Travel: Chapter 1 Buzios, Brazil

Our recent trip to Brazil opened my eyes to a beautiful country filled with the warmest people.
I believe that the Brazilians seem to know the secret to life and to youth. Well, at least a secret that I wish I was apart of. On our trip, we visited three cities: Buzios, Rio de Janerio and Pararty. All aboard, first stop, Buzios, Brazil.

We arrived safely in Brazil after 19 hours of flying and then took a 3 hour car to Buzios which reminded me of a mixture of several places. Sausalito, Ca, Santa Barbara, Ca, Seattle and San Francisco all in one.

Buzios is a beach side/Fisherman town famous for it's 20 plus beaches. The town is quaint, safe, full of boutiques, filled with amazing food, lively music, fishing boats and cobble stone streets. How did we hear about Buzios? A city that is 3 hours away from Rio de Janeiro? We found it through reading the tour guide the Lonely Planet. I had ear marked all of the places that looked interesting to me and Buzios was one of them. The tour guide explained that Buzios was made famous when Bridget Bardot vacationed there in the 1960's with her Brazilian boyfriend. The paparazzi followed her, took pictures and put Buzios on the map.

We knew we had chosen a great place to visit, when we told some of our Brazilian friends of our plans. "Oh Buzios," they would say,
"It's so beautiful."

My expectations were exceeded after we had arrived. This town was a hidden gem. Filled with so much beauty, hidden turns, fishing boats, perfect sunsets and popcorn stands on the sides of the cobble stone streets.

My highlights from Buzios...

1) Our driver, who picked us up from the Rio de Janeiro airport, asked us in the middle of the Brazilian country-side, in broken English if we were voting for McClain (yes like the guy in Die Hard not McCain) or Obama while we were driving. Thank g-d we said Obama as he seemed very angry at Bush and McClain.

2) The Centro in Buzios is very beautiful. We found and ate at a little Italian place that had the most amazing calzone and at a crepe place, where we watched how they made the crepes while watching soccer.

3) Our hotel/pousada was built into the side of a hill about 50 yards away from the beach. There were only 12 chalets and we had breakfast on the balcony with a view of the beach; we heard the birds and ate exotic fruits like the Acai berry and starfruit.

About the Acai berry. What an amazing berry - it tastes like a blueberry with a chocolate flavoring. Acai berries are extremely rich in organic vegetable protein and seem to be very beneficial to cancer patients. I can tell you it made me feel amazing and refreshed.
http://www.acai.vg/acai_history.html

4) On one rainy day, we found shelter at the Casas Brancas pousada. The panoramic views from the balcony on top of the hotel were so beautiful. You could see all of the fishing boats. We sat in the lobby and waited for the rain to stop.
http://www.casasbrancas.com.br/

5) The Ruas das Pedras, the main strip in the center of Buzios, is filled with all kinds of people, beautiful-well dressed women, children and couples. Most of the clubs and bars were open late into the morning. The people, again, were so friendly and very curious about us. This was not the tourist travel season.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YziqmtZ7PCs

I hope you enjoyed some of these stories of our trip to Buzios, Brazil. The next chapter, Chapter 2 will be: The Differences Between Brazil and America.

http://www.buziosonline.com.br/indexe.htm