Rio de Janeiro - Ipanema and Copacabana

For Cariocas, or Rio de Janeiro natives, weekends involve a street party or two, a visit to one of the city's stunning beaches and watching as much football as possible. The fact that Carnaval doesn't start for months is no barrier - there is a street party every Friday night on the main drag of grungy inner city neighbourhood Lapa, and other impromptu samba parties are not hard to find.

On Saturday evening, in the normally drab centre of town, the roads fronting a number of small bars were closed off and a samba band set up on the street. It was all very civilised, with the musicians sitting on chairs at a table sipping beers, surrounded by several hundred people craning their necks to watch them. The main singer was this enormous guy with a great baritone voice playing a proportionately tiny ukelele. All up, the band had about 10 members, including several playing African style drums and percussion instruments, many similar to those we have seen in bands playing Cuban music.

Giant flag at the football

On the Sunday we trekked out to Rio's Olympic stadium - not the biggest in town as its gigantic Maracana stadium is undergoing renovations - to watch a local derby between rivals Flamengo and Vasco. This meant we were able to see Brazilian football star Ronaldinho, who plays for Flamengo, in action. The match was important, Flamengo needed to win in order to ascend to the top of the table, but not being Brazilian football league experts we didn't really care about the outcome and weren't sure which side to go with.

It turned out that this decision was made for us. We went to the match in a big group, paying heaps extra for the privilege of being picked up and dropped off in a mini-bus, because we were told the match was "sold out." We were all seated together right in the middle of the Vasco section, right under a bunch of big swirling flags and groups of intensely passionate fans, so we couldn't exactly start barracking for the other side!

Football hooligans - brazil style.

Before the match officially started, both sides of the stadium - fans of opposing teams are strictly segregated on opposite sides - engaged in a massive, all out sledging match. First drums pounded, fans chanted and flags were lifted on one side of the stadium, then the other side screamed and chanted back in response. There were flags like giant tarpaulins that came down over our heads and laid out flat, covering hundreds of people each. It looked pretty cool when the opposite side of the stadium had all their flags rolled down. When our sides were rolled down, it was like being trapped under a parachute and not being able to see anything!

The actual match was pretty uneventful, being a nil all draw. The fun was more in seeing Brazilian football nuts on their feet shouting the whole match, practically crying when their team narrowly missed a goal, and then ripping their shirts off and cheering all the same. It would have been even more crazy had any goals been scored!

Ipanema

Rio's famous beaches, Ipanema and Copacabana lie just south of the city proper, around the corner from the big rocky mass the Sugar Loaf which juts out into the Atlantic. Opinion is always divided on which is the better beach. The longer, skinnier Ipanema seemed to have reliably better surf, although a strong current made it pretty uncomfortable for swimming. But both had picture-perfect powdery sand, turquoise water and beautiful green mountains as backdrops.

Neither beach goes wanting in terms of action on the sand. Even though we were in the area early in the working week, there were thousands of people there, soaking up rays, sleeping under umbrellas, playing football and beach volleyball.

Ipanema beach has every product or service you can imagine right there on the sand. There are beach bars set up at regular intervals that rent out deck chairs and umbrellas. Roving hawkers sell everything from snacks such as prawns on skewers and acai berry smoothies to bikinis, sarongs and even Arabic art. 

As we discovered in other parts of Brazil, less is more when you're on the beach. We felt positively overdressed while walking along in tshirts and shorts trying to find the perfect position to occupy. Ipanema beach is so big that it is divided into different posts that look like they are more than a kilometre apart. Post 8 is the gay area and is littered with muscle-bound couples in super-tight budgie smugglers, while post 9 is packed out with beautiful people in thong bikinis lathered up with tanning oil.

Copacabana is prettier to look at being crescent-shaped and more sheltered as well, and had lots of cool bars adorning the beachfront. The road running along the beach is pretty built up, lined with fancy hotels and apartment blocks like a mini-Miami.

Forgot your bikini?

We opted to stay in Leblon, which borders Ipanema, because it had a bit more of a relaxed feel to it than Copacabana, which has streets lined with posh shops and hotels. Ipanema had an amazing variety of places to eat and drink - we hit on a Japanese restaurant that offered all you can eat sushi for around $25 which was an absolute winner. As a bonus, the sushi and sashimi was of amazing quality, better than I have ever eaten in Australia. There was also a great kebab joint just a block from our hostel that sold delicious felafel and lamb sharwarma.

Ipanema and Copacabana are both packed with traditional Portuguese-style botecos, or neighbourhood bars that also function as grocery stores, snack bars and restaurants. Some of these places are pretty basic - they used to be called "dirty feet" bars because this reflected the state of the feet of most of their patrons. Others have become trendy in recent years, and have upgraded their menu to a big variety of cocktails, wines and fancy foods. But the mainstay of these bars is chopp, or draft beer. Brazilians are famously anal about the way their beer is served - it is pulled at 0 degrees, served at 3 degrees and is meant to be finished before it warms up to 6 degrees.

We found some amazing sandwiches at Cervantes bar in Copacabana. Sadly we weren't in the mood for beer so did not have any chopp, but we were more than satisfied with a filet mignon sandwich - leaves the chewy Aussie steak sandwich for dead - and another sandwich stacked with inumerable slices of roast pork and topped with pineapple.

Sunset at Copacabana