Over the course of a week and a half, we somehow managed to go hang gliding, white water rafting (although Oregon's rivers are better!) hiking through the jungle and spend plenty of time on the beaches. We also managed to go to the top of Sugar Loaf, which overlooks the city and ocean, and was made famous by James Bond when he fought with the bad guys on the gondola ride to the top. We also made it up to Corcavado, which is best known for the 13 story statue of Christ that also overlooks the entire city.
Our guide, Gustavo, and his father managed to get us into a big soccer game as VIPs under the guise that we were members of the Canadian National Soccer team... yeah right! They bought it and we were in! Gustavo arranged transportation for us, got us a great deal on our hotel accomodations and just helped us get around the city in general. We also had a ton of help from our friend Globber, who is originally from Rio. He still has a ton of friends there and managed to get us into several nightclubs without ever waiting in line, and without ever paying, like everyone else had to do... Nice work Globber!
Unfortunately on the plane ride home my ankle swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and became very, very painful. I spent a day in NYC with my buddy Josh and met up with Tone, Amber, Trevor, Mandy and Alison who work for PWC in Portland and were in NY for training. They all joked that by the looks of my foot I wouldn't have it by the time they see me at Christmas. By the time I got back to Bermuda where my health care was free, I realized they weren't that far from the truth! Thank goodness I got into the hospital when I did, because it was massively infected. I had to go to the hospital 3 times each day for a week and a half for IV antibiotics and some other miscellaneous drugs to get it all under control. Its crazy to think that a little bug bite from Brazil could turn into something so scary!
Well, I'm still experiencing difficulty in posting more pictures on this site, so I'll link to Todd, Evan and Guy's sites so you can see what kind of trouble we found in Brazil.