May 7 - Sugarloaf, Soccer and Sao Paulo

Today, I visited Sugarloaf Mountain. While I was there I caught a spot of wifi on my iphone and finally downloaded the Lonely Planet guidebook I should have bought before I left the US. Turns out it’s probably for the best because having your guidebook loaded into your phone means one less thing to lug around all day. Perfect.

Anyway, in 1912 Brazil was full of Europeans and one had the idea to build a suspended cable car to take people to the top of a very high peak over Rio. Rio de Janeiro became a popular destination for celebrities from 1920-1950ish and they had photos of the Kennedys and others on the mountain. Except for some lingering clouds, it was indeed a spectacular view.

And contrary to what you may think from the photos, I am washing and doing my hair each day. But oh man this humidity. So much for it being winter in the Southern Hemisphere…

You can’t visit South America without fully grasping the importance of soccer to these people. It’s a really big deal. Everyone wants to talk about it. Everyone wants you to have an opinion. Everyone wants you to see their city’s stadium. (And now I really want to read How Soccer Explains the World. As in it`s downloading right now...)

So this is Maracana, which seems to be a really big deal stadium in Brazil. We got to tour all the lockers rooms, etc. Contrasting that to my visit last year to the National’s Locker Room was amazing (did I never post those photos on the blog? Oops...). The DC Nationals are the worst team in baseball right now (or so I’m told…) and their stadium is 1000x nicer than this fancy Brazilian stadium. Really puts things into perspective. We have so much more than we realize…

Later that night I caught a flight from Rio de Janeiro to Sao Paulo to begin the next phase of the trip. The ad on the back of each headrest was sponsor by PwC (and so, incidentally, is my trip!). (I will add the picture later, too tired to hook up my phone...

P.S. Remember how much I love HSBC ads? Here’s another example.