Sore all over

Well, im back in rio...every muscle in my body is aching from yesterday´s hike to parrot peak. This hike was one of the most physically and mentally challenging hikes ive ever done. First off, shawn and i missed an important turn near the beginning because the sign was overgrown with tropical plants so we wasted about 1.5hr and 300m of hiking before we actually began the real hike. With only one ferry leaving the island in the afternoon we were very tight on time. Add to this the humidity of a tropical rain forest, another 1000m to climb, and sore muscles from the previous two days...lets just say it was a challenge. Stupidly, i didnt bring much food, so a small chocolate bar and a bag of cheetos was my energy for the day :) Sweating like monkeys the entire way up, we were rationing water about half way up the hill. But in the end, we made it through the tropical rain forest, through the bamboo forest and up to the peak in 1:45h...blazingly fast (our guide recommended at least 3h to get up). The view from the top of the island was as expected, amazing.

Top of Parrot's Peak. The hike started from the town on the bottom left (on the right is the beach we hiked to on the previous day)

After the hike, we went back to town for some food...took an overcrowded ferry back to the mainland (when i say overcrowded, i mean south-american overcrowded...complete chaos). Our guide bruno was a riot. One of the funniest people ive ever met, and in typical brazilian style...very good with the ladies. Typical pickup lines included ´Ive never known you, but ive always loved you´ and ´you´re on the catwalk to my heart´. You´re laughing, but in the end, every single girl (7 as i recall) he charmed ended up coming out with us to the bar.

Today, im heading out to do some shopping in ipanema and tonight there's a huge parade of all the top samba schools from carnival. I also plan to swing by leblon beach (right next to ipanema beach) at some point.