We spent the last week in Rio de Janeiro and it has been amazing even though we’ve had to negotiate our tourism around work. Luckily, Brasilia time is one hour ahead, so we had a good amount of time in the morning to be tourists. On the first day we went out to brunch with our friend and colleague, Ben, who has been so helpful throughout our trip.

In fact, on Tuesday, I took the morning off and skydived over Rio with him. He organized the entire trip, seemed to know everyone, and made sure I knew exactly what was going to happen. You’d think knowing would make it less scary–I’m pretty sure it didn’t. It was the most terrifying and amazing experience I have ever had.

Did I also say that Ben is a professional skydiver? Without him I don’t know if I could have gone through with it.

We also went to see Cristo Redentor–Christ the Redeemer–a statue that is considered one of the new 7 wonders of the world. The statue is super cool, but compared to the Colosseum or the Great Wall of China, it seems to have a little less historical context and just history in general. It was constructed between 1922 and 1931… At any rate, it was beautiful and impressive. There was kind of a long line of people taking intense pictures so we just took a selfie.

As an aside, I swear Cristo has a mustache. There are people who told me it was just a shadow, but if you are able to zoom in or look at some other pictures, I think you’ll agree with me. Not that there’s anything wrong with mustaches.

The view of Rio from the statue was impressive. The bay of Rio, Guanabara Bay, is actually also considered one of the 7 wonders, this time of the natural world. The mountains come straight down to frame the bay and, even though the clouds were just rolling in, the view was beautiful.

Here’s a cheesy tourist picture of us in front of a green screen image of the train and the statue. Yes, we paid too much for it. And yes, there are monkeys that gambol about on the top of the mountain. Much of the mountains (conveniently the parts you can’t build on because they are too steep) are left for wildlife.

We also went by cable car up to Sugarloaf Mountain with more magnificent views of the bay.

We did a quick tour of Copacabana. We’re not huge beach people, but it was a really fun atmosphere. I tried an obligatory coconut and Garett ate some fejioada, a traditional dish with a lot of types of pork and, of course, rice and beans.

Lastly, another thanks to Ben. Here we are at Assador Rio’s, an amazing restaurant right on the bay where people come ’round and bring you everything you could possibly want. There were probably 15+ different types of meat and just as many salads and veggie options. We left so full of food.

Now we are off to Florianpolis — Floripa — to see our friend and colleague, Gabriel.