Rio - 2nd day

After a very long sleep, we awoke to a beautiful sunny day here in Rio.  I went up to the club floor terrace and had several cups of Brazilian pressed coffee and enjoyed the mountain views.  Jeff joined me within an hour and we ate some of the selections from the club buffet.  Waffles, a side of lox and some fruit.  Yummy!

Refreshed, we began a long, leisurely walk up Ipanema Beach.  It was a bit humid but every now and then a breeze came off the ocean cooling us off.  There were lots of people all ready out sunning themselves and it was only 9:30a.m.

We turned in from the beach to stroll along the long shopping street in Ipanema.  There was not much unique to be found here.  We did see lots of bikini type shops, drugstores and banks.  We came upon a mini-street fair with colorful wares being sold.  We didn't partake as Jeff wanted to reach the H. Stern museum which did not disappoint.  I sat at a cafe while Jeff visited the museum.  The museum tour was free and they even offered a free car service to take us back to the hotel.  We didn't take them up on their offer since we wanted to stroll along the beach some more to see the incredible array of tanned bodies.  Jeff really enjoyed his time in the museum and was amazed at being able to see all the loose stones in their vaults.

We began the long walk back to our hotel and came upon the gay beach.  Didn't see many gay gentlemen, just the gay flags!

We were very, very hot by the time we got back, so we put on swimming suits and sat by our pool for a few hours.  Jeff met some people who will be taking the same cruise as us and spent the hour gabbing away with them.

After showering off the pool, we went across the street and visited the Fort of Copacabana.  The view lines to Copacabana Beach were incredible.  We were able to go inside the tunnels below the cannon turrets and see how the ammunition was uploaded into the cannons.  If you are ever here in Rio, this is definitely a unique place to visit.  It doesn't take a long time to tour but to be able to see the tunnels along with being able to climb around the actual cannon was quite exciting.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed in the tunnels.

We returned to the hotel and headed to the club lounge terrace for salami, cheese and wine.  We were supposed to head to a Carnival street parade but after all the wine we drank, we decided to have dinner in one of the hotel's restaurants and call it an early night.  Such party animals.......