Haven’t updated in a few days, just been chilling out. The beach is really nice here, but I have no pictures because I don’t want my camera to get stolen. I’ll probably end up bringing my bag today and take a few photos.
I decided to go rock climbing with a guide on Sugar Loaf Mountain in Rio. This is one of the two main tourist attractions, with the Christ.
The climb itself was pretty easy…I made the decision to do the easier climb (something like a 5.7-5.8 for the most part) instead of doing the intense one (5.10+). This was the first time I’ve done a multi-pitch climb and I’m lucky that I was with a guide (I don’t know nearly enough with regards to tying knots, etc). I paid ~$60 (USD) for the day and he picked me up around 1 in the afternoon. The mountain is very cool and offers many hikes/treks/climbs, as well as an excellent view of the city.
Some of the shrubbery bouldering-
First pitch-
I was actually able to lead this one, my first lead outdoors. It was pretty easy, probably a 5.7 or something…also very short:
From the top view of Sugar Loaf-
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Last night I decided I wanted to see a soccer (football) match. I haven’t ever seen one in person and I enjoy sports, so I was quite excited. The two teams were Flamengo and another that escapes me…I don’t think that either team is tremendously popular and the game itself was fairly one sided (Flamengo seemed like the much better team, always attacking, always on offense).
The stadium wasn’t really filled at all. Here is a pre-game shot-
Anyways, Flamengo won the game 3-1, scoring two goals off penalty kicks. During half time there was this old dude who dribbled the ball like a billion times…impressive stuff.
Overall, pretty fun. I’m excited that I’ll be down here for the world cup…definitely going to rep U.S.A. (america, fuck yeah)…not that we’ll make it very far. I think I’ll probably do a city tour tomorrow, climb the next day, rest the day after, and then do scuba diving the day after that. That is the general plan (I think)…?
Really loving Rio so far…favorite city on this trip. Not even sure how long I’ll end up staying…maybe 1.5 weeks or something. I also think I’ve gained like 5 pounds since I’ve been here, wrecking whatever progress I made in Bolivia with regards to losing weight/cutting body fat %.