A Different Kind of Skyline

Contemplating the view of Pão de Açúcar (Sugarloaf Mountains) and Guanabara Bay where the Botofogo and Flamengo beaches are.

Day 7? 16? 45?: Buzios

Who keeps track of days after the first one or two anyway? By this time I knew it was after new years, but couldn't ever remember what day/date of the week it was. But that's a good marker for a vacation.

We took another small trip the second week, this time to Ararauama, Cabo Frio and Buzios. We didn't have as much luck with the weather. It wasn't ever terrible, but not nice enough for us to go to the beach - to my disappointment. But we had a nice couple of days walking around the towns. Buzios was nice, and we had a good time shopping and eating and enjoying the scenery.


A nice pic of Felipe and I by the water. Starting to tan, aren't we? ;)


The whole gang, minus Primitivo who's taking the photo.


Gotta capture those awesome shots...they're not gonna make it on my camera by themselves.


You can see it was a lot overcast, but still nice to see all of the colorful boats bobbing in the water. This one is 100% Buziano! (I'm not sure what that means...)


Cute mosaics in the sidewalk.






A nice photo of Felipe and his dad at dinner in Cabo Frio. Primitivo was happy to be spending time with his son, and Felipe was happy to be spending time with his dad (he was happy as well about the all you can eat pizza he was having for dinner too...)

I'd love to go back in nicer weather. The beaches were so wide and amazing looking. It just wasn't meant to be on this trip. Actually, you could get me to go back to Buzios anytime, as long as I could find that street vendor who had the best ever cocada that I tasted while I was there. A cocada is this supremely yummy coconut and condensed milk treat...something I plan on leaning how to make and perfect so that I can feed my newly acquired cocada habit without having to go all the way to the southern hemisphere. Just to give you an idea, this woman looks like she makes a very very delicious cocada. I would have taken a pic of mine to post...but I was too busy eating!

Behind, so very far behind!

Okay, I know - I'm very far behind in my posts...I have a bunch of photos from our trip to Rio to post! But somehow I've been tied up...I think it's because I got back into my family history project and that has taken up most of my free computer time at home.

Anyway, to tide you over (and to let you know I'm still alive and planning on posting!) here is an awesome find I came across today:

I found this Fantastic Mr. Fox coat on Etsy, and really wish I were a kid, or had a kid I could give it to. How cool is that!

Well, just letting you know I'm still around and will be posting more Rio photos soon! Don't go away...

Greetings from (sometimes) Sunny Rio de Janeiro!

At Leme beach, looking towards Copacabana.

Well everyone, it's been a busy week here - explaining the lack of posts, and we're on our last full day of Rio. I'm sad to think we'll be leaving tomorrow, especially since we'll be going back to winter! I'm posting this photo I took along the beach in Rio on Wednesday afternoon to tide you over...I may not make any full posts until we get back to NYC (our remaining time here is precious!).

Ana and Sergi have left just now to fly to São Paulo for a couple of days, and so things are winding down. I hope they have safe travels, and that everything goes smoothly for us as well when we leave tomorrow night.

Happy Birthday....

Today would have been Dad's 64th birthday - I hope he's up there rockin' with Elvis ;)

Happy New Year 2011!

We had a terrific New Year's Eve! We all had dinner at Ernani's house (a family friend) in Copacabana. We were there for a while eating and dancing before heading over to the beach.

Me and my brother in law Sergi dancing Samba, tons of fun and very tiring on the legs!

After dancing, at about 11:00pm we walked the two blocks from Ernani's apartment to Copacabana Beach - what craziness! There will thousands of people on any given street and when we got to the beach, and were met by 4 million other people, well let me tell you - that was a sight I never thought I'd see! The Beach stretches for about 6km, so thankfully everyone had plenty of space to stand.


They had 4 live music stages, and screens set up all over the place. At 10 seconds to midnight they put the countdown up and everyone started screaming. At midnight all the lights on the beach went out and the fireworks started. 20 different boats set of 25 tons of fireworks for the first 20 minutes of the new year. it was an AMAZING sight. Everyone was cheering and happy, and colored by the sparkling fireworks in the sky. I couldn't have imagined what it would feel like to be surrounded by 4 million revelers, but it was really something out of this world.


Here is a picture of the crowd last night. If you look at the middle left of the photo, you will see a big white screen...we were about a hundred feet to the right of that - can you see us? ;)

We stayed on the beach until about 1:30am and then walked back to Ernani's apartment where we waited a bit longer for the crowds to clear out (although I'm not sure that actually happened - they seemed just as many when we left at 2:30am). By the end of the night we were wiped out, but happy.

