Fan with soy: Rio Travelogue - or how to get a sore back

Sugarloaf

One of the first things you will notice in Rio is that just about everyone wears flip flops and their shirts untucked. Everyone dresses fairly casual. Well it is warm and humid here most of the year. I did see one lady walk by zipping up her puffy jacket and wondered why as I had sweat dripping off me and I was sitting in an airconditioned bus.

When we arrived in Rio the weather was not the best for touring and seeing the sights so we waited a day and it did get sunnier so off to the beach we went. The surf was a bit rough but still a very nice day with one exception.

Ipanema Beach on a cloudy day

For those who know who Anderson Cooper here is something he and I have in common with Rio - we both had our backpacks snatched up someone while it was being "watched by a friend". Before we left to go on the RTSW I had listened to an interview with Anderson Cooper who said that he and Andy Cohen went to Rio together. While Anderson went swimming he asked Andy to watch his backpack. When he returned it was gone and Andy had no idea it was missing. Yep, mine was gone. Before I left I had said to Dick that it was behind him and that he should watch it. So when I asked where was my backpack upon my return it was a surprise to Dick that it was missing. Not a big loss as it only had an umbrella (slightly broken), a water bottle, an additional shopping bag, a few Euros, and my camera (used, bought from a pawnshop years ago). So if you go to the beach don't take anything you can't afford to lose.

I did get sunburned and Dick was sent through a tumble cycle in the surf so we decided to take the day off and go on a tour. Nice tour but with the traffic and other tourists it made for a very long day. By the time we were done we both had sore backs - something we call museum backs. When we have visited museums we find standing on the hard floors and shuffling along tends to make our backs and legs sore if done for longer than 2 hrs. Our tour was suppose to be a 5 hour tour but it took us 7 hours to get back to the hotel.

Here are some photos of the Rio area.