We bid our Tucan tour group farewell. After as many as 65 days of travel with some members, we were pleased to do this as quickly and discreetly as possible before we snuck of to go tandem hangliding.
I loved hangliding as much as I loved sandboarding, and the two are quite similar in that they involve flinging yourself off a cliff of some sort (no, I don´t have any suicidal tendancies). We took off from Pedra Bonita, 520m above sea level, and soared over Tijuca Forest and the Atlantic Ocean. My instructor caught a few thermals, and we circled up before swooping down. I felt like a bird on a roller coaster ride. Warren was less enthused about his flight, and I suspect he preferred our lunch at the per kilo restaurant near our hotel.
Per kilo restaurants are a great concept. You select food from a buffet table of salads, desserts, meat and seafood (including sushi, crayfish!), but pay only for what you have chosen according to its weight. Warren´s per kilo meals have typically cost around AUD$7, and my main courses have cost around AUD$4. Desserts are weighed separately and I am almost ashamed to admit mine have usually cost as much as my mains. The desserts here are decadent as Brazilians love their sweets, and we´ve even seen per kilo ice cream parlours!
We checked into the luxurious Gunabara Hotel, and joined the Rio Rhythmics Tour group when they arrived in the evening. Our Carnaval costumes arrived that night. We tried them on and celebrated the fact that they were relatively light and allowed us to move freely. Tarcisio added to our relief when he recounted how one of the costumes used by RR students in the past had plastic poop on their shoulders (in keeping with that samba school´s theme).
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