Sunrise Over Copacabana

I woke up and there it was. Sunrise. Over Copacabana Beach.

I always sleep fitfully on the night before, or the last night of, a long trip. I'm scared I'm going to miss my plane! So even if the plane does not leave until 10:00 at night, I'm still nervous.

I had a good final evening walking around the neighborhood.

Dinner wasn't anything special, but then I saw this place:

Rufo's!

Rufo's may look like an ordinary juice bar -- of which there are many all over Rio de Janeiro, but they had the flavor I've been dreaming of, and asking for, all during this trip. And no one else seem to have. Which fruit is that? You can see it tucked in between the yellow melons in the picture above:

Caju! This is the fruit of the cashew tree. The fruit is so sweet it cannot be shipped to the United States. So we eat only the delicious nut from this same tree. Finally, in my final hours in Rio de Janeiro, I have found my caju.

I can sleep peacefully. Until I wake up at 4:30 and see the glorious sunrise over Copacabana Beach:

Time to fly home.

Vacation Ends with a Long Walk Along the Beaches

From the far southern end of Copacabana Beach, looking north to Sugarloaf

If I were sufficiently flexible -- and thankfully I am not -- I would be kicking myself in the hindquarters. I first visited Rio de Janeiro in 1997. And it took 25 years to get back here. What took me so long?

On my second time in Rio de Janeiro on this trip, I am staying on Copacabana Beach. 

I'm now at the end of a two-week vacation and I really lost the interest in planning anything in particular to do today. Besides, there is a Brazil game in the World Cup coming up mid-day, so anything that would be open will not be open. Except the beach.

So I'm on the beach,

This is a game of futvolei, which is volleyball played like soccer-football. In other words, it is volleyball where you don't use you hands. You use your feet, your head, your legs, your chest, your shoulders. Anything but your hands and arms. There is no regular volleyball happening here. There aren't even any soccer-football games. It's all futvolei.

And paddleboarding. There will be surfing when I stop at Arporador. But I haven't worked my there yet on this walk.

I was thinking of visiting Forte de Copacabana, the old military fort that was built to protect this area from French privateers. But there was a line.

So I continued on to Ipanema.

See. I'm at Ipanema Beach. Tall and tan and young and lovely. Well, one out of four ain't bad.

The beach was crowded when I walked past, but it thinned out as game time got closer. And there was plenty of futvolei here too.

These people were particularly good. It's strange seeing people playing volleyball with their heads and feet much better than I could even imagine playing in the ordinary style.

Ipanema is not as deep (meaning it's not as far from the sidewalk to the water) as is Copacabana. It's also quieter. And, based on nothing, I have the impression that the ratio of locals to tourists is not as heavily skewed towards us turistas as it is on Copacabana.

There's some locals in that picture, no? Well, the lifeguard sitting up in his lifeguard tower most definitely would be a local.

I then wind my way back to Arporador, with its giant rock and surfers.

Surfers going to surf.

Or just walking around with surfboards to look cool. Either is cool.

People hanging out in the water and people hanging out on the rock.

There were a couple of professional photo shoots happening on the rock. Here's one.

But some people climb up on the rock to get away from the beach crowd, I guess.

The Brazil-Croatia game has started, so it was time to walk back up along Copacabana Beach to my hotel.

It's not the Jobim statue on Ipanema. This is the Copacabana's statue of Dorival Caymmi.

He was an important figure in the development of samba and bossa nova, although he does not have the international legacy of Jobim.

The last day of the vacation is coming to an end.

My mood is blue. Blue water. Blue skies. That kind of blue.

It's been a great vacation, but it's time to go back home, which is how you should feel at the end of a great vacation. If you're not ready to go home, the vacation was not a long enough. And if the vacation was too short, how can it have been "great."

A Room with a View of Copacabana Beach

The view from the rooftop bar of my hotel on Copacabana Beach

Back in Rio de Janeiro for the final few nights of this vacation. I paid extra for room with a view of Copacabana. This is the view:

It is a full-on view of the beach as promised.

I walked around the neighborhood for a bit last night.

The beach area was packed and there were lots of people on the beach, mostly playing volleyball or "futvolei," that Brazilian take on volleyball where you play volleyball with the ball-handling rules of soccer: no hands allowed, only kicks and headers.

This was definitely much more of a tourist atmosphere than I saw in the Ipanema and Arporador areas at the beginning of the trip. Copacabana is all about the party.

The rooftop bar at the hotel provided a quieter atmosphere.

Christmas Vacation of a Lifetime: Stop 2: Rio de Janeiro

Standing on a beach. Staring at the sea.

After a three-day visit to Paraguay, it was on to the whole reason for visiting Brazil: Rio de Janeiro.

Corcovado in the background. Oh how lovely. Wait, no. It's Sugarloaf, a.k.a. Pão de Açúcar.

This was my first trip out of the country on my own. It was only my second time outside of the United States after my high school Spanish class trip to Spain in 1976. (I'm not counting Canada because, really, going to Canada is not really like visiting a foreign country, let's be real.)

It was overcast and not all that hot on my first day in town, which was weird since this was late December and the start of the South American summer. 

Here are two lifeguards towering over the beach high atop that guard tower:

Rio de Janeiro in 1997 was an absolutely amazing place. This was not a place to go to check off sights to see on a list. This was a place to go for the express purpose of experiencing Rio.

And Rio is all about the beaches. Rio culture is beach culture. I was staying at a hotel a couple of blocks inland from the world-renowned crescent-shaped Copacabana beach.

Fitness equipment on the beach! And always in use,

This is Pão de Açúcar. Make sure you nasalize the vowel sound in "pão." If you don't nasalize it, you inadvertently repeat the most hilarious joke in all of Brazilian Portuguese.

I can tell this is Sugarloaf, Pão de Açúcar, because it is rock. Corcovado -- oh how lovely -- is green. There both tall mountains overlooking the Rio harbor, but the color is the tell. Well, that and the giant statue of Christ at the top of Corcovado.

A church I passed along the way:

The way of what I don't remember.

And I believe this is O Monumento Nacional aos Mortos da Segunda Guerra Mundial, the monument to Brazil's WWII dead.  This is in the Flamengo neighborhood,

Again, this is the sight to see:

Crescent-shaped Copacabana as viewed from where?

The top of Pão de Açúcar, properly pronounced with a nasal vowel. I took the cable car (actually, a series of cable cars) to the top to have a look-see.

I never made it to the top of Corcovado (oh how lovely). I know. Only two non-beach sights to see and five days to see 'em and I saved Corcovado for my "next trip" to Rio.

Sadly, after 23 years, there's been no "next trip."

This is Arpoador Beach. Harpooner's beach. It's Rio's surf beach:

No waves like that at placid Copacabana.

Now, let's move on over to Ipanema.

It was a nicer beach than the Copacabana, in my opinion. More upscale, which is totally my scene.

The beachfront fitness equipment was in better shape.

And here's a game of futvolei. It's beach volleyball, with a twist. This being a soccer-mad country, this is volleyball with the futbol-inspired addition of being hands-free. Head or feet? Use 'em. Hands? As verboten as in futbol.

Apparently this was the "muscle beach" section of Ipanema:

Again, this being the era of film photography, I did not take a ton of pictures despite five amazing days in Rio. We will conclude with Ana Paula and João (I hope I am getting his name right).

These were close friends of the wife of an attorney with whom I worked at the time of this trip. They helped show me Rio. Obrigado, meus amigos do Rio. Obrigado.