Verdant Hills, Sunshine and a Country Paradise…

The Hippie Market has been around in Rio since the ’60’s and is still flourishing! We went there in hope of finding all sorts of bargains and we did! Man…it was hot (temperature & products). I managed to find a very funky incense burner (where the smoke comes out of a head in the middle of the thing) and an even funkier incense burner saleswoman named Cynthia. They were on sale for 15 Reais (about Cdn $6) but, given that Cynthia serenaded me with a rendition of “Happy Days are Here Again”, I insisted on paying her the pre-sale price of 20 Reais. I then found a couple of carved wooden keychains for 3 Reais each and my good karma resulted in Cynthia insisting on me paying for only one. Loads of fun….

We all bought lots of stuff, including Lu finding prints of the characteristic mosaic patterns you find on the sidewalks in Ipanema & Copacabana. Unfortunately, only the Copacabana version was on an individual print with the Ipanema one being part of a larger piece. The artist was very sympathetic to her plight, however, and cut out the Ipanema section from the bigger work. How’s that for customer service??? Here’s Lu with the artist who sold her the print (to her left) along with two women artists who also display in the market.

Among other things, Mel bought an amazing map of the ancient world on a leather background. We had planned on heading back to the apartment and heading up to Itaipava where Lu’s Uncle Marco has a house in the country. First, however, we needed to get some cash so Lu stopped at the HSBC – where only one of the 5 bank machines appeared to be working and, therefore, had a long lineup. Thinking that the line hadn’t realized that you had to choose between the “Plus” system or the “Cirrus” system in the machine (a mistake that previously almost prevented Lu from getting cash in the first place), she thought she’d try her card in one of the others. BAD MISTAKE!!! Goodbye card….. An hour on the service line later, and she’d got their call centre to agree that she could pick up the card when we got back from Itapaiva a few days later…. Frustrations, frustrations….here are the guilty parties….

We finally hit the road a bit later and Lu managed to manoeuver out of Rio….with only a little bit off help from the GPS that Marco left us to play with….and which kept announcing we were “Off Course” (that may have had something to do with my inability to get it to work properly). It is only about an hour’s drive from Rio but the transformation of the countryside is amazing. You go from coastal heat and humidity to rising straight up the side of the mountains into incredibly lush valleys. The air is about 10 degrees cooler and the humidity drops right off. It’s an amazingly pretty place. Itaipava is a suburb of Petropolis – the place where the last Portuguese Emperor (Dom Pedro II) loved to retreat from the heat of Rio. As a result there are all sorts of great colonial buildings and (now that it’s so quick to get to from Rio) has become a weekend retreat for Cariocas looking to get away to the country.

Marco’s place is absolutely gorgeous. The main house is (I presume) an old colonial bungalow which he has almost finished renovating. There is also a pool house with a brick oven, barbecue, big screen tv, couches, bar, etc…..which is a fabulous place to hang out in the evenings. There’s also a sauna at the back of the property. Here’s a view looking up the hill from the main house…

Marco, his friend Geraldo & Mel having an afternoon drink in the pool house….

The place looks really magical after dark….

…..and a great spot to enjoy a glass of good wine (& Marco being an incredible host….has plenty of those!)

You may think this is a brilliantly trendy fruit bowl…and it does seem to work very well. However, Marco & Rosanna had completely forgotten that when I’d given it to them for XMas, I’d said it was meant to be water bowl for their family of Lhasa Apsos! There were a lot of good laughs over that one….and I think the Lhasas are still waiting….

I have no idea of the name of the tree growing beside the main house – but it has amazing flowers…..

As part of finishing up the house, Marco scours the region for antiques he can bring in as is – or modify to suit. Here he’s looking like some crazy Victorian inventor about to yell “Eureka” as the object of his work springs to success…. These were a couple of very cool lamps…

Marco treated the whole gang to a great & fancy pizza place for dinner. It’s a good thing he loves the fact that the house is always full of guests…because I think there must have been 8 or 9 of us for dinner….and that doesn’t include Tommy the Chihuahua who was smuggled into the restaurant and remained under a shawl on Lu’s Mom’s lap all through dinner….