The rest of Rio, New Year's Eve Day

It seems that every where we looked in Brazil there was some sort of graffiti or street art. If there's a wall, it has paint on it. As you can see, some of it is quite good. You can tell a lot about the neighborhood you're in based on the street art nearby. We saw everything from soccer to politics to religion to famous icons.

As much as we would have loved to stay for just one more day in Rio to be there during New Year's Eve, we couldn't justify another $3000+ in airfare and hotel for just one more night. Today we found out Madonna performed that night and we've been crying in our room ever since.

Because we weren't headed to Copacabana for the actual big bash, we found ourselves in the Centro district again after visiting Niterói across the bay. Having been to the Centro on a previous day, to say we were shocked at the lack of people would be an understatement. Here are two pictures of the same road, the one on the left is Wednesday at 3pm, the one on the right is Friday (New Year's Eve) at 3pm. The city literally just died.

We felt like we had the entire city to ourselves. It was a little bit eerie but we noticed things like the beautiful cobblestone sidewalks a little bit more. We were able to snap a few photos that would normally have hundreds of people walking by in the background.

Rio Branco Avenue

In front of the Municipal Theatre

Seemingly deserted street

Even though our time in Rio was short, we saw everything we wanted to. On that last day, all of our clothes were dirty, we were exhausted and a little sunburned, but satisfied and ready to be home. We lucked out and were able to find a taxi to the airport and while THIS was going on at Copacabana, we had our own little celebration on the plane somewhere over South America. Take that Madonna.