Sunday
9th August
Ipanema
Beach
You
often hear about how sexy Brazilians are – ok it's true. We spent
today on Ipanema Beach. The beach itself is 4 kilometers of white
sand, crystal clear water, more (groin) packages than you can
imagine, sun drenched bodies playing volley ball and beach soccer
and an array of hawkers who provide every possible delight to meet
the needs of the beach goers. Later in the day we met up with a lovely
local, Romi – the English teaching, tarot card reading, dietitian
(and cute as) local. Romi gave us a heads up on some local
attractions and we hope to meet up again on our return after our trip
to the Amazon. A Fab day.
Monday
10th August
Copacabana
Beach
The
day began with a visit to the Stern diamond exhibition in Ipanema.
There we met the lovely Manual (one of the staff) who recognised one
of the family and spent time advising us with some more local
knowledge. He even advised us to go to one of the other parks that
Romi had suggested we visit last night. We also chatted with an
American lad who was visiting the Stern gallery who had traveled to
Sydney recently and raved about the Midnight Shift – it's nice to
see that the International Gay Mafia is alive and well. Then it was
off to the Botanical Gardens – we were both a little underwhelmed
but it was worth the visit. The real gem was the park that both Romi
and Manual had advised we visit, just a few blocks from the botanical
gardens. It's call Parque Lage and is the home of the Fine Arts
School that was originally a private residence built by a local for
his Italian opera singer wife in the 1920s. We had coffee and walked
through the gardens and home – we love viewing life's follies-
Pure passion - Loved it! Great coffee, wonderful to see real local
artist's refining their craft, amidst an incredibly beautiful
historic mansion and surrounded by a tropical garden. A great
experience.
We
ended the day, once again, on Ipanmea beach that was interrupted as
the sun was going down by a very sudden wind storm. Out of nowhere
came a gigantic wind that sent beach umbrellas flying and people
running. Hee hee! A beach full of screaming queens is a sight to
behold! The Brazilians are very organized – they put up huge gay
flags to let you know where to go on the beach, and, you guest it,
the packed part of the beach is where the gay flags are.
We
were a bit challenged at first by the city , but it's growing on us.
