Woke at 5:30 am after a great night’s sleep. Enjoyed a very delicious breakfast at the hotel restaurant.

Our next stop was Santa Teresa, where Patricia introduced us to her friend Getulio, an artist who makes art out of recycled materials. We bought two of his pieces, perused his "studio," and thanked him.

Next Patricia took us to the Ruins Park (Parque das Ruinas) the once exquisite home of a wealthy baroness, patron to the arts. The home was vandalized after her death and today it is a popular vantage point.

From there we went to the colorful Selaron steps of Santa Teresa decorated in tile from all over the world by the artist known as Selaron, a close personal friend of Patrica. Sadly, he recently chose to end his life. We enjoyed examining the colorful tiles for a while.

Next we headed downtown and parked at the unusual Rio de Janeiro Cathedral (or the New Cathedral as it is sometimes called.) We walked inside as several new priests were being ordained, a very emotional few moments and a terrific photo op.

A few blocks from the cathedral found us in the midst of the once-a-month street market/antique fair in Lapa, where we stopped at a vendor to refresh ourselves with fresh coconut water. We watched as the vendor cracked the coconuts open for us.

Next we drove to the business center of the city. We parked next to the beautiful, ornate opera house. We walked many blocks towards the port area where people were enjoying feijoada - there were no tourists here, only cariocas (natives) like Patricia.

While wandering the downtown area, we found ourselves at Confeitaria Colombo, a very ornate and famous French-style, art-nouveau restaurant where many families were enjoying the famous Brazilian feijoada buffet. We sat and enjoyed sandwiches as we took in the wonderful ambience.

Rested, we walked more through the downtown area, at one time passing the house of Carmen Miranda and a bar frequented by Vinicius de Moraes who wrote “The Girl from Ipanema.”

We found the car right where we left it at the opera house, and Patricia drove us through Leblon to the west of Ipanema and up through the Tijuca Forest, a mountainous jungle area where we spotted a large boa constrictor sleeping in a tree. Patricia had seen this particular snake earlier in the week and knew that on Friday it had killed and eaten a monkey. So now, sated, it was comfortable digesting its meal in the safety of the jungle trees.

The view from this height was truly phenomenal so we snapped several photos at the Vista Chinesa and then drove on through the high jungle stopping at a spectacular waterfall. We filled our water bottles with fresh, cool mineral water and then stopped to watch the hang-gliders and para-gliders hurl themselves off of the mountain. They glide for several minutes before landing on the sandy Leblon beach.

Patricia had saved the best for last. She took us down the mountainous jungle road until we came to an interesting area where on one side of the road lived millionaires and on the other side was a favela called Vila Canoas. We parked and wandered through the favela. It amazed us, all day, how many people recognized Patricia. She is well-loved and respected by so many people. We felt totally safe in the favela, in fact we felt more than welcomed by the entire community. We watched Brazil defeat Bolivia in a futbol match on TV (everyone in the favela has a TV) at Patricia's favorite bar, where Chico, the bartender, concocted delicious caipirinhas for us, the carioca drink of choice. They were potent and delicious and we thoroughly enjoyed our time in the favela. We hope to return.

We thanked Chico and his wife and two dogs and headed down the mountain where we watched the hang-gliders land.

All too soon, Patricia had us back at our hotel after a most interesting and fun-filled day of adventure. We were sad to say goodbye to our new friend, and we highly recommend her services. Patricia can be reached at patfmorais@gmail.com.

We hugged Patricia, said “obrigado” and sadly watched as she drove down Ipanema’s Rua Visconde de Piraja and disappeared into the evening traffic.

We rested at the hotel, freshened up, then took a cab to the Copacabana Palace, one of the first major hotels on Copacabana beach. We sat at “Deck” and enjoyed grilled octopus and squid and rice with saffron. Two more caipirinhas with our delicious dinner were delicious. Our waiter, Claude, took good care of us and by 9 pm we were back wandering west along Copacabana beach as the last rays of the sun faded behind the hills above Leblon.

We strolled along Copacabana beach in a light misty rain, stopping to enjoy lively music, dancing, and arts and crafts along the way.

Exhausted after a long day of exploration, we found ourselves back to the hotel via taxi by 11 pm and by midnight we were fast asleep dreaming of today’s multitude of adventures.

Next Day