On the Beach

Sunday 21 February
Rio de Janeiro

I meet up with Ana, the Brazilian girl in the morning and she drives us to the beach. We go to Leblon as it’s a bit better than Copacabana and Ipanema. And so I proceed to spend this Sunday in the company of a carioca and behave much like one myself. It’s all about the beach.

The deal is you get a parasol, rent a couple of chairs, and sit there chilling out for the day. There are hawkers passing regularly that sell you drinks and snacks. When you get hot you jump into the water for a bit. It’s not as cold as before thankfully, but still not warm. Then you use the beach shower and return to you chairs.

The main beach snack for cariocas is something called Globo. It’s basically a very aerated piece of fried dough in a small doughnut ring. You can get sweet or savoury flavours. It’s not particularly filling and not particularly healthy, but when in Riome... I also have something which is like an Arabic version of a scotch egg, but with veggies inside where the egg would be.

In the late afternoon we pop by the main lake in Rio – Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas – just in time for sunset and take some nice pictures with Ana’s camera phone. After that I pop back to the hostel to get my stuff as I’m staying at hers tonight. Of course the main reason to do this is because I don’t have an alarm and I have to catch a taxi at 4 to get me to the airport for my flight to Quito. I was actually worried how I would do it on my own!

So we shower and go out for dinner and then that’s all you need to know.