Morro do Sao Paulo

It was way too hot in the big city of Salvador de Bahia, so we decided to have a break at the beach...
We are now heading to the island Morro de Sao Paulo, a 2h boat ride !

It s just a typical tropical island, with its palm trees and its warm water... Almost too hot!!

 

It was a good start for our suntanning sessions...

Birthday present - Sunny Rio

However, in the morning of the 3rd (ok, lets say it was a birthday present), we found Rio sunny, for the first day since our arrival (and also our last day there). You may see the view awaiting us early in the morning...

We then went to a viewpoint to see the Corcovado (Cristo Redentor). Every single tourist had been waiting for that day all week, so we did not try to get to the top, which was virtually inaccessible because of the taxis full of tourists.

Here admiring a large panorama over Rio.

In this panorama, you may see on the left the Pao do Azucar, and on the right, on top of the hill, the corcovado. It may seem small from here, but the statue is about 40m tall..

Night in Lapa

Indeed, the 2nd of January was a rainy day. Yet, we went to visit quite a few neighborhoods, starting with the must-do Ipanema beach (but we havent seen the famous girl). Two clues would make the famous Photoshop turning-the-sky-to-blue feature inefficient: Arnaud and I are wearing shoes and the beach is empty...

 

This is still a good situation to show how well the typical sand art pieces resist to rain

 Evening started with the visit of Escadaria Selaron in Lapa, an original fresco with stairs and walls filled with tiles sent from around the world.

 

Arnaud cannot believe what he sees...

 

The visit was followed by a banquet dinner made with the local dishes: grilled chicken, rice, feijao (black bean in sauce), farofa (Manioc - dry - flour, Sevag's favourite), and salad. We were served incredible portions and our three wide-spread stomachs won through a 2-people portions not without difficulty...Arnaud, again, does not believe what is happening.

 

Another lucky pleasure offered by the restaurant was the broadcasting of a local telenova, featuring a great variety of situations and characters, including this one... 

 Lapa is the place to be at night to be at the heart of Brazilian music, with live music at every corner, including on its walls.

 There, we ended up fairly late in a jazz bar, with an excellent concert.

Rio de Janeiro, New Year's Eve

Before the big event on Copacabana beach, we shared a few home and quality-made Caipirinhas with our great hosts from the first night, Claude and Iveth, in their flat at 200 m from the beach.

We then went to the beach, where every year the dress-code is white. Thank you Arnaud for respecting the tradition!

Every year this event gathers 2 000 000 + people from all around the world. This picture shows the crowd but also the great weather we had...

...and so does this one!

13 minutes and 6 seconds (True story!) of fireworks...

...after which our national David Guetta made the show!!! Woof!

After a short night of sleep (and a quite adventurous 2h-ish journey back to the hostel), we went around the center and Ipanema.

Here is the quite surprising Metropolitan Cathedral, 60m high of pure concrete...

Paraty & Trindade

After a short time in Rio (the one and only sunny hours of the end of the year), we went straight to Paraty.

On the first day, we went on a kayak tour of the mangroves. Unfortunately, the camera remained in the waterproof box...

For lunch we had fresh fish (considering the time they needed to serve us, I would say they went fishing right after the order)

On our second day in Paraty, we went to Trindade, after a nice breakfast on the beach (with croques monsieur!)

In Trindade, one of the famous spots is the Pedra que engole (the rock that swallows). Here at work with Sevag

 All thats left of him:

Do not worry, he did come out eventually, right on time to enjoy a few hours on the beach.