Rio de Janeiro Brazil

My relationship with Brazil wasn’t easy. I came there for the first time in May 2011 with the longest flight in my life from Bangkok to São Paulo via Doha in Qatar. The biggest city in Brazil welcomed me with the cold weather, for which I wasn’t prepared, people who were too proud to speak English even in HSBC – “The World’s Local Bank”, and shooting in front of my hotel late in the evening. There was also a dishonest pousada owner in Salvador de Bahia, who “borrowed” my money from the hotel safe, because he had “no other choice”, and a girl who expected to be in a relationship with me after jumping to my bed half an hour after we’ve met. Despite of it all, I decided to give Brazil a second chance.

From the world-famous beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema to the tops of scenic outlooks of Corcovado and Pão de Açúcar to the dance halls, bars and open-air cafes that proliferate the city, cariocas live for the moment without a care in the world. Rio de Janeiro, commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people making it the 6th largest in the Americas, and 26th in the world.

Rio-de-Janeiro is worldwide known in terms of its beaches by the now immortal “The Girl of Ipanema” song. The famed lyrics composed by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes slowly became not only an anthem of Rio´s beach culture but also of the Brazilian woman. As a native Carioca, born and raised in Rio-de-Janeiro, I have to express my “disagreement” with the overrated allegation that only in Ipanema we can find the beautiful girls: In Rio, we can find muses just about any beach…