You might remember from my travel ramblings earlier, that in mid-July 2010, Bryley and me set course for Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais, and also visited the 'golden city', Ouro Preto. Back in BH in the evening after our stay in Ouro Preto, we boarded the night bus to make our way to the coast side of the Rio de Janeiro state. Actually, I don't remember much of the bus trip.. which must mean that I did manage to sleep at least a bit, which is quite a feat for me to do on a bus. (All I remember is taking pictures of ourselves wearing the identical Brasil top.. but then again, we have photos of that, haha).
At 6am the next morning we arrived in Cabo Frio, a well-known beach spot in the state of Rio, extremely popular with Brazilians themselves during the summer months. At least, everyone was always talking about going to Cabo Frio.. but there we were, in the middle of the Brazilian winter, arriving at the bus station, with the tropical 'winter' rains descending on the city. Luckily, our friend Fernanda was kind enough as to come pick us up at this early hour; without her it might have been just a bit more difficult to find our way to her place in all that rain ;)
And by rain I mean a downpour! From what I remember (but don't take my word for it, it's been a year... haha), we took a taxi to her apartment, down by the beach, anyways :) Once settled in her cozy place, we all went to sleep again for a couple of hours... after all, it was still pretty early haha, and whatcha gonna do otherwