Brazil Trip #3 - Buzios Area - April 2006 
 (click any picture to get enlargement)

This part of the story picks up with our return from Parati & covers from Rio to the resort area near Buzios & back.  On the map, we come in from the left.  

The trip took us east and along the coast for about 130 miles (200km)... we didn't make a time estimate since we'd stop for drinks & pictures along the way.

It took us all morning to get from Parati to Rio and will take all afternoon to get to Buzios... 
so, to save time, we passed through the heart of Rio de Janeiro; there were lots of poor areas!
We had no issues getting through Rio, as the highway was in pretty good shape & the traffic wasn't too bad.  We had to cross the bay and got this view of downtown as we crossed the long bridge.
This view is of Sugarloaf Mountain & the entrance to the ocean.  Once over the bridge we will head towards the hilly area on the left of this picture... hopefully to find a nice beach & some views of Rio.
We found what we were looking for in the area called Niteroi.  It is not nearly as touristy as Rio, but seemed to be quite nice.  There was no one else at the beach, but the restaurants had tables & chairs stacked up, so I bet it is packed with local folks on the weekends.  
We were unable to see Rio from here, but we were happy to have a nice view of Corcovado.
As we left the Rio metro area, the terrain was hilly & green; it looked like the US or Europe! 
As we continued on, pastures with grazing animals became the common sight.
We got back to the coast and saw some salt flats; the pumps were run by windmills.  The sun began to set early, as we are now in the southern hemisphere and it's now late in the fall season.  
We then came upon our goal; the town of Arrarial, where we had decided to stay for the night... with the hope of seeing great beaches in the morning!

The map to the right shows where the harbor and the beach are, as related to the hotel.  The city area was much bigger than we expected & we could not simply walk from one side of the peninsula to the other... so we relaxed and spent the evening in the area around the harbor.

The next morning we toured the harbor; quite nice & fully in operation by fisherman.  Tourism is important for the economy, but fishing seemed to be the primary source of income for these people. 
The city was very crowded, but the buildings & streets looked much better than in downtown Rio.
We finally got to the coast and were pleasantly surprised by the beach; it was gigantic!  The sand was a nice white color and the water was very blue.  The bad part, which caused us to continue on to another area, was that the sun was strong and there were no trees or shade to rent.  
We decided to drive another hour to get to Buzios... which is the most touristy place in the area.

It was Friday and our plan was to find a hotel & then head to one of the coves & beaches... which are supposed to be world-class.

We ran into some construction detours & lost time... then we found the hotels to be more expensive than we had thought... plus is was a holiday weekend!

New plan: Drive around the area and go to a beach tomorrow.
In driving around the peninsula, the first area we came to was another nice, white sandy beach.

It turned out to be very windy though ... the only people really enjoying the beach were the kite-surfers.  The weather was drastically different wherever we went around here!
The coves were beautiful & you could see little beaches, but is was impossible to figure out how to get to them... the roads were obviously built by rich locals who want to keep the tourists away.
Around every corner we came to another bay or cove that was as nice as the one before.

We stopped at a few of the beaches that were accessible, but decided to keep moving on... as we still didn't have a place to stay for the night.
At the tip of the peninsula you could look back at the mainland... again, this looked like California!
The main attraction, though, is the beach area made famous by Brigitte Bardot.  She introduced the world to Buzios and it called the South American version of St. Tropez (French Riviera).
It started to get late, so we began to look for a place to stay.  We finally found a ocean-front Guest House which was along a long, quiet beach.  

It was run by a couple who spoke many languages, which made it very comfortable for us.
The next morning we made it to one of the beaches and stayed there the whole day.  It was very nice, but it got quite crowded and the serenity was disrupted by frequent party boat visits.
 

What is Nicole smirking about?

I was told that Brazil had some of the most beautiful women in the world... but so far I haven't been overly impressed.  The blanket next to us had the only beauty contest candidates I have seen!
After the beach we headed to the 'main drag' of Buzios to have drinks, dinner and look around.  
The harbor area was quite busy and the boats were very cute.
I forgot to mention that, already in Rio the previous week, we saw more motorcycles than I thought was normal... especially Harleys! 

As we toured around Buzios, we ran into packs of bikers.  As it turns out, there was a big get-together in Buzios this weekend... yet another thing than made it so hard to find a hotel!

It was interesting to see all the great-looking bikes and to see all the people mulling round the bars and restaurants... 
... most of the bikers were pretty old though!
The next morning we got up very early to head to the airport in Rio.

We heard thunder as we packed the car, but the skies were clear! Yup, the bikers were leaving town at the same time we were.

We followed a small group of loaded bikes and trikes.
The police escorted them ... some on Harleys too ... but there was almost a riot at this toll station!
We ended up having a nice drive back to Rio via an inland road that was quicker than going along the coast.  We made it to the airport in plenty of time, only to be stopped by  policeman who said that I did not have the proper driver's license for this country.  After explaining that I asked the Brazilian consulate and the car rental people... and they all told me that my US license was fine.  Obviously he was hoping to get some money off of us... but we held firm and he finally let us go when we mentioned that we were part of the diplomatic corps... whew!
This concludes our visit to the areas around Rio de Janeiro.  We now will fly up to Salvador... 

To continue to the next page, click on :  Brazil #4: Salvador Area (historic & beach area)

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