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Rio De Janeiro

We arrived to Rio De Janeiro on a perfect timing for me - The weekend. Of course I had to check out the largest football stadium in the world, but I'll get to that later. Since Nir and Noa have already been to Rio, They were there with me for just a single day. On that day we managed to go to Copacabana beach and to buy some stuff that Noa had to bring home as gifts. The next day Noa left to Sao Paulo to catch a flight home and Nir went with her to spent with her the last two days of her trip. Since I had never been to Rio, I had to see many places like the botanic garden, the Maracanã and the Jesus statue called Corcovado. The botanic garden is amazingly big and beautiful. there are numerous plants and trees there, categorized by place of origin. In the Southamerican area you can see all kinds of exotic trees, such as Cacau, coconuts and many other strange trees that I have never seen or even heard of. The nicest tree I saw there was a big tree with fruits looking exactly like cannonballs. Amazing !  In the japanease garden I could see the tiny Bonzai trees and of course the water plants and the little shaped needle trees. 

Next day I went to see one of the city's symbols, the Jesus statue. On the way up the hill the driver stopped at another viewing point, called Mirante Dona Marta (Dona Marta's viewing point). The view from there is amazing, and to look at this magnificent city from the height of 360 meters is breathtaking.  Then we climbed a little further to a height of 710 meters to see the city from it's highest viewing point, the Corcovado. Unfortunately for me, it was a pretty cloudy day and I could barely see the statue !  the clouds just didn't move from the top of the hill, so the view was all blocked in the fog. But I did managed to catch a glimpse of the huge round stadium, the Maracanã, in which I saw a match the day after.

I have to damit that I have witnessed a better atmosphere in a football match, and even a higher game level, but a stadium of that magnitude is a new thing for me. I believe there were there with me another 120,000 or 130,000 fans. The view of all that croud is unbelievable. The full capacity of this gigantic stadium is 200,000 people and even it was not fully crowded, the numerous fans were heard and echoed like it was, playing their drums in the Samba rythm.  The game itself was pretty boring in my opinion and many minutes passed without anything delightful. The level I guess is not as high as in Argentina, but still, it was an amazing experience and a fantastic way to finish my staying in Rio.

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