In Rio, it didn't take me long to find out that my four stars hotel was quite close to a "favela" - those small shanty town like suburbs, surrounding the rich and affluent bay, with its skyscrapers and deluxe apartments. One night I even heard what seemed like shooting and a grenade exploding. Actually, some families from the "favela" were just celebrating something with fireworks... For a less traditionalist approach to the "favela" - running away! - how about checking the "Favela Tours"?

In our last night in Rio, we decided to visit the Pão de Açúcar hill, and see the views to the city at night. It was a rainy day, bust just a few hours before, a TV company had been recording an ad for those fitness machines. You can see the hill is surrounded by a cloud. We were stuck there for a half an hour and we couldn't see a thing of the surrounding bay. Curiously, right at the top of the hill, there is a huge garden, with dozens of cats living freely and being fed by the people who work there.

São Paulo by night... That day we went to the teather, to see a play with António Fagundes (who we grew up watching on TV in Lisbon; after so many years, it is a weird feeling to see our idols "live" in a theater, on the other side of the world...). I stayed in the same hotel as previously, the Marian Palace, and possibly the same floor, where I photographed the skyscrapers.

While in Rio, I've tried not to photograph people without their consent. What a mistake, obviously! :)) With few exceptions, I ended up photographing mainly street performers, who seemed to be glad about it and to whom I gave a few coins in the end. There was a cook in the Corcovado restaurant that just kept laughing, when we asked him something in our European Portuguese. Basically, he couldn't understand a word of what we said!. For decades, we've been exposed to the Brazilian media (soap series, talk shows, etc) in Portugal and we can now understand their accent quite well. Sadly, the opposite doesn't happen yet.

There were few sunny days in Rio de Janeiro a few weeks ago. It was still winter, relatively fresh, but quite obviously a tropical climate. It is definitely one of the most beautiful places in the world, even with the poverty of the shanty towns around the bay and the violence reported by the media. The Corcovado Christ statue didn't seem to me as impressive and massive as I thought it would be, but that wonderful view is indeed there. Very rarely have I met such happy and vibrant people as the Brazilians, though.

Sorry for my long absence once again guys... (B&B, thanks for asking where I was ;) Couldn't find time to edit and post pictures from my recent trip to Brazil, and I'm still figuring out a way to change my template and post pictures in a different way. Here I am, with my Fuji S5500, looking down at the Rio de Janeiro bay and the Santos Dumont airport (J. took this picture). No other place in the world seemed so much like home to me, in a quite strange way, as this is only my second visit and I hardly saw anything of the country... Well, I'll be passing by later with more pictures and check what you've been doing in your blogs :))