After having breakfast at our hotel, we headed to Copacabana beach for one last time. The beach was pretty empty, but quiet and peaceful. The weather was about 80 degrees with little to no humidity - similar to yesterday. Marcela said that real Cariocas don't go to the beach on these types of days because it's too cool. We said there seemed to be many Brazilians, but she said they were tourists from outside of Rio. As New Yorkers, we found the weather to be amazing and would probably fry in typical Rio summer heat.
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| Copacabana |
After a few hours, we headed back to our hotel so we could check out and store our bags. We then headed to the Botanical Gardens. Personally, I don't really seek out botanical gardens or zoos in other cities, but several people mentioned how amazing it was here, so we decided to check it out. Marcela asked me if there were monkeys in the ones I've been to or the one in NY. Fair point.
So we took a cab to the garden which was lined with many palm trees and had a "monkey river". Here, we saw cute monkeys and marmosets. We had lunch at the garden as well. We ate baguette sandwiches and drank fruit juices at the part of the garden where it had the ruins of an old gun powder factory. After getting our steps in, we headed back to our hotel neighborhood and ran a few errands.
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| View of Christ the Redeemer from the Botanical Garden |
Our hotel had arranged for an airport transfer and we made our way through the Rio rush hour traffic. At the airport, there was no line at check-in, security, immigration, or snack bar. For the win! However, the airport is a little underwhelming for being an international airport about to host the World Cup and Olympics.
After a few round of beers and snacks to use our last Brazilian Real, we made it onto our flight. Our flight leaves at 8:40 pm and is an overnight. So sad to leave Brazil and end our vacation, but also excited about going home!
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