The girls from Ipanema II

So, back to the buffet, it was loverly. We chose to be sat outside on the deck beside the pool (why is there a pool when we're right beside the beach?), and then we feasted. I justified eating two breakfasts every day because they were free, and then we just had one other meal during the day, but the real reason is because it was so good. They had all kinds of tropical fruits to choose from, as well as eggs, pancakes, waffles, cereals, doughnuts, pastries, etc. Erin ate everything exotic, and I nothing. Well that's not true, Erin did get me to try a fruit which I've forgotten the name of, but looked like, and were described as big cherries. They were yucky. She also made me try something else that I forgot, but I didn't like. I did approve of everything else, that I did recognize.
The first day we decided to go right to Corcovado, which is a must see in Rio.

We took the bus (the concierges (pl?) seemed surprised every day that we wanted to take the bus instead of taxis) to the area, and were walking to the train that goes up the mountain when we were waylaid by a car service rep. that said for the same price, they would drive us up the mountain and we could stop where ever we wanted for photo ops, etc. He did the schpiel in French, so Erin agreed. Here's one of our pictures from a helicopter landing pad about halfway up the mountain. Also, here's a lizard that I saw. Erin found it very amusing that I was always excited to see lizards where we went. Luckily for you, I didn't take pictures of all of them.

We also saw some very cute monkeys on this mountain, but didn't get a picture.
We got to the top of the mountain, and saw the largest Jesus statue in existence. Besides his lack of pupils, I thought he looked very nice. It was a bit disconcerting that his heart was on the
outside of his body, but overall nice. I confess, I had the instinct to pose in front of the statue with my arms outstretched, but I decided it would be sacrilegious. Other tourists disagreed.