Oh what a day!

Busy, busy day and lots of good things going on yesterday.  First on the agenda was a tour of the Rain Forest tour in Rio de Janeiro/visiting the Christ Redeemer statue, that is one of the 7 Wonders of the World.

Walking through the Rain Forest, we saw the Palm trees where the Hearts of Palm come from..who knew?  and then next our guide found a Cashew nut that had fallen. Apparently, they are attached to a type of fruit that resembles an apple at the bottom. It was black when we found it, I put it in my pocket and then it turned kinda of a weird green/gray by the time we got home??  And we also saw the Palm trees that had the Acai berries on them. They grow in clusters, similar to grapes.  Kind of cool...

We also saw a few waterfalls, the couple that was with us took our picture, unfortunately, it was a bit blurry.

Seeing the Christ Redeemer statue on the tallest mountain in Brazil, overlooking all of Rio was awe inspiring.

And the view from there! WOW!  It was really a cloudy, overcast day and I was afraid the pictures would turn out dull and bland, and they were.  I can just imagine what it would have looked like on a beautiful sunny day.  I guess we'll have to return! ;)

Our tour guide was Henrik, from Paris.  What a wealth of knowledge he had! He moved to Rio 5 years ago, after meeting a girl of his dreams from Brazil. He followed her here, married and had a little girl.  They are no longer together, but he stays because of his daughter.  His other job was a Set Director for cinema/movies. He just finished working with Sylvester Stallone on his new movie.