Just spent 10 days in Brazil… about two-thirds of which were at a beach house in Pau Amarelo (about 20 miles north of Recife), and that was the relaxing portion of the trip. Wake up early, eat fruit, swim in the pool, read, lay in the sun, walk down to the beach (which came right up to the house), walk up and down the shore, have a drink at Jaco’s, swim some more, read some more, drink some water, lay in the sun, walk down to the beach, walk up and down the shore, eat some fish, have some beer, read, swim, rest, relax, and repeat. That was probably the greatest part of the trip… just living in that environment and enjoying it and repeating it enough times that you actually adjusted to it and felt like that might be your actual life.
We did many other things too… visited an old town called Olinda, took a catamaran around Recife’s many little rivers and under her many little bridges, ate at Boi Preto (a place that serves you 18 different kinds of meat from a cow, lamb, pig, chicken, and salmon, of which I ate all 18 (plus a few that weren’t on the menu) including chicken heart). Unfortunately, I ended up getting food poisoning from there I think, and having crazy hallucinating dreams for a day. The diet in general left us all feeling a little turmoilous in the stomach region actually, but I think it contributed to making the highs higher and the lows lower, and I still managed to enjoy myself tremendously.
We spent the last 3 days in Rio at this hotel right at the meeting point of Copacabana and Ipanema beach. Rio’s beaches were beautiful, the waves were big, and the people watching was quite fun. It reminded me of my childhood beaches in Southern California, but magnified by 10 as if reality had taken my memories and exaggerated and crystallized them over the years. Watching people play foot-volleyball, buying coconuts and ice cream, getting pummeled by the waves, floating out past the waves, having our towels get soaked by a particularly far-reaching wave.
We met up with a couple friends who had been there for a week or so already and they showed us the cool bars and dance clubs… the strangest being this area called Lapa which was a narrow alley packed tight with thousands of people walking up and down, drinking (it’s okay to drink in public there), popping in and out of the numerous bars and dance clubs along the way. We stayed out to 4 or 5 every night and the city was still going strong as we retired each night.
During the days we visited a few of the popular destinations around the city: Sugar Loaf (a big rock that you take a floating train thing up, or rock climb up if so inclined), Christ the Redeemer, Tijuca (the rain forest), and even tried my hand at hang gliding for the first time ever (didn’t die).
I can’t believe we packed that all in (and quite a bit more) in such a short time, and still managed to get some premium relaxation in. Great trip. Thanks Angela for putting it all together!
