Pooltop View

Another day in Rio found us finally visiting the Copacabana beach. It was very beautiful and completely packed with people. They had the clever addition of hoses with holes in them leading from the sidewalk to the water that provides a wet path along the hot sand. Simple yet effective. We had a quick dip and found the water full of flowers and petals. This is due to a local custom around the new year where people jump seven waves then throw a bunch of flowers into the water as a wish and if it makes it past the breakers it'll come true. The colours of the flowers indicate what type of wish you're making, yellow for money and white for peace.

Later in the day we went for another swim this time on the hotel's rooftop pool. Today's blip is the view you can see from that pool, you can see that it was pretty spectacular especially as your floating in a pool of cool water. If you look on the further hill you'll see Christ the Redeemer overlooking the city.

We didn't have any plans for new years but didn't want a repeat of Christmas. Holly did well by doing some quick talking to the hotel staff who found us a buffet dinner deal that included all you could drink. The food was incredible and the meat in particular really blew us away, We stuffed ourselves full of food and drink until 11pm when we left and headed down to the beach. It was packed with people again this time waiting to see in the new year. It was a really nice environment with most people having a good time and plenty of families around. At midnight the fireworks went off and they were really impressive.

We started 2014 by walking back to the hotel along the closed off city streets with plenty of people celebrating along the way.

- Damian