmas eve and Christmas day in Rio before flying out on 26th morning. 

We were told that the city shuts down by 1PM and most places close. We didn't care. Our plan was to go see two more sunsets from the two other popular places in Rio.. the first one was the Arpoador rock, the second one was the Copacabana beach and area. 

San had made friends with a lady who worked for the city of Rio on our flight into Brazil from Argentina and she had suggested spending time at a local mall.. eat at a famous Vegan place called Teva..

So we woke up late, took a cab to Teva (we had made reservations) and sat down pretty much as soon as they opened. I ate the pita bread with some side but the family ordered a lot of items and seem to finish everything with relish.. I am allergic to Jackfruit, so had to skip a lot of stuff, but San and the kids said it was mouth watering. 

After the lunch, we went to the mall and walked around for a good 2 hours. The stuff there was at least 50% to 100% more expensive than similar stuff in US malls. We also got the location of the mall wrong at first and ended up being dropped somewhere else.. so we walked around the local tiled streets before finally making to the actual mall location. After enough window shopping and having some ice cream there, we wanted to walk to the carnival area near the lagoon.

We never found the right spot and tickets were all sold out anyways. So we decided to just walk along the water front and took an Uber and came back to the Arpoador area. Got a nice vantage point on the rock to watch the sunset and headed back to the Airbnb. 

We did get great pictures that evening..

There was a photo by Jr. of the little one taking a photo of me taking a photo of San.. that photo I cannot find..

Here are video clips of our chilling in Rio..

the entire area was cordoned off by cops to local traffic for some reason..

had used this picture as the Happy New Year card for 2024.. 

It was time to make some pizza and thachchi mummum.. The kids made it after getting all the ingredients from the local supermarket which was still open! We also got stuff to cook for the next day.. 

Christmas was a laid back day.. we lazed around in the morning and did laundry! Then in the afternoon we decided to visit the Copacabana beach. We were clearly over dressed for this beach as the videos will show. The rain clouds rolled in and there was no way to see the sun set, but we got beautiful family pictures.. and startred walking from there all the way to Ipanema area. It was a long walk and the rains hit before we could walk back. We got cursed by the kids for not taking an uber. We were flying back the next day and wet clothes on the night before was going to be tricky. 

Rio is full of tall trees with wide leaves on all the local streets.. Chennai (Madras used to be like this when I was a kid.. not anymore) .. these streets brought back a lot of great memories..

we saw another painted step as we were going from Copacabana to Ipanema.. we stopped by a pastry store to get some stuff to eat as well..

This was my last shot as it started raining all of a sudden..

To date I have not washed and wrung clothes the way I did that evening. They were almost dry by morning and I ironed the collars and waistbands of what was not dry and got them to dry as well.. one of Daddy Narayanan's proudest moments! "There, see... all dry!!" and all I got in return was some eye rolling from the women.

We got to see the Redeemer one last time on our drive to the airport (you really cannot miss this guy from anywhere in Rio!) and took off.. We got to see a beautiful Panama city skyline and had a 3 hour stop over before heading back home.

Jet lag for a +5 hour time difference was interesting to deal with. We have. never been to a place 5 hours ahead till now. It wore off in two days though. The fact that we went on a break before the rest of the folks went on break was a blessing. 

On a whole we enjoyed the trip to Argentina and Brazil.. We definitely all agreed that Argentina was more welcoming than Brazil but we did have fun in both places.

Have managed to finally finish blogging about a Christmas trip in early March!  That brings me to the next trip..

From waterfalls to beaches

The previous post on this series is here..

We moved on from Buenos Aires to Rio. We got scammed right outside the airport where a fake Uber showed up to pick us up... after some tense moments once in the car, we did get out close to where we needed and after the local Airbnb lady negotiated in Portugese we got out. 

Brazil is a sharp contrast to Argentina. You cannot trust folks on the road. Scammers everywhere. Everything is expensive and the locals are not exactly the welcoming type.

The Airbnb itself was very good. A walking distance from the Ipanema beach and close enough to grocery stores. 

The kids had had enough and decided to stay in after doing groceries. San and me decided to go to the beach for a short time to see the sunset. There was so much fog that we didn't really get orange hues that day and it just started drizzling when we made it back to cook dinner!

We called it a night.. there were a lot of interesting art books in the Airbnb and we just decided to crash early after watching Rebel moon on Netflix!

The next day was going to be spent touring Rio!

We already got a glimpse of the Redeemer statue on the way from the airport. The plan was to see him up close the next day!

Santorini bus tour in parts - Pyrgos monastery, a kitten and Kamari beach

The previous post on this series is here..

After our lunch, ocean fun and ice cream at Perissa, we were back in the bus climbing to the top of the hill on this side of Santorini to go to the Monastery.. a few hundred years old, this place had reclusive monks who did not want to contact outside world for some time. They even buried their dead inside is what our guide told us.

 They did open up and have a store near the outside chapel eventually. The whole place was interesting and quiet. Then it got pretty windy and we were told not to have high hopes for later in the evening, given rain clouds were rolling in. 

We saw everyone go kiss the same objects and pictures.. couldn't have been good during COVID times! The small chapel was really beautiful. 

While we were being told that, a kitten walked out of nowhere and decided to sit on my lap. I love animals. They seem to love me too.. however god has played a cruel trick. I am almost allergic to all cats. Initially the family panicked. They did not want me sick before the last stop. A few people tried to lure it away, but no! The kitten just sat on my lap for a good 10 minutes. Finally the little one grabbed it and placed it on the floor and we had to leave. Apparently six kittens were just born a few weeks back in the Monastery. This was one of those six. Did have watery eyes for a few minutes later in the night, but didn't get sick as everyone expected. 

We got amazing views of the Perissa beach from the Monastery.

The little one was still mesmerized by the cat...

Then we drove down to Kamari beach area. Guess this tour has a tie up with some wine makers in Santorini. So we stopped at a rest area near the black beach, and were offered three wines or Cherry juice. Skipped it and ate the crackers. For some strange reason we were hungry. We walked to the beach across the street and took pictures. This beach was full of pebbles but there were no people on this side as far as the eye could see! There were pistachio trees here other than olive trees in this area.. that was a change!

Caught the little one in one of her moments..

We did get to see a real donkey on the way to this place..Apparently there was a time when every house had a donkey to haul things up and down the hillsides of this island !!

A video clip of this leg of the bus tour! 

After this short break, we were off to to go up and around all the way to Oia.. the last stop and grand finale for the tour!