Favela Tijuca and Natural Parc de Grumari

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Luggage suprisingly arrived!In the mean time we bought some basic stuff. Hardest thing was to find a 'normal' bikini as they all wear strings over here (also the people above 90 years old). We bought an Ipanema Bum Bum (and bum bum stands for ass).

Hereby some first impressions of Rio.

Culture

They say that to know a country you should experience the culture. So we decided to taste beers, Itaipava - Skoll - Antartica - Brahma - Caiperinha (ow yes that's not a beer of course).... you can also find Stella everywhere, Leuven is not far away.... Brazilians are drinking all day long, and they drink lot's...

Beside drinking we also checked out the local food. Rice, beans and great 'Picanha' meat. We had dinner together with friends of Lidia (the mother of Roger - friend PJ). Nice, relaxing atmoshpere, a first glimp of the openess of the Brazilians.

Nature

Spectacular views in Rio - really wonderful. Beaches are nice, people are relaxed and never pushy and it is around 25 degrees till 5PM. That's what we experienced today in a so called Favela Tijuca - which seems just like a tiny village in south of Spain - and a natural Parc called Grumari.

Economics

Rio is expensive. You find all famous brands such as Star Bucks, Pizza Hut, Mc Donalds,... Going out to a decent resto will cost you the same as in south of Antwerp. Same for drinks.... we need to start moving ; ) Gasoline prices are also the same and a car is too expensive. But a taxi is cheap!

Tomorrow we'll check out the Corcovado and then we'll move to the south (which means colder).

Enjoy the famous song of The girl from Ipanema -

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