Today was a short day; we were scheduled to sail at 3PM. So the 6 of us met for breakfast at 9 and made a plan to go to the beach. We all just wanted to experience one of the most famous beaches in the world – Copacabana. We got out onto the street and asked a nearby taxi driver how much he would charge to take 6 people the 25-30 minute drive to Copacabana. He said $120 round trip. We all thought that was too high but he wouldn’t even budge. After a few minutes of talking amongst ourselves and trying to negotiate, Sharon and I said we would go back into the terminal and see if we could find someone to give us a better deal. Which we did. The official “Radio” taxi company agreed to take all 6 in one car for 49 Brazilian reals one way, which is around 27 US dollars.
It was a very wild ride. The driver didn’t respect lanes at all and whipped in and out of traffic, once or twice nearly missing another car. We were all very grateful to see the beach. There are three main beaches in Rio and beautiful black and white mosaic patterns on the sidewalks differentiate one from the other. On Sundays in summer the city closes off one lane of the boulevard in Copacabana because many people come to the beach. So that lane was dedicated to walkers, joggers and kids. They rented little motorized vehicles for the kids to ride and they had a ball. There are volleyball nets set up and they play a type of hands-free volleyball; they can only use their heads and feet. There are also soccer areas that are heavily used as, of course, soccer is their national sport and they’re fanatics about it.
The beach was relatively uncrowded. We had no trouble finding a place to set up. They rented chairs and umbrellas for a pittance and installed them for us in the sand. The sand was very clean, the kind that you just can’t stop digging your feet into. We felt we had to stick our feet into the water so we all did that and then settled into our chairs to watch the incredible waves and scan the beach for the legendary #10 bodies in the butt-floss bikinis. We saw the bikinis but unfortunately most of the bodies were between 1 and 5. But the people-watching was lots of fun. There were hawkers everywhere and they spotted us as tourists immediately. They sold hats, cover-ups, shirts, towels, toys, shrimp, ice cream, drinks, sunglasses, jewelry, you name it. A couple of them even came by with a small hibachi grill offering to cook something we couldn’t identify. Jan, our consummate shopper, entertained us by trying on a couple of shirts and he even bought one.
Around 1PM the weather was looking threatening and we knew we had to find our way back to the ship, so we packed up our things and went looking for a cab. We immediately found a man who spoke very good English, drove sanely and we made it back to the pier in plenty of time to join our fellow passengers for a fun sail-away party on deck.
It was a very wild ride. The driver didn’t respect lanes at all and whipped in and out of traffic, once or twice nearly missing another car. We were all very grateful to see the beach. There are three main beaches in Rio and beautiful black and white mosaic patterns on the sidewalks differentiate one from the other. On Sundays in summer the city closes off one lane of the boulevard in Copacabana because many people come to the beach. So that lane was dedicated to walkers, joggers and kids. They rented little motorized vehicles for the kids to ride and they had a ball. There are volleyball nets set up and they play a type of hands-free volleyball; they can only use their heads and feet. There are also soccer areas that are heavily used as, of course, soccer is their national sport and they’re fanatics about it.
The beach was relatively uncrowded. We had no trouble finding a place to set up. They rented chairs and umbrellas for a pittance and installed them for us in the sand. The sand was very clean, the kind that you just can’t stop digging your feet into. We felt we had to stick our feet into the water so we all did that and then settled into our chairs to watch the incredible waves and scan the beach for the legendary #10 bodies in the butt-floss bikinis. We saw the bikinis but unfortunately most of the bodies were between 1 and 5. But the people-watching was lots of fun. There were hawkers everywhere and they spotted us as tourists immediately. They sold hats, cover-ups, shirts, towels, toys, shrimp, ice cream, drinks, sunglasses, jewelry, you name it. A couple of them even came by with a small hibachi grill offering to cook something we couldn’t identify. Jan, our consummate shopper, entertained us by trying on a couple of shirts and he even bought one.
Around 1PM the weather was looking threatening and we knew we had to find our way back to the ship, so we packed up our things and went looking for a cab. We immediately found a man who spoke very good English, drove sanely and we made it back to the pier in plenty of time to join our fellow passengers for a fun sail-away party on deck.
Ed,
ReplyDeleteOur "really, really white boy" seems to be really, really red.