South America

A few days ago I went up to see the famous Christ the Redeemer statue and some views above Rio. It was cloudy up at the statue but a few hundred meters below the views were really good.

Here are some pictures of Rio that I found on the web that I thought were nice. They show how nice the setting of Rio really is.

Enjoy!

Here is the Simpsons plane I took to Rio....interesting.

Of course Rio is very famous for its beaches. It was ridiculously crowded on the weekend as you can see in the pictures below.
At one point a helicopter had to come to save a little boy that had been swept out too far. The waves are huge and crash right on the beach so its pretty easy to get yourself into trouble like that.

A few days ago I went to the Sugar Loaf which is a famous lookout point in Rio. It was cloudy but we still got some good views.

The Sugar Loaf is the pointy rock on the right side of this picture.

Yesterday I went on a tour of a favela (poor/slum neighborhood). I almost didnt go on this tour but then I read about the tour company online and found out that they fund a daycare operation inside the favela. It seemed like a good organization.

This favela has 200,000 people living in it and its the biggest one in Latin America.

Usually favelas are near rich areas of the city because many people living in the favela work in the rich neighborhoods.
This is the view from the top of the favela.

The local band.

The house on the left looks like its going to fall over any minute.
There is no more space for the favela to grow larger, so they are now building UP. Some of the buildings have 3 or 4 foors now which seems quite dangerous because the construction is so poor.

We visited the daycare center that the tour agency helps out with. The kids were really playful.

Look how cute this little guy is.

More favela pictures

Check this out. Everyone just taps into the power supply illegally. Looks pretty safe!!

Favela kid and some grafitti.

The favela is pretty safe with very little crime (other than drug trade). The gang in charge of this area doesnt want the police coming inside the neighborhood so they make sure there is no robbery or fighting.

When we were on our way out of the favela we saw a gang member with a big assult rifle. Woah.. I decided not to take a picture of him though....I dont think he would have appreciated that very much.