Up early for breakfast and Luis is ready for the 8 of us. Because the weather is so good with no clouds we decide to go to Corcovado and the Statue of Christ the Redeemer that overlooks Rio from one of the surrounding mountains. It's over 700 meters high and the statue is 39 meters itself. The statue is reached by a train that takes 20 minutes to reach the summit. Luckily we arrive early before the crowds but even so Luis gets us to the top of the queue and onto the train first to get the best seats.
The views around Rio from the statue are fantastic. You can see the mountains that surround Rio, the bay, the flavelas (shanty towns where the very poor live), the beaches and of course the magnificent statue of Christ. We have loads of time to see the sights and get our photos. On our way down we see the large crowds that are now heading up to the attraction, aren't we lucky we headed off early.
For the rest of the tour we are taken to see the beaches of Rio. At the first hang gliders take off from the local peak and land on the beach and it looks very exhilarating with a few of the group tempted to do it over the next few days.
We head to Ipanema beach and this is a beautiful area and we have a big lunch which finishes our trip. The rest of the evening the group breaks up to do their own things before dinner. We spend some time on our roof top pool with great views over Copacabana.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQceVeWGkbs