Sunday, January 29, 2012

South America and Antarctica 3 - We walk along the Rio de Janeiro beaches.

The next day was high overcast but much brighter.  We decided to "get out of our bubble" a bit and took a bus over to Ipanema beach, where we had a nice early lunch and then began walking back along the beach to our hotel on the far side of Copacabana beach.















But, before we got to the beach, we ran into this life sized fiberglass cow that was decorated in vibrant colors.  I had to take a picture.















The beach was alive with people from all over the world.  Groups of young people like this having fun.
















Couples enjoying time alone  together.















They had fitness equipment that was always in use.






















Vendors who rent chairs (See the first image. Those are all rented chairs.) bring pipe, generators and pumps down to the beach each day to create these showers.  The shower head in this picture blends into the ocean, but the little kids here are getting the sand washed off of them so they can go home.
















We ran into another cow.  Turns out they are all around the city, well, at least the beach areas.


















A young girl walks on a plastic line her father put up between two trees.  She was very good.  We watched for a few minutes and discovered the entire family could walk the length of this line without falling off.
















They also have kiosks every so often on the beaches that sell drinks and snacks.  Notice the green balls on the left.  Those are coconuts that they cut the tops off and serve with a straw.

But, that's not why I snapped this frame.  I was interested in the sunburn on the standing gal on the left.  It was early afternoon and her skin was already bright red. The color of her skin recorded by the camera doesn't show the degree of burn that we saw in person.  She was clearly a tourist.  We didn't envy her a long flight back home sitting on a seriously sun burned bottom.
















Sooner than I expected, we came to the end of Ipanema beach.  In order to get to Copacabana beach, we needed to walk up a lovely hill and through a park.  We offered to take someone's picture on the top of the hill and they returned the favor.  But, instead of placing us smack in the middle of the frame as most folks do, they actually put us off to one side with Ipanema beach in the background.  Sweet.















If one were to turn completely around, one would see the small, picturesque hilly area between the two famous beaches.


















The small hilltop we were standing on when the above images were taken.  Off to the right is the entrance to a nice park that took us around the hill between Ipanema and Copacabana beaches.   















The park had a wall, and on that wall was a whole series of graffiti art. I've included two examples.  This one...















...and one down the way a bit.  It appears that different artists did each panel.I thought it was great.  I noticed that none were defaced like they would have been at home. 
















In no time at all, we came out on Copacabana beach where we were greeted by this huge sand sculpture.  The artists are sitting off to the left, accepting donations for their artwork.

Continue on to Post 4: We continue walking along the Rio de Janeiro beaches, by clicking here.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home