Brazil--Day 1

Our trip to Brazil was fantastic! We left on Monday and arrived on Tuesday morning to Rio de Janeiro. We were checked into our hotel, the Ipanema Inn, by 9:30 am. Alas, Pete hadn't brought any of the contact info with him so we didn't know where anybody from the big group was. We arrived two days after everyone else, so I was feeling a little down about not knowing where people were. We showered and changed and Pete decided that we should walk to the beach (Ipanema) to see if anyone was there. The hotel was in a great location--about a two minute walk from the beach. The weather was perfect. Hot and sunny. A nice break from the rainy weekend that we had heard about from our friends that had already arrived. And a nice break from the long winter of central Pennsylvania.

We walked toward the beach and turned a corner to see Matt. Pete called out, "Macho!" Matt turned toward us and gave us a big grin. What luck. The group was meeting at the front of the Caesar Park Hotel at 10 am to get on some buses and head to the port. Matt had chartered a boat and was taking the group to Niteroi for the day. Pete ran back to the hotel to get our swimsuits and towels. The group was going to have lunch on the beach and hang out for a while once we arrived by boat.

About half of the group took the little boat to shore while Pete and others dived in and swam to the beach. I took the little boat. Tati is pictured below in the little boat.

Matt giving the thumbs up! The lady in green is his Aunt Beth.

This is Pete diving in. He is a fish.


Once we all got to the shore, we had some typical Brazilian food of fish stew and beans and rice. And the restaurant made caipirinhas. I had talked about wanting to get a Brazilian bikini. There was a little shop there, and I bought one.

This lady was so patient. I think in all, she sold about 8 swimsuits. (One woman from our group had been given money to buy suits for people back home).


We got back to the hotel around 7 pm and then went out for dinner and dancing. It was a late night for us, especially since we had only arrived just that morning.

This is what we saw on our way back to Rio that evening. I was feeling pretty lucky to have walked toward the beach that morning. Thanks to Pete's intuition. What a day. And that was just the first one.