We landed in Rio a little after 6am, Monday, December 29. Our original plan was we were going to hang out in an airport lounge for a little while and then take a 10 AM flight to Iguazu Falls.

We had a nice little overnight trip planned that would give us enough time to see the falls from both the Brazilian and Argentinian sides. But the airline kept messing with our flight times and that window kept shortening. At some point on our cruise when we got the last notification that made it even shorter, we decided it wasn’t worth even trying, and we gave all of that up. We were able to book another night in the same hotel here and added a day to the rental car and that became the plan.

We made it out of the airport about 7:45am – that included immigration, bags and rental car. We of course hit Monday morning rush hour traffic and it took about an hour to get to our hotel.

We are staying at the JW Marriott on Copacabana Beach.

It wasn’t even 9am so of course our room wasn’t ready, but they did give us a key to get into the lounge bases on Ash’s status – which is why we will almost always stay at a Marriott if doing a hotel. We hadn’t had any breakfast yet, not even coffee, so were happy to relax here a bit and shift from travel to stay mode.

But not for long. We hadn’t booked an 11am food tour and walked around a bit before going over to that meeting point, conveniently a 10 minute walk from the hotel along the beach.

The meeting place was the Aryton Senna statue. Aryton was a Brazilian race car driver who won 3 Formula One World Championship titles between 1984-1994. He died in a car crash while racing the San Marino Grand Prix.

Our first stop was just a few feet away to start with some fresh coconut juice. That’s Yuri, our guide, on the right. He was born here, moved to Boston as a child through high school, then returned here for college and never left. He is also an actor and brought us up to speed on the theater scene here which is actually pretty robust.

Next, we walked by the Copacabana Hotel, in 1923 when this was a simple beach neighborhood. That started what would become a world famous destination. This area is on par and probably bigger than South Beach in Miami and Waikiki in Hawaii. 

This is an açaí place – think frozen yogurt. Never seen this before. We went in for a taste and will probably be back before this trip is done.

This is Bottles Alley, the birthplace of the Bossanova. Yuri told a told story of musicians from Rio who visited the US in the 50s and fell in love with jazz. The brought it home and mixed it with samba to create a new sound, and called it bossanova. They played it in the bars in this alley, and residents from the apartments above would throw bottles at them to give them to stop. Hence the name. Notice the name of that first bar is Bottles Bar. 

Requisite selfie at the mural at the end of the alley.

The next stop was a boteca, a style of eatery which Yuri says is a cross between a bar and a restaurant, often open 24 hours as this one is. Popular places after the bars close. We had a slow cooked pork sandwich with pineapple and cheese. He was vague on the description of the cheese other than they call it yellow cheese. Closest thing at home was probably cheddar. It was a pretty good sandwich.

Next was a shrimp stew served over coconut rice, and fried cassava flour. Cassava is a type of wheat. It should have been better than it was, but it wasn’t bad. He may have built it up too much as his favorite thing on the tour. It was not ours.

And speaking of our favorite thing on the tour, it might’ve been here. This was certainly Ash’s favorite. Galeto is grilled young chicken cooked in spices. Notice the Anthony Bourdain endorsement in the second photo above. Somehow, I forgot a photo of the actual food. But we might be back. 

The last bite was on the beach, a refreshing taste of fresh mango mixed with vanilla ice cream. Very light, very creamy, very flavorful. 

On our way to the food tour, we had Maid haircut appointment at a place we found along the way. So we returned there for our 2 o’clock haircuts.

Earlier we had gotten a text that our room was ready so after our haircut, we made it back to the hotel. 

For tonight at least, we were upgraded to a suite. Tonight is on a different reservation than the other two nights so it’s not likely gonna happen for the rest of the stay. But it was a great place to crash when we were so completely exhausted this afternoon. Photos of the room above, and the of views from the room below.

We literally crashed and slept for about an hour. Then took showers and made our way out again.

We are on the 11th floor that had this interesting hallway that looked down into the lounge where we had been before, and where we were headed, on the ninth floor.

Above and below: They put an amazing spread out so we are just doing dinner here since it’s sort of free. Ash says it’s one of the best he’s seen and he’s been to a lot of Marriott lounges.

Above is a lovely array of salad that we started with. Below is a chicken stroganoff with rice and a cabbage, potato, and sausage soup.

We went for a walk about 6:45 PM, making a right out of the hotel to see new things.

Above and below: random shots taken with my camera overhead in front of me and behind me. It’s basically this for the 2 1/2 miles up and down Copacabana Beach. LOTS of people, and the highest percentage of shirtless men I’ve ever seen anywhere. 

The beach curves – as we got to the end and looked back we could see a good portion of the end of it all lit up across the water. 

We were originally going to go back to the açai place we were at earlier on the food tour, but it was another 6 or 7 blocks on the other side of the hotel. So we decided to look for something else. 

And just as we said that we looked to our left, and there was a gelateria. Like magic. 

We shared a berry cheesecake and I already forgot the other flavor. But it was pretty good. 

And that was our first day in Rio. We have one big thing planned for each of the 4 days we are here, today’s being the food tour. We’ll see what else we come up with.