After much discussion the previous day Craig and I agree that we need to get to a beach out of town. We consider one of the many side trips that we can book through our hotel but as a day trip they all seem too extreme requiring three hours drive on a bus each way. We read through our Lonely Planet guide book and come upon the following sentence: "The most isolated and unspoiled beach close to the city is Grumari, which is quiet during the week and packed on weekends." As this is weekday we are game. There aren't instructions on how to get to this beach but we find it on our map and decide how hard could it be to head south on a bus along the water. Just to be careful I ask for instructions at the hotel and as usual they don't make any sense but we go anyway.

We figure out that we will have to transfer buses at a big mall. We get on the first bus without delay. Like everything in Brazil the buses are overstaffed. They have a driver in front and a person to take money in back. Neither speak a word of English but they understand our Spanish perfectly, but respond in Portuguese we can not begin to fathom. After half an hour the bus begins to climb towards the mountains inland, at which point I tug on Craig's arm and say, "the ocean is that way," pointing behind us. The entire bus begins to discuss our plight and one rider argues with the bus driver. I sit back and enjoy the ride figuring that if we never get to the beach this is an adventure. The lands out here are still technically in the city but feel very much like suburbs. Each house seems to be on several acres of land behind high walls. Quite a few have horses grazing. The hills around us are magnificent, a lush green. Then the bus stops. The bus driver has stopped a bus going in the opposite direction and conveys where we are going (we have figured out that there is a mall relatively close to the beach and we have focused on asking to be taken to this mall). We get on the other bus and on our way pass a large water park and shortly arrive at our mall destination. This whole trip has taken two+ hours and we are famished. We grab a bite at the mall, which is surprisingly high-end for being in the middle of nowhere. We walk a mile to the beach below:

This is not Grumari but a nice enough beach, although it is overcast now and there are noisy families on this beach. We find out that there is a narrow road to Grumari through the hills behind Craig. The buses and taxis do not go on this road so you either drive your own car or walk. I am against walking so we hang at this beach, which has several restaurant huts on the beach front. We grab some ice-cream and decide to head back. We hop on the first bus we see and go through the same attempt at communication with these guys who are as friendly and eager to help as all the others. They tell us to get off at some point and transfer and we obey, unclear on what exactly the transfer is to. In the distance I see a quirky island at the intersection of two bays so we go and check it out.

The bay on this side of the island had few people on it and the water was colder and dirty. On the other side the water was warm and full of kids.

Here's Craig sitting on the island. We didn't stay on the warm side because it was packed with families and there was an ice-cream cart blaring a pre-recorded advertisement for different flavors over and over. Getting back from here was no easier than the rest of the trip and included getting caught in a downpour, taking another wrong bus before finally arriving home through heavy commuter traffic. As they say, life is always about the journey more than the arrival.

That night we grabbed dinner with our friends from San Francisco at a restaurant called Porcao. In typical currascuria style for a flat fee you get an excellent buffet and men running around with skewers of meat and sharp knives stopping by your table to slice off a piece for you. From their we went with them to curious little bar called Blue Angel. Unlike Le Boy, there were few tourists here and lots of lesbians. Above the hallway to the bathroom they had a typical catholic shrine to a saint with flowers and sculpture, but someone had placed a mask of Bette Davis over the face. The music here was a fun mix of Brazilian pop and American late 80s early 90s tunes. We had a blast drinking, dancing, singing and making friends. It was that kind of bar. Our friends moved on to a dance club around the corner and we went home on the early side.

Saturday - Hang Gliding, Hiking & Samba School

Here's a picture Craig took of a typical launch. As you can see it was a hazy day in spots. But the sun peaked through.

Here's Craig sweeping down over the water before curving back in to land on the beach below.

When they all arrived we grabbed a bite to eat at a stand on the promenade, I snapped this shot of a romantic Brazilian couple seated on a bench, the man playing a guitar while leaning into his love.

The guys were jazzed about an idea of going for hike above where the launch pad was - one of them saw a trail head that we could use. So we grabbed a cab up to the spot and ventured into the thick forest. Stopping along the way to take in the views.

Although overcast it was quite warm and quite wet. The air was thick and humid. We all stripped our shirts off in time for the sky to open up and pour down on us. When we got to the top the rain subsided and we walked across this large rock expanse. The rock was hot from the sun and the rain steamed off in dramatic swirls.

This is looking south, this is an area not developed for tourists and is on the way to Grumari, the beach we chased the day before.

On the way down the sun came out and at this spot we marveled at a perfect rainbow. The little peak off in the left part of the picture with a white blip on top is Corcovado. We stayed here a while. You can see why. We hitch hiked back to the beach and bused back to our hotels. It was quite a full day. We regrouped and made plans to meet up with good old Pedro. We took a taxi out to his house in the middle of a working class residential area.

We convinced Pedro to join us on our last night to check out a Samba School. The schools "practice" on Saturday nights in theory to get better but judging by the large number of tourists and people at 10 Reals a head I think it's likely a fundraising tool. We grabbed dinner with Pedro at a pizza place and took a taxi to the Samba hall. He had never been to that school, nor had any of the other locals we talked to. We went to the school who had won the carnival the year before and was one of the biggest. We arrived a little past midnight. On our way in we ran into David and Nirmalpal again. We thought they were doing something else that night but here they were. The space was a cavernous white washed concrete warehouse with sound reverberating everywhere. The drums were cacophonous and everyone was moving. About 60-70% of the crowd were tourists but the energy was light and festive. We pushed and swayed and danced and got into it as best we could and gave up after a few hours. We taxied home exhausted at 3AM.

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