We are staying in Copacabana this week with a friend of Su’s. Lydia is Su’s friend from New York. Lidia and her friend Mercedes have been living here for about 6 months. They are leaving Brazil in two weeks and are excited to spend these last two weeks seeing and doing as much as possible, which is perfect for us.
On Friday night they took us to a street party in Lapa. This is a weekly party with a few thousand people in attendance. We met a bunch of Lydia’s friends from Rio. They were friendly, outgoing and patient while we struggled to communicate in Portuguese. We walked through the streets for a few hours and ended up inside a hip hop club until about 4:30am.
On Saturday we walked along the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana. I have never seen as crowded as Ipanema beach was. The view at this beach is beautiful which is probably what attracts so many people to this beach. There are volleyball nets set up all along the beach. Most people play a variation of volleyball in which they are not allowed to use their hands. The serve is done with a kick, and people use their head, chest, legs and feet in order to bump-set-spike.
On Saturday night, Mercedes’ younger brothers flew in for the week. They wanted to visit her in Rio before she leaves Brazil in two weeks. One brother goes to UMass Amherst and the other brother lives in Northampton. It’s a small world. We have all been going out together this week.
On Sunday afternoon we went to a birthday party for a friend of Lydia’s. The party was at an outdoor space with a few hundred people and included a barbecue. Rio is known to have great Churrasco, which is barbecue. At this party, the organizer ordered 30 Kilo’s of meat for the guests, which is about 72 pounds of food. There was a samba music playing, a type of music called funky which is similar to dance hall with without the sounds of reggae. The party lasted about 6 hours or so. We learned some basic samba steps, met a bunch of locals and ate lots of food. It was a great introduction to a local scene.
On Monday we went to Corcovado to visit the large statue of Christ sitting atop a cliff overlooking the city. This is probably the most visited place in Rio. The view from the top gives you a look at the entire city from about 2000 feet up. The picture that I have on upper right corner of my website was taken at this location. Here is my version of that same picture.
On Tuesday we visited downtown with Lydia. There were so many people in the streets it reminded me of New York City. The downtown area still has a lot of the old European style buildings left from the colonial times. We spent the day strolling through the streets and taking pictures of the old buildings in the area, eating and looking in the many stores.
On Wednesday we visited another top tourist attraction…Pao de Azucar, or Sugarloaf in English. This is a mountain that sits right on the edge of the bay. You can take a tram from a nearby mountain to get to the top. We opted to hike to the top of a nearby mountain instead to get some exercise. It was only a 30 minute hike up to the top, but it was 100 degrees that day, so the climb was more draining that it should have been. Here is a picture of the view atop this mountain.
We will stay in Rio until Monday when we leave for Foz de Iguazu and then Buenos Aires. We extended our stay in Rio so that we could take in a soccer game on Sunday at the famous Maracana stadium.