Brazil--Iguazu

Before we went to Rio we headed down to the Brazil/Argentina border to see the famous Iguazu waterfalls. We are so glad we did. Not only were they incredible, it was also really nice to spend some time in the country. If we had just gone to Rio and Sao Paulo, it would have been like someone saying they saw the USA, having just gone to New York City and Los Angeles. Since the falls are right along the border, there is an Argentina park and a Brazil park. Getting across the border took some effort, but we are so glad we did it. Both sides were gorgeous and really unique.

Cute Noel took the greatest pictures at Iguazu. All of the good ones on this post are from her!

The Devil's Throat is where all the rivers and falls meet. You literally can't hear anything when you get close and to get there at all you have to take a train and walk 1/2 a mile. It was incredible.

Argentina side

We went on the funniest boat tour in Argentina. Basically, we paid extra money for a guy to drive us under the falls and leave us there for awhile. Luckily we caught on quick enough to put our cameras away. These were all taken before we got completely drenched.

On both sides of the falls they have these awesome walkways that take you about as close as you can get to most of the best views. I can't imagine a national park in the USA building something so invasive, but we were really glad that Brazil and Argentina did!

These were taken on the Brazil side. Can you tell in the last picture that I was getting tired of pictures? I think Christopher picked up on it-- this is the last one we took for awhile. :)

Brazil--Rio

Some pictures of the Rio leg of our trip to Brazil. I'm going to post pictures of our trip in backwards order of how we actually traveled, since Rio was spectacular and we got the most pictures there. We had an amazing time, and we felt so lucky to have Christopher's sister Noel traveling with us. She was so good at figuring out what buses and trains to take. I think we saw much more of Brazil since she was with us.

We took a foggy cable car ride up to the top of Sugar Loaf mountain. The view of Rio was awesome up there.

Ipanema Beach. My new favorite place.

Temple of the Books. This was a gorgeous cathedral filled top to bottom with pretty books. We went to a few different cathedrals and churches, but this one was my favorite.

The Christ statue is so much bigger than I thought it would be. When Noel took this picture of us, she was laying down in front, so it makes us look bigger, and the statue look small. But it's huge! It was so cool to have this looking down on us the whole time in Rio. At night it actually glows, which is a little unnerving, but awesome. We got twenty precious minutes at the summit before the fog came through. It was the coolest view I've ever seen--the pictures can't really capture it! Once the fog came through, we went to a little juice shop at the summit and Christopher ordered us the best juice we had the whole time.

Botanical Gardens in Rio. We loved this place. I like going to gardens and parks in the States, but in Brazil you can grow ANYTHING. I saw fruit, flowers, and trees that I have never even imagined. It was especially nice to have Noel when we were here, because she really knows what she's doing when it comes to plants.

This was one of our favorite things of the trip. We got to go to the Champions Parade of the Carnival in Rio. It blew us away. Imagine this huge stadium--called the Sambodrome--built just for parades. Everyone in the crowd knows every word to every samba and sings along with the band the entire time. The floats were elaborate, the costumes were incredible....the whole thing was just so huge! It started at nine PM and apparently went on until after 6 in the morning. We left around 1 AM when the crowd started getting rowdy. We'll have to post some of our Flip videos so you guys can hear the singing. I absolutely loved it.

Weirdly, one of the floats was about American Indians. It was a huge glacier (?) with totem poles and teepees all over it. It was surrounded by Brazilians dressed as Native Americans dancing the samba....kind of bizarre. We saw a couple of the dancing Indians in the metro on our way home and we asked them for pictures.

We went on a boat tour of the bay around Rio and had a great time. Christopher loved seeing the forts built to protect the city, and I really liked this old green palace. Our tour guide was a Brazilian smoker who kept taking phone calls in the middle of the tour. It was fine with us since we couldn't understand her anyway, and it made us laugh. We really liked this--it gave us a great layout of the coastline.

Sorry for the huge amount of pictures. We took so many more, but I had to try and edit down. Rio was a major highlight and we can't wait to go back someday!