Rio!

Our final stop in South America was Rio De Janeiro.  We stayed at the Porto Bay Rio Internacional hotel in Copacabana.  It was a great place to stay, friendly staff, really good breakfast and the upgrade to a ocean front room was greatly appreciated.  Best of all was the roof top pool/bar, it was perfect for taking sunset and sunrise photos.

We spent a fair amount of time at the beach or pool.  We did go check out some sites with a private guide (Bruno) and did a super cheesy jeep tour to a Favela and Tijuca forest.  Bruno was awesome and helped us out a lot the rest of the trip.  The jeep tour should be avoided.

The food was better than we were expecting.  The Brazilian BBQ at Churrascaria Palace is not to be missed!  We also ate at a great cocktail and tapas bar called El Born.

Photo wise there are lots of great view points of the city; Tijuca Forest, Christ the Redeemer and Sugarloaf Mountain are all spectacular.

Overall I was very happy with the photo kit I brought.  The Fujifilm 18-135mm was very impressive and was used in the majority of the photos.  The weather sealing came in handy at Iguazu.  I threw in the Rokinon 12mm F2.0 at the last minute incase there was a chance to try some astorphotography and glad I did as it came in handy at Iguazu.  The Fuji X-E2 and 27mm got some use in Buenos Aires when it was a little cooler and a jacket was necessary, but otherwise was there incase something happened to the X-T1.  No regrets since ditching the Canon SLR gear last year!

Here are my two favourite photos from Rio.  The rest can be seen on Flickr.

Cristo comes through the clouds.

Morning run along Copacabana