From top:
Ipanema Beach during the gloaming.
Dusk over the nearby favela and Copacabana Beach.

The Garota de Ipanema grill is famous as THE place where Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim penned the bossa nova hit, “The Girl from Ipanema”. The restaurant’s Feijao (black bean stew, Brazil’s national dish) is almost as legendary.

The world famous Copacabana Palace. This grand old dame, with its white-stucco facade, has been an icon of Rio since it opened in 1923 and still offers unparalleled service and top-class amenities, if you have deep enough pockets.

From top:
Just inland from Ipanema/Leblon lies a natural lagoon, flushed by salt water via a canal from the Atlantic. Christ the Redeemer can be seen at the top of the mountain in the background. The lagoon will host some of the water events during the Olympics, including the rowing.
Back on Ipanema Beach - the girls really are as beautiful as the legendary song “The Girl from Ipanema” claims, especially when they’re wearing the famous fio dental (“dental floss”) bikinis!!
Sunset, from Arpoador Point, the junction between Copacabana and Ipanema Beaches.

From top:
The famous Copacabana Beach on a Sunday, packed full of beautiful locals and tourists.
Around the corner from Copacabana Beach is Ipanema Beach, packed full of even more beautiful locals and tourists!
And past Ipanema Beach lies Leblon Beach, the trendiest of them all (truth be known, Copacabana Beach is a bit of a dump!).
View back up the coast from the end of Leblon Beach.

First scenes of Rio de Janeiro, BR
From top:
The favela sweeping into Copacabana.
View of Copacabana Beach from the top of the Copa Rio Hotel.
Night fishing at Copacabana Beach.
The famous curvilinear abstract mosaic which snakes along Copacabana Beach, designed by the best-known landscape architect of the 20th century, Roberto Burle Marx.

Rio de Janeiro, BR

Portuguese explorers first encountered Guanabara Bay on 1 January 1502, mistaking the large expanse of water as the mouth of a river and so naming it Rio de Janeiro (“January River”). The city was the capital of Brazil for over one and a half centuries (from 1763 to 1815) during the Portuguese colonial era.

It is now the second largest city in Brazil (behind São Paulo), boasting over 6.5 million inhabitants, and is nicknamed the Cidade Maravilhosa (“the Marvellous City”). This is because it is known for its magnificent natural settings (including Sugarloaf mountain and the Corcovado mountain, home to the imposing Christ the Redeemer statue) and beautiful beaches (including the most famous strip of sand in the world, Copacabana Beach).

Rio is also synonymous with its annual Carnival celebrations, samba and the Maracana Stadium, one of the world’s largest football stadiums. The city is currently going through a massive infrastructure binge as it gears up to host the 2014 Futebol World Cup and the 2016 Summer Olympics (the first time the world’s biggest sporting event will be held in South America).

Again, Rio is a city of stark contrasts in terms of its natural versus built environments and its economy - while it is the 30th richest city in the world (as Brazil is one of the emerging superpowers along with China, India and Russia), it is also home to the infamous favelas, the over 600 illegal shanty towns that tumble down the city’s numerous hills and peaks. Talk about a real contradiction in terms: the no-go ghettoes have the prime real estate with the best views of this amazing city.

Next stop, Rio de Janeiro!

Last night in BA

Retiro Station, the main train station in downtown BA, is flanked by beautiful French-plagiarised boulevards on one side and shabby shanty towns on the other.