Discovering Rio

13.30

After all this samba I am starving! Dancing with pretty ladies is fun but I am exhausted. It is time to have some food. I am very surprised by the fact that there are so many sushi restaurants here in Rio. I didn't know it but in Brazil there are a lot of Japanese immigrants, and of course fresh seafood everyday. Obrigado, but no more sushi for me! I am going to try the churrascaria João told me about.

19.00

Oh my God I love this place. I must thank João for suggesting me this amazing restaurant: it is called Porcão and it is one of the best Rio's churrascarias, aka meat heaven! Vegans stay away. It is an all you can eat restaurant, and what is original is that when you seat you get two cards: the green one “sim gracias”, which means that you want more food, and the red one “não, obrigado” that you use when you are full! My green card has been literally my passport to paradise, and since I am not a guy who easily back down, passadores covered me whit meat. What can I say about it? It is delicious, cooked and served in huge sticks from which waiters (oops passadores) carve the meat directly in your plate.

Typical side dishes are rice (arroz branco), manioc and vegetables of all kind. I also tasted the famous fejoada, which is a stew of beans and pork. Delicious!

I had a huge meal, so I decided to have a walk. Here in Rio beaches are beautiful: sandy, wide and free so people can sunbath, surf, play volleyball, dance and eat without any worries. The most famous ones are of course Ipanema beach and Copacabana beach.

Ipanema is known all over the world thanks to the song “Garota de Ipanema”. You may not recall te title in Portuguese, but it is unlikely you have never heard it! Maybe the Portuguese name do not sound familiar to you but I bet you've heard it at least once!

Copacabana is a little way from Ipanema, with beautiful golden sand and a lot of accommodation for tourists.

Beach going is a lifestyle: fio dental bikinis, futevoley and, here again, lot of food! Coconut juice drunk directly from the coconut, empanadas, and typical coktails such as Caipirinha. Since it was Spritz time, I decided to have a Caipirinha, made of cachaça (sugar cane rum), sugar and lime.

Brazilian beaches are wonderful but I feel there is something much more beyond them in this country that is worthy to be discovered.

I want to find out a first-hand truth about the favelas, the sexual tourism, the Amazonian forest which is being deforesting and the biofuel policy.

I will write down everything, I promise!