Day #19…Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil-Day #2

On our second day in Rio, we headed to the Rio port terminal building to chat with some vendors offering a free shuttle service to their stores on the Rio beaches.   We chose to take the free shuttle to Amsterdam Sauer Co., a jewelry and stone sculpture store on Copacabana Beach.  An escort from the company named “Rodrico” booked a taxi and offered to stay with us after we were finished shopping in the Amsterdam Sauer store.

After we left the store, “Rod” took us on a walking tour of the Copacabana area.  He told us that the Copacabana Hotel is the most expensive place to stay in Rio and most room charges per night are at least $600.00. 

We told him that we wanted to get some toiletry items and also wanted to do some souvenir shopping.  He walked us to a local pharmacy and some souvenir shops and stayed with us for several hours.

The beach areas in Rio are so beautiful and today the crowd was diminished since Carnival ended last night.  Our tour guide told us that many businesses would not open today until after noon so that people could “recuperate” from Carnival activities.  We were able to view some of the sand art that locals and tourists had designed on the beachfronts.  

The Girl from Ipanema Café was another point of interest that we were able to photograph.  The girl who inspired the famous song is still living in Sao Paulo, Brazil and operates a modeling agency at age 72 years.

We returned to the terminal area, bought some bottled water to take to our cabin and then had a leisurely evening reviewing our photos from the past two days.  Later, we went to the Princess Theater and listened to the entertainer, comedian Scott Harris from Toronto, Canada. 

We will have two sea days and then will arrive in Buenos Aires, Argentina on February 21, 2015.