Summary:
Buzios, Brazil

Airport:
N/A

Currency:
Brazilian Reais

Highlights:
Beaches, beaches, beaches..., the 'banana split', the best crepes ever, lunch at Chez Brigitte, fresh milk (so fresh that the cat would not even drink it), our first braai, taxis like Africa with the hand signals and all and being able to communicate with the Brazilians using a lot of sign language, paper and hand gestures.

Our Adventure Summarised:
Buzios is anchored on a peninsula and surround by 17 pretty beaches, Buzios has striking natural scenery and a mix of eye catching bars, restaurants and boutiques, along with the beautiful people that frequent them. Lying some 150 km east of Rio, Buzios was a simple fishing village until it was discovered by Brigitte Bardot, sealing its fate as Brazil's St Tropez.

We arrived into Buzios just after lunchtime on 5 October 2009 and checked into our little condominium at Vale do Sol, Geriba Beach, Buzios. Strangely enough Buzios reminded me very much of Africa with various hand singles being used which allowed you to hail the white Volkswagen kombis that were used as the 'official' transport system between the beaches of Buzios at a mere cost of R$ 2 for a single journey.

Being the independent travelers that we are we decided to leave the taxi system for the locals and head to "Buzios Veiculos" to rent ourselves a beach buggie to explore the town of Buzios. Although this looked easier than what it was, we finally managed to negotiate and hire a beach buggie from our new Brazilian carioca, Chris, by using a mix of broken Portuguese, a English to Portuguese phrase book and many, many hand signals.

Fun times were had but the mission was accomplished and the five of us jumped into the aptly named 'banana split' which looks good from far, but up close it may have just split apart. The 'banana split' had a big hole in the floor so you could see the road while driving, the indicators didn't work and you have to bang the hand break to get it up. Interesting times lay ahead for us...

All that said we decided to head out and explore the Vale do Sol, Geriba Beach and the Village. Our condominium Vale do Sol was located 150m from Geriba Beach which is rated the best beach out of the 17 beaches in Buzios. After that we headed up to the village and the main street in Buzios, Rua das Pedras, which is an amazing place and made up of lots of upscale boutiques and restaurants.

We decided to have lunch at Chez Brigitte which is an unbelievable restaurant with picturesque views out over the water and the fishing boats of Buzios. Lunch was closely followed by desert where Georgie and I managed to find and eat Brazil's most expensive ice creams. The ice cream shop tempted us with hundreds of toppings and told us all we had to do was weigh our ice creams at the end after we had made our selections. So as you do we went mad and then got stuck with a bill for around GBP 20 for two ice creams... welcome to Buzios.

We did however manage to sneak in our first two braai's of the South American trip and we headed off to the local supermarkets to go and find the best meat that Brazil could offer. While shopping with the locals we discovered that in Brazil firelighters were not so popular - in fact you could not find any for love or money.

They couldn't scare Al and I and we adopted the typical Afrikaans way of "'n boer maak a plan" and candles and newspapers became our new firelighters. V gave us some encouragement by making fresh caipirinhas and in no time we had the fire burning like no other - Oom Jan would have been proud. We also had a visit from John, the American studying in Buenos Aires who became a source of entertainment for the next few days - I will however leave Georgie to explain that one. The fillet that we did on the braai was unbelievable and after multiple beers, vodkas and caipirinhas we called it a night.

Next morning we woke up to another beautiful day to discover a few things: our perfect little condominium did not so much have hot water and fresh milk does not so much exist in Brazil. After that small hiccup we headed off to do some more exploring of Buzios in the banana split and headed off to Joao Fernandes Beach and Tartaruga Beach. All the beaches of Buzios were amazing and we managed to laze around all day lapping up the sunshine that we have missed in London over the last few years. After a sunset walk on Geriba Beach we headed out for our farewell dinner to Buzios and we headed up to the village and had an awesome seafood meal followed by the biggest crepes ever... you need to see the photos to truly understand what I mean.

We woke up on the morning of 8 October 2009 all ready to rock and roll and head off to the airport in Rio to jump on our flight to Santiago when the following happened:

First speed bump - Travel Butler had not made the requested changes to our Rio-Santiago flight so V and Al were heading to Santiago on Thursday and Georgie, Lara and I were only heading out on Friday.

Second speed bump - the banana split broke down on the way to drop it off, fortunately one of the workers from the car hire place drove passed us as we broke down and gave us a ride to the shop. The banana split was still on the side of the road when we last saw it so lets hope it makes a full recovery soon.

Anyway the show must go on and when we got to the airport in Rio and after double checking with the airline the flights were full up so the hunt began for a nights accommodation in Rio for Georgie, Lara and I.

Two airport hotels later, a lot of surfing the web, multiple international phone calls and we finally managed to get a room at Rio Hostel in Santa Teresa.

As their website says it is more than just a guesthouse; it is a nest of authentic Brazilian coziness dressed in a hippie chic style - within a five minute walk from the busy center of Rio de Janeiro and the most electrical nightlife of Lapa.

Time to kick back and enjoy the samba vibes of Lapa for the last time before we head off to meet up with Al and V again in Santiago, Chile tomorrow night...

Until next time and enjoy the photos on Facebook...
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327801&id=713415257&l=19613b88a9
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327803&id=713415257&l=336359b5b8
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327806&id=713415257&l=60ad748919
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327809&id=713415257&l=904a4e88ee
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=327811&id=713415257&l=8f4f4c1b33

Ciao,
Leise + Lara