I am delighted at the news that Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the 2016 Olympics. Rio is one of my Top 10 cities of the World - Paris, New York, Leh (India), Vientiane (Laos), Sydney, Vatican, Amsterdam, Paro (Bhutan) and Ushuaia (Argentina) complete the list.
A beautiful city I visited this stunning metropolis in October 2007 as part of a CIS school inspection and accreditation team.
The school was on split sites and we had four days of running across the city.
One of these school sites bordered on a favela – the shanty town areas on the neighbouring hill-sides, portrayed so amazingly in the incredible movie, The City of God.
About 9am alarms sounded across the area and everyone ordered inside. A police helicopter flew overhead firing semi-automatics below. It took almost an hour for the all-clear signal to sound and life resumes back to normality. And everyone thought i was nuts to live in Bogotá! Never experienced anything quite like that in four years in the capital of Colombia.
The work was full on in Brazil, but I stayed on for a couple of days afterwards to explore this amazing city. Despite the threat of potential danger in several parts, it is stunningly situated and oozes a vitality and energy you cannot find in Europe (or i can´t anyway).
A few photos taken with my old Nikon Coolpix can be found here.
With World Cup 2010 in South Africa, I really should make an effort to be in London for the 2012 Olympics. Mmmmmmm...Rio in 2016? Sounds pretty tempting to me.
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Don't you mean Luang Prubang not Vientiane?
ReplyDeleteVientiane is the quietest capital city in the world.
ReplyDeletePerhaps, but there is not much of interest there.
ReplyDeleteactually you´re right. I´ll go for Bagan (Burma) instead ;0)
ReplyDelete