What better city to hang glide in, than in Rio? Here is a short clip of my mini adventure. This is how it went down. We had mixed emotions upon arriving at location: (a) Wow! Those hang gliders look awesome! (b) Uhmm, will we be jumping off that cliff? Up, on that cliff, there was […]
Rio de Janeiro – day 2
The sun came out a little more than yesterday, and it was time to hit the beaches. We took a taxi to Ipanema beach, and walked along the beach to Aproador rock. The panorama is something else. Since the weather this weekend was spotty, the beaches were not as crowded as they are known to […]
Rio de Janeiro – day 1
Who hasn’t heard of Rio? It was on our list of must see cities…hearing Brazilians speak highly of Rio only increased our anticipation. This is one of the few destinations that both tourists, and locals seem to love. For the November 2nd long weekend (‘Dia de Finados’ or ‘Day of the Dead’ 1, we headed […]
Paraty boat tour
On Sunday, we took a 5 hour boat tour that included stops at a couple of islands, and a couple of beaches. We parked near the town center and walked up to the Marina. There were a ton of operators, from small boats offering private tours, to bigger ones offering group or party tours. We […]
Paraty town center
Paraty 1 2 is an old historic port town set on a lagoon. We drove close to the town center, parked, and walked around. It’s a quaint little colonial town, with cobbled streets, and pastel colored homes mostly converted into shops, art galleries, restaurants, etc. The streets were very uneven, and not very convenient in […]
The drive to Paraty
The drive from Sao Paulo to Paraty is about 300km (186 miles) and takes 4.5 hours. Taking the nicer roads meant driving through Taubate, and Ubatuba, to get to Paraty. We headed out Saturday morning at 9am. The traffic was not too bad in the city. It did not take too long to re-familiarize myself with stick […]
Renting a car in Brazil
We heard good things about Paraty (pronounced Pɑ-rɑ-chi) from the locals. It is a drivable distance from Sao Paulo…all we had to do was pick a weekend, rent a car, and head on thataway. NOT SO FAST AMIGO! Here are some obstacles I encountered…future car rental enthusiasts might want to take note: Renting cars here […]
New friends
Andrea 1, a close friend of mine since the old Sun Microsystems days, introduced us to Maria, a native of Sao Paulo…or as they say, a Paulistana. We met Maria and Adel on Thursday, just before heading out to Paraty for the weekend. We had a terrific time getting to know them, the city, how it […]
Beam me up, Subramaniam…
When you are an alien in a foreign land, every once in a while, there is this urge to connect back with the mother ship. Being a vegetarian Indian visiting a predominantly carnivorous country, one tends to seek out Indian restaurants as ideal trans-communication portals. Sometimes, the meal hits the spot…often times, not. I would […]