June 17-18: Leblon Neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro

Ah, we’re in Rio! It’s gorgeous, of course, with four different beaches all connected (Vidigal, Leblon, Ipanema, and Copacabana). Walking down the tiled boardwalk, you can watch people playing paddleball, volleyball, or footvolley (pronounced foo-chi-volley) or working out on the gym equipment. The white sand is very soft, but the water is COLD. 

So far I’m feeling very confident in my travel/restaurant communication skills. On Monday, I successfully navigated through the airport check-in process for our flight to Rio completely in Portuguese, and I was even able to make small talk with our Uber driver on the way to our Airbnb. I’m also quickly becoming a master of ordering Caipirinhas, as illustrated by the photos. So far, my favorite has been cashew fruit, but passionfruit runs a close second. 

Our place is beautiful with amazing views of Vidigal Beach (again, see photos!). We are on the edge of Vidigal favela (favelas are lower-income areas, that vary from modest homes to shantytowns). Vidigal is generally described as a stable and calm favela, but according to Wikipedia, it’s not uncommon to hear daily gunfire or see gang members carrying machine guns down the main street. (Not sure if this is actually true or just Wikipedia being dramatic, but we’re not exactly going to wander up there to find out.) However, we’ve walked home at night along the well-lit beach path a couple times now and felt absolutely safe. 

The location of our Airbnb does seem like we're in the middle of two different worlds, with an ultra-luxury Sheraton hotel directly southwest of us and the favela immediately above us on the hill to the north. I do enjoy sitting smugly on our beautiful balcony with a vast view of the ocean that we paid $60/night for and look over to the Sheraton suckers that paid $300/night for partial ocean views and a standing room only balcony.

Yesterday we went to the Botanical Garden, which is half a square mile of preserved land that features 6,500 species of plants, some of which are endangered. It also has a waterfall, cactus garden, orchid greenhouse, and medicinal plants section. There’s also a nearby lagoon where the capybara like to hang out, but sadly we saw a grand total of zero. We did see a bunch of fun birds and lizards, though. I’m estimating we walked around 7 miles yesterday, and today we’re hobbling around on very tender feet. We were supposed to go hiking on the Morro Dois Irmãos trail today, but we might opt for the beach instead.