Eric and I had quite an interesting December. We spent the first couple of days in New York City - it was FREEZING. I don't know how every winter I always seem to forget how cold New York is. This time though I was prepared and brought with me my boots, sweaters and warm wool coat. Work told me that New York was where I would be spending a few days - so we scoped out the city and all of it's Holiday madness. The tree at Rockefeller Center, the window displays at Saks, Cartier, the luxury hotels. There is something special about New York during the Holidays. The last day I was in the city, huge snowflakes were falling from the sky and New York felt so peaceful. Little did I know that this "peaceful" snowfall would cause me to spend the next 18 hours at JFK airport trying to board my short flight to my parent's house upstate. The funny thing about it was Eric flew to Angola Africa from St. Lous in the time it took me to take that 40 min flight. Here is a picture of the Jet Blue terminal at 4am when our 10:40pm flight was finally cancelled:
I was able to spend a few days at my parents house - eating homecooked meals, playing with my dog and enjoying spending time with family. I found out that instead of flying back to Vegas, I would be meeting up with Eric in South America for Christmas. Of course I was excited, but it's summertime in South American and the only thing I had to wear were warm winter clothes. Thankfully I was meeting Eric in Brazil and he had some time to stop back home in Vegas and throw my bathing suit and a dress in his suitcase. If you notice that I have the same dress on in three different countries because that was the only summer outfit I had to wear! Oh well.
After an overnight flight out of Newark - I finally arrived in Rio where it was very hot and humid. It really felt like summer hit me in the face as soon as the door to the plane opened. My driver took me to the hotel that Eric and the other pilot were staying at - only a block from Copacabana Beach! Rio is absolutely breathtaking. I really can't compare it to any other place I've been. Eric compares it to Yosemite National Park, but on the ocean. Once I got settled and changed into my dress, we decided to head to see the one attraction that we've talked about visiting for years - Christ the Redeemer on Corcovado mountain. We boarded a cute red tram that was to take us up to the top of the mountain - 2,300 ft above sea level where the statue was. The tram ride was really cool because it went through the Tijuca Forest National Park. We saw tropical trees that towered over us and even saw a monkey jumping from limb to limb!
Once we got to the top, we stood overlooking the entire city of Rio de Janeiro on a perfectly clear and warm Christmas Eve day. We decided to stop and take in the view before walking up more stairs to the statue. We had a drink at a little patio table and tried not to bake in the hot sun.
We walked the rest of the stairs to the top and were both surprised at how enormous the statue was. We tried to get a good shot of us in front of it, but it was hard to fit anything in the camera viewfinder. From the top we had views of Ipanema, Copacabana, the Lagoon and Sugarloaf Mountain. Helicopters were flying above giving other visitors amazing views.
There have definitely been some tourist attractions I've been to that didn't nearly live up to their hype. Being at the top of the mountain overlooking Rio de Janeiro - the pictures didn't do nearly enough justice to the beauty and the view surrounding us. It was getting warm so we decided to have our driver take us to the beach. We decided to stop at Impanema Beach - which is a little more hip and less touristy than Copacabana Beach. It was Christmas Eve so the beach was packed full of Brazilians sunbathing, playing soccer, paddleball and building the most intricate sandcastles I've ever seen!
The people of Brazil definitely enjoy being active on the beach! Another fun thing we did in Rio is go to a Brazilian steakhouse or a Churrascaria for dinner. It was so much fun. Basically you sit at a table and you have a little card that has red on one side and green on another. When you flip it to green, the waiters come by your table with knives and a skewer of some sort of meat like beef, filet, ham, sausage, lamb, etc and cut the meat off of the skewer until you tell them enough. Then, a different waiter will come by and offer a different kind of meat. It was so much fun and it was so yummy.
After our time in Rio, we hopped on the plane for Santiago. Here is Eric right before we left:
It was about a 4 hours trip and it was empty so I got the chance to hang out and take pictures in the back while we flew over the Andes! It was amazing. The mountain tops were snow covered and some reached as high as almost 23,000 feet! We were able to see the tallest - Aconcagua as we flew into Chile.
Landing in Santiago was quite spectacular because as we flew towards the Pacific Ocean over the mountains - we started descending into Santiago where it reminded me a lot of Napa Valley. There are many famous Chilean wines that come from this region and the contrast between the Andes and the greenery of the wine country was impressive.
Once we landed, our driver said it was a great time to be in Santiago because during this time of the year there is little or no smog. He said normally there is quite a pollution problem in the city. We arrived at our hotel in downtown Santiago. Our room had windows alongside both walls and had views of the Andes. We went up to the club level for some drinks and appetizers and realized that from the 20th floor - there probably wasn't a better view of the city in all of Santiago. We decided to order our Christmas dinner right there since we practically had the entire room to ourselves and the menu looked amazing. Eric and Matt had the lamb chops while I had to try the Chilean Seabass. The hotel provided a great selection of local Chilean wines which topped off our Christmas dinner in South America perfectly.
We were supposed to spend three days in Chile, but plans changed as they always do and we found out that we were going to be flying to Grand Cayman instead. I couldn't complain too much about that although I was dying to see more of Santiago and the surrounding towns. Our flight to Grand Cayman was about 8 hours and it went by fairly quickly. Once we landed, Eric and I knew we were on our own time for a few days before we flew home. We only had one thing on our mind once we got to the island - the beach! The water in Grand Cayman was so crystal clear. We booked a tour to go to Stingray City for the following day. In the morning, we took a walk to a beach near our hotel and had the entire beach to ourselves. We swam a bit and enjoyed the warm sun.
We headed over to where we were supposed to board our boat for Stingray City. The gentleman at the desk said that nobody else had booked a tour that day - so we would be the only ones on the boat! Eric and I boarded this 70ft boat with two crew members and had the entire boat and tour to ourselves! This is where our boat stopped:
We brought an underwater camera to take pictures of the stingrays. It was absolutely amazing. The water was so clear and our guide allowed us to hold the stingrays. It was the most surreal experience. They are such beautiful and gentle animals, although I'm not going to lie. I was pretty freaked out when one of the stingrays that was about 6feet in length started swimming towards me. We also saw a sea turtle and a morey eel!
Our whirlwind tour was fun, but we were sure glad to be back in our own home.
