Drink of the gods

Must definitely be a passion fruit caipirinha.

Laying it bare

It is fun to be an unsuspecting tourist sometimes, isn't it? Today, Uli and I attempted to visit 7 different beaches on our walk and we had a pretty interesting experience. We were looking for a quite place to enjoy the sun, waves, and sand -- without too many crowds of Brazilian bodies (although there is something healthy about the Brazilian relationship with their own skin - I saw a lot of things that were somewhat cringe-worthy and cannot possibly be un-seen. But I also saw how unassuming the locals were with bodies of all ages, sizes, and shapes, and I think we could learn something there as American women).

We finally found this beach with beautiful, pink sand. But we did not stop. We pressed on, asking for directions to the next inlet over the hill, a little beach called "The Eye of the Bull." Each person pointed to the entrance of the path and gave us a quizzical look, but we kept on...

The walk narrowed to a small path surrounded by brush and cactus but great views. Uli stopped to put on his real shoes. I trudged forward with flip flops. Several men passed by us and commented it was worth it.

We were afforded some great vistas and could see a tiny sliver of perfect, uncrowded, exquisite beach. 

And, as we dropped down through the bottom, we were faced with a bunch of naked bottoms! Oops! We managed to locate the only nudist beach on the peninsula. Perhaps that is why we saw so many funny faces when asking directions... we decided all of our white parts might not fare well with full exposure and returned to the previous beach to enjoy our afternoon destination of pink sands.

Coasting on a holiday weekend

Friday was Brazilian Independence Day, and we spent it like the locals - on the beach. We headed to Búzios, a couple of hours outside of Rio, to enjoy the peninsula of beaches and clear, blue waters together with some friends.

On our first day, we wandered around from beach to beach to beach, enjoying gorgeous weather in the mid-70s with sun and marveled at the landscape and other beach-goers. Búzios is the playground of people wishing to escape Rio and was crowded for the weekend with families and groups of young people there to soak up sun, swim, and enjoy the nighttime parties in town. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and ate fresh fish on the boardwalk while enjoying passion fruit caipirinhas.