Two Beers and a Pretzel

Last Friday (Jan 9th) Rafa and I went to another really nice beach for lunch on the outskirts of Rio.  Some famous Brazilian soap opera (and they all watch soaps religously here) actor was playing volleyball, so she was happy.  Lots of eager young female fans were all over the place, so I was happy.

Anyway, we left there to see the 200 year old botanical garden.  The main walkway is lined with imperial palms, and it give you the impression of walking in the dwarf mines of the Lord of the Rings… albeit sunny and tropical.

For everyone back home into fish ponds, they had natural streams diverted all over this park into waterfalls and a beautiful Japanese themed Koi pond.

And of course, some nice flora…  Not that different from the Franklin Park or Krohn Conservatories back in Ohio, except that this is about 50 acres, outdoors, and runs right up against ancient Atlantic Rain-forest.  So yeah, I guess it is a bit different…

On the way home, I finally took a picture of some of the street art that is all over Rio.  This is really street art versus graffiti (which there is also plenty of).

I added a few more pics and the time lapse video to the previous post .

Here’s a bonus…  The Brazilian domestic equivalent to McDonald’s is Bob’s.  It kind of reminds me of MacDougal’s in Coming to America.   Here’s the bunny preparing to feast on a “Big Bob” combo.

It sucked…  essentially a Big Mac gone horribly wrong.  And Big Mac’s are not exactly the best hamburger’s out there…

Tomorrow we’re traveling by boat to a place called  Ilha Grande.  I decided to stay in tonight and go to sleep instead of potentially missing the morning transfer from the hostel.  All the hostels are booked for some Reggae festival, so we’ll be camping!!  Should be interesting…

Well, the Ipanima hostel was a little too wild.  While I was working on my last post, Rafa was rudely awakened by a drunk girl throwing her clothes on Rafa, then climbing onto the upper bunk to attempt the human fertilization process with the guy who was sleeping there.  When I got back in the room 2 hours later, Rafa had moved to a bunk that wasn’t rocking, and the girl was picking thru the guys luggage when he literally fell off the top bunk, landed on her, and knocked her into the wall.  Pretty funny actually.  The next day we moved to the hostel at Copacabana.  Much more laid back.

My only incident was an Argentinian guy stole my pillow (that I brought from home).  He didn’t like it when I stole it back and showed that it was not a hostel pillow.  However, I still can’t find the pillowcase.  Oh well.

Anyway, We went to Sugarloaf 2 days ago…  Beautiful view over the city…

Here I am just before sunset with Copacabana in the background…

I also have a time lapse video of taking the gondola up to sugarloaf…

We went to the Christo yesterday.  It was cloudy up at the statue, but a beautiful day in the city, so I got some cool fog pics.  There’s nothing quite like a 100 ft tall Jesus statue to give you a little perspective.

Here’s what it’s supposed to look like (I took a piture of a postcard)…

That’s the Christo de Redentor with Sugarloaf on the right.  Copacabana and Ipanima are on the right side of Sugarloaf, out of the picture.

First, I’ll catch everyone up on the last week or so…

The indestructible Olympus has seen better days.  The paint is peeling off, and the frame around the lens was apparently attached to the paint rather than directly to metal, so that fell off.  I also got water in it.  I think it’s from sand getting into the seals.  It took 2 days for the camera to dry out, but it’s working fine again, despite a few water marks inside the protective glass.  My uncle thinks the damage was from my use of the camera in a brutal pummeling of some poor knife salesman in Argentina.  I still think it was the sand…

I spent a lot of time with my Uncle’s sister-in-law Rafa (pronounced haa-faa) on the island.  I think she was pretty happy to get a chance to explore a little bit and show off her home island, as well as introduce a lot of her friends (really, a lot) to the gringo from Ohio…

We took a boat cruise around the lagoon to a pretty, but chilly waterfall…

One day we went to a remote beach on the South side of the island that has a 1/2 mile access trail.  No roads, no crowds, a lot of surfers, and a few decent beach bars that people were wheel-barrowing supplies to.

Here’s the video from the New Year’s beach party in Cannesvieras (the town we stayed in on Santa Caterina).

At some point on the 1st or 2nd, I ended up hiring Rafa to be my guide for 2 weeks.  However I try, I still can’t speak much Portuguese.  It doesn’t hurt that she’s cute and a ton of fun to hang out with…  She she was pretty excited about the idea, jumped right into planning everything, listened to what I want to do, and so far it’s been great!  She’s also trying to teach me Portuguese while I help her with English.

On Sunday, Rafa took me to a place on the island where hang-gliders jump into the blue yonder, that proved to have a stunning view of the lagoon side of the island.  I also finally figured out how to stitch images on the Canon G9.  This is a 10 image composite…  Click on it to see the larger version…

Sunday night, Rafa, her other sister Bile (Billie) and I went to a decomposing bay side garage that somehow turns into THE happening samba bar on Sundays from 7pm to 1am.

I finally learned to Samba dance…  I’ll spare you the video and show you a pic of Rafa and Bile instead…

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Now, what everyone wants to see….  RIO!!!!

18 hours on a bus and I’m finally here. The bus station is nothing special…

Light drizzle, and 21 Celsius today (about 70 for those of you still using Olde English units).  I’m staying in the Ipanima Beach Hostel.  It’s a Pretty hip place.  Rafa and I got here around 10 am.  Check-in is at 2 pm, so we stashed our bags and walked along Ipanima Beach for a while, then caught a quick bus to Copacabana Beach for a beer.

We found out the hard way that some bars are pretty strict about not letting you play cards – even if you’re the only patrons on an overcast day and it’s not a gambling game. Apparently they feel the same way about dice.  Who would have guessed?  So we left to walk on the beach…

We checked into our co-ed dorm room a bit after 2 and then went to the museum of modern art downtown.  No photos allowed, but some neat stuff.  Rafa’s dad was an artist (as is she), and we saw paintings by one of his good friends.  Then we had some crappy Chinese food for dinner and wandered around a pedestrian area until dusk.

We’re checking the weather daily to plan when we want to go up to the must-see Christ the Redeemer statue -vs- other parks and the beach.  On Saturday we should be taking a 1/2 day boat trip to Ilha Grande for our next stop.

That should give everyone their photo fix for a while.  As soon as it’s sunny, I’ll get a lot more pics from Rio.

Ciao…

I´m still in Florianopolis.  The sunburn is gone, and I actually retained a little color.  I´m planning the next part of my journey in Brazil.  Actually, I´m just reviewing the itinerary.  I´ve hired a guide to take me around the Atlantic coast for 2 weeks (including Rio) and teach me Portugese.

When I get a better internet connection, I´ll upload more pics and a lot more details of the last few days.  The New Year celebration on the beach was really cool.  Everyone set off fireworks for about an hour, and I participated in a Brazilian ritual of putting flowers in the ocean for the new year.  Then went swimming in the pool and to a party with locals until roughly 5 am.

The only downers were seeing the motorcycle accidents, and the dead guy on the way home (2 drug dealers fighting over turf in the prime season).  However, I´m safe and happy.