The beaches of Rio de Janeiro are justly famous.  Ipanema, Leblon and Copacabana are beautiful, wide stretches of great sand and waves.

Our girl from Ipanema.  It was a lot of fun to watch the Rio beach culture-the perfect suit for women, the right macho attitude for men, lots of beach sports and socializing.

The view from Sugarloaf is a required tourist stop for a very good reason. The view of Rio was spectacular.

We bought a painting from this young man at the Ipanema Hypie (pronounced "hippie") Fair.  The style is very typical of Rio and is called Art Naif.

20% of Rio (about 2 million people) live in hillside shantytowns called favelas.  While most of the residents of these areas are hard working maids, taxi drivers, etc.., the favelas are controlled by drug dealers.  Much of the crime that Rio de Janeiro is infamous for occurs in these neighborhoods.

Buzios is a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic about 120 miles from Rio.  There were many citrus groves on the way and we stopped to buy tangerines on the way.  The poverty of rural Brazil was much greater than we had seen in Uruguay, Argentina or Chile.

Erin on the beach in Buzios.  There are 26 separate beaches in Buzios and each has a distinct personality.  Apparently this was the shopping one.

Riley and Jerry took a Lazer out for a sail.

Beach kids at Buzios.  These kids scavenged food off restaurant tables and tried to collect spare change.  They enjoyed getting their picture taken and especially seeing themselves on the camera's screen.

A large and, according to Erin, possibly poisonous caterpillar in Buzios.  Riley moved his foot in the nick of time and was not injured.