Happy New Year to all - I wish you the best of happiness and health in 2011!

Day Six: Ilha Grande - The Beach!!!

A BEAUTIFUL beach that we visited. Probably my favorite.

On day six we got up around 8:30am and had breakfast before walking to the beach in the village. Here's us ready to go!



Felipe relaxing in our first bit of (real/uninterrupted) sun!

When we got to the beach, Felipe's uncle Chico arranged for us to have another private boat for the day (this is about $300 for the whole day - divided by that 8 of us - quite a deal!), this time a motor boat, super new and very nice! The man who owned the boat - Oldair from Cariocas Tour, took us from beach to beach and it was the best!!!


Me on the boat - ready for a sun filled, beach filled day!


The first stop was at the Lagoa Azul - there was no beach, but you could swim right off the boat. It was a perfect place for snorkeling! We saw so many fish! and cool corals and sea sponges. It was beautiful!


Felipe on the boat. He had to keep a shirt on the whole day as he got pretty burnt when we were boating around Paraty.


Ana and I taking a break from snorkeling (it's hard floating around like that!)


A pretty typical picture of Felipe's uncle Chico.


Wish you were here!!!


Almost every beach was super quiet, with hardly any people. I think our guide knew when to go to which places, so that we would beat all the big crowds from the larger boats.

On this particular beach there was a little path that led to a small church on the hill. Felipe and I walked up there together to see it...



A stone statue of an angel next to a very old grave.

We then went to another small beach where we got a bite to eat for lunch. Portions were HUGE! I ordered grilled chicken and it came with rice and beans, and french fries!



Felipe's ice cold Guarana Antarctica - a very popular soda here in Brazil. I don't like the taste at all!


A view of the beach from our table. Nice and relaxing!

The last beach we stopped at was the most beautiful, and by far my favorite. We practically had the whole beach to ourselves! It was clean and long, with crystal clear water. You can see in the photo below our boat:



By this time it was 4:30pm and we were happy to relax a bit in the shade.

I can't think of a more perfect way to have spent the day. Each place we stopped was breathtaking and I wished a hundred times that I could share it with all of my friends and family. It's something I never really anticipated having a chance to do, and am so glad that I did!

After all that sun and swimming we went back to the hotel to clean and rest for a bit. We lazed around for a while and then slowly made our way back towards the center of the village for dinner. A perfect day.

Day Five: Ilha Grande

Departing on the catamaran from Angra Dos Reis.

On day five (I am losing track of what day of the week, and the date like a true vacation!) we traveled from Paraty to Angra dos Reis where we got a boat to Ilha Grande. Ilha Grande is just that - a very large island just off of the coast.

The island is only accessible via boat, and it takes about 45 minutes on the faster catamaran to get there. You could see why they call it the Costa Verde - the water was a beautiful shade of blue green.

We arrived in the Vila do Abraão on the northern coast of the island (facing the mainland), and walked to our pousada - Pousada do Anambe, which was a little off the beaten path.

A view of the street beside the pousada.


A view from the balcony by our rooms.

The first afternoon we did a 2km hike around some of the state park, where we saw an old abandoned hospital (it used to be a quarantine for people suffering from cholera) which was later a notorious prison for political dissidents in the 1940's and 1950's. There was also a very old aqueduct that was on the trail. It was all very beautiful!

The Trail.


A window into the old abandoned hospital/prison.


Inside the abandoned building...you are not allowed in because of hazard of collapse.




A sign describing the history of the building.

We moved past the ruins and walked further on toward the aqueduct and a small portion of the river with a natural pool. Everything was so verdant! Here you can see Felipe and I at the aqueduct.




When we got to the natural pool, there was a portion of the trail that broke and we had to cross the large rocks that the river passed over - very slippery rocks!


Fortunately we all made it over safely, and enjoyed a bit of the refreshingly cool water!






We had a great time walking around the forested trails, which I think was perfect because the day was very overcast and rainy at times. I think it really made the green that much more impressive! After the walk we all went back to the pousada and changed/rested. We spend the majority of the rest of the evening walking around the small village visiting the little shops, eating pastels (very large empanada type food), and enjoying the scenery. We had dinner at a little restaurant called Rapala, where the food was terrific and the service not so much. Are orders all came out at different times and at least two or three things were brought out wrong. I might be guilty of enjoying it the most as I had most of the luck - all my food came right away, and it was super yummy! All was made up for by grabbing some treats from the man selling them in the cart on the street afterward.