Rio de Janeiro

Here it is... our last post from South America. We are in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil right now and our plane leaves in a few hours for Charlotte. We both have mixed emotions about coming home. We are sad to have such a wonderful trip come to a close, but at the same time we are excited to come home, see family and friends and not be living out of our backpacks for a while. We have spent the last couple of days here in Rio (Copacabana) and have really enjoyed it. We were braced for more hot weather, but were pleasantly surprised to find chilly temperatures and only a little bit of rain. Our first day was a little too cloudy to try and see anything, but yesterday and today were great days to see Cristo Redentor and the beach. Since we are a little pressed for time, I will get straight to the pictures.

 Rio´s famous staircase- an eccentric Chilean artist has decorated this with tiles from all over the world. He has a studio right off the stairs and is continually changing the tiles.

 At Copacabana beach

This was the view from the top of the mountain where Cristo Redentor is. The beach on the right of this picture is Copacabana, the area where we stayed. 

 Cristo Redentor

 A little sand castle we whipped up... ;)

Today we walked from Copacabana over to Ipanema, another beach. This is Ipanema in the background.

 Ipanema

Another shot of Copacabana. The weather was perfect today. What a great way to end the trip!

So that´s it, nine countries in 100 days. We have traveled by bus, car, moped, bicycle, train, boat, and plane. We have seen snow, glaciers, desert, jungle, mountains, plains, waterfalls, small towns, large cities, and ancient ruins. Tomorrow morning we will wake up in the U.S. and it will all be over. But we are thankful for the opportunity that God has given us to take this trip. We have seen more than some people see in a lifetime and we are excited about what God has in store for us next. Thank you to everyone who has followed along with us through the blog. We will be seeing you soon!