Cheap Eats Brasilian Style

Our hotel offered a breakfast fit for royalty. It featured pancakes, sausage, bacon, pastries, waffles, scrambled eggs, and freshly squeezed juice and chocolate milk that was truly addictive. The Premier Copacabana had us up every morning by 8am to enjoy their very filling, very tasty and very free (!) breakfast. That was one of the highlights of our trip in terms of food.


I know, it’s criminal, but we didn’t actually eat at a churrascaria. A churrascaria is (from Wikipedia) “a Brazilian or Portuguese steakhouse. Churrasco is the cooking style, which translates roughly from the Portuguese for 'barbecue'.” So pretty much it’s a grand parade of meats of all kinds right into your tummy. I’ve been to one in Richmond run by Brazilians so I didn’t feel too bad about missing out on it this trip.


Other than that, fruit is cheap in Rio and plenty of street vendors will try to hose you when buying it. I bought a half of a watermelon from a vendor for about 4 reals. It should only cost about 2 or 3 but it was so hot outside and the melon was so juicy and sweet looking, I didn’t even care.


We found plenty of little cafes to eat at and were so thrilled to find that a huge cup of acai only cost about R$3. Oh. Acai. When you go to Rio, please, please try some acai, unless of course you don’t like for your taste buds to be taken on a journey of love and warm, happy feelings. It takes all kinds of travelers.



One of our favorite fast food restaurants was Burgao. It’s like Burger King but it also has food like steak, chicken, rice, beans. Stuff Americans would call “real food”. It’s a good little place to get a nice meal for about 5 or 6 reals. This is what I had

Carioquinha Frango Empanado:




- Arroz - Rice

- Feijão - Beans

- Peito de Frango Empanado - Small Chicken Empanada

- Alface - Lettuce

- Tomate - Tomato

All for only R$6,30


They also have the regular beloved fast food like hamburgers, cheeseburgers, fries and shakes.

I believe you call it "soccer"

When in Rio, there are some things you just have to do in order to make your trip complete. You have to hit the beach. (Check). You have to go to a Brazilian steak house. (Ok, so we missed the boat on that one). Go hang gliding. (Check). Go to a discotheque. (Ok, so we didn't do that also.) Visit the Jesus Christ Statue. (Oh yes!). Snorkel (Doh!)

Ok, so we didn't do everything that lonelyplanet.com would have advised but we fit lots into one week. And one of the events that we actually did go to was a soccer match at one of the world's largest and most famous stadiums, Maracana. It often has 90,000 plus ravenous fans screaming and yelling for their respective team.

There is a huge statue of Pele near the entrance. Pele scored his 1000th goal at Maracana. Maracana is also the site for multiple World Cups. We truly were walking into a sports cathedral.

As you can probably guess, we went to Maracana via autobus. The wonderful thing abut the bus system is how you always know what neighborhood the last stop is in, as opposed to two random street names you may have never heard of. We arrived about thirty minutes prior to the posted start time. It was amazing. We took pictures of the building, then walked over to the ticket counter where I ordered dois tickets. (It's funny whenever I had to speak to someone. My Portuguese is more broken than all my Thundercats toys.)

It was open seating so Monica and I could've picked where we wanted to sit. There were the fans of Flamengo (red and black) on one side, and Vasco (yellow and black)on the other. We sat close to the Flamengo troop. These fans were amazing. They carried huge 10x12 flags, wore the jerseys, yelled across at the other fans, sang fight songs, and this was all before the opening kickoff!



Soccer is a game that can either be very exciting or very boring. These players are so quick and agile and have the ability to control their bodies and move full speed across a field that is much larger than an American football field. The half ended in a scoreless tie. Moni wanted something to eat/drink, so we went to the concession stand and she got this pudding. She loved it! I wished I could've bought her a box of it to bring home. We went to the bathroom and considering how many people were in the arena, it was relatively clean. There were even recycling bins. America are you listening!!!

Anywho, the game started again and we were watching, but with only somewhat interest as we took pictures and fan watched and plotted the rest of our day. So, all of a sudden, we hear a thunderous roar from the crowd, we turn to the field and see the players jumping. They are chanting unintelligible words. We missed the goal. One score all night, and we missed it. Oh well.



I would fully recommend scheduling a trip to Maracana when in Rio. You wont regret it.

And try the pudding in the orange and purple cup. It's real sweet. You'll love it.

Rio to Go

When we first arrived in Rio, I immediately forgot every bit of Portuguese I had learned and we walked directly up to the line of taxi drivers that were just waiting for spacey-looking-Americans-still-high-on-Ambien-from-the-twelve-hour-flight to perform highway robbery on. I knew better, but I was so tired, and I just didn’t care, so we spent about 60 reals on the ride to our hotel. Whoops.

For travel around Rio we used the subway and bus lines. Rio has a very clean and easy to understand subway system. I felt really safe taking their trains and there was a pink caboose in the back that was supposed to be just for women but I didn’t feel the need to use it. Luckily for us, their signs were in English so we had no trouble navigating the system. That is, until we got above ground. Oh yeah, we’ve got stories. We mostly just took whatever bus appeared to be going somewhere cool and prayed that we would make it there. And we did every time. We once got lost for about two hours and ended up wandering up the hill in a favela, or "shantytown”.

After deciding that I would no longer walk around “the hood” on some old "shook ones" vibe, we hopped on some random van-like bus that took us up through the beautiful mountains with the most astounding views and back down to a little shopping area that was filled with buses to get us back to familiar area. Bus trips are about reals and you don’t even need exact change because there is a person on a little high chair who takes your money and gives you change if needed.

Tijuca Forest

We decided to take a hike. Through the Tijuca Rain Forest, one of the world's largest urban forests. We started in Copacabana and waited for the bus to get to Centro. From there, we waited for the bus going to the forest. And we waited. And we waited. Until finally, we decided we were going to jump on the next bus that said it was going to that neighborhood (Barra da Tijuca) and just be aware of our location. Please note that the bus driver made no announcements, there were few signs after leaving the Centro region, and we barely knew the language.

We managed to get off very close to the entrance of the forest. We took pictures (as is our custom) and started the trek. The signs were bilingual and we started our adventure up the hill for what was sure to be a remarkable view at the apex. We looked at the different paths for our ascent and chose the simplest hike for adults which we translated “Hill of the Easy Trail.” We wanted to challenge ourselves.

It was the most exhausting hike we've ever taken. Easy Trail... HA!! There was lush vegetation, mini-waterfalls, friendly Cariocas. It was most exhilarating. Each step pushed us more and more as we attempted to take a photo for the ages!



This is probably where you would see that photo. But since we turned around about 2/3rds of the way up, there is no photo. Instead, I would advise that you take the mini-hike and not the intermediate and especially not the master level hike. Or at least bring more water than we did. Two bottles of Aquafina will not do when battling the Tijuca Rain Forest.

Niteroi: A side trip

We took the bus to Praca XV to catch the ferry to Niteroi. It is famous for its beautiful beaches and its museum, the Niteroi Contemporary Art Museum. While taking the ferry, we discovered that the Museum was closed, so that meant we had more time for the beach. It was a smoother ride than any other ferry I'd ridden. Upon arrival, our mission was to get to the beach. But first, we needed to go shopping.


Moni shopped for havaianas. I looked for cool Brazilian trinkets. She found havaianas but not at great prices. I found cups with her name on it.



We headed to the depot and boarded a bus to Itacoatiara beach. It was a very long ride. And considering that we weren't even in Rio, we knew that we'd have to be aware of the time. It was interesting to see the neighborhood change from affluent to needy and back. The homes adjacent to the beach were amazing, The beach on the other hand was so-so. It was beautiful, but it was only as good as the beaches in Copacabana and Ipanema. (Moni may dispute that.)

I have to envy kids that can go to the beach in the winter. That rocks!