Rio de Janeiro

Rio was a vacation in the proper sense of the term: beach, sun, good food and  friendly people.  I think it really deserves its reputation as one of the  most beautiful cities in the world

I stayed in a very fancy part of town: the Ipanema beach, and were it not for  the favela (shanty town) hunging a nearby cliff, you would think you are in a  first world country.  As a matter of fact, the prices are close to those in  New York, but the minimun wage here is $250 per month, so it gives a sense of  the chasm between the haves and have nots.  Still, the middle class is huge  and most central neighborhoods in Rio are very nice.

The beach is a culture of its own.  Hands down the nicest looking bodies  ever.  Having a beach where you can flaunt your stuff 365 days a year  certainly offers a big incentive.  At first, I thought that all Cariocas (as  the residents of Rio call themselves) had perfect bodies, then I went  downtown (far from the beach) and there people were reassuringly out of  shape.

Rio pictures in picasa

At my hostal I met a travel writer from Vancouver writing about swim suits in  Rio and I tagged along since I needed a swimsuit and it sounded like an  interesting experience.  At one of the shops, he asked one of the saleswomen  which bikinis she wears from the shop.  She rolled here eyes and said that  everything in the shop was way too big.  She said she likes the very tiny  ones that are smaller than a cleenex.  The local joke is to call them "dental  floss"

Sugar loaf mountain was a nice climb (in the teleferic) those when I got to the top, I  noticed that two guys had climbed it the old fashioned way: ropes!  The view  of Rio from up top was quite amazing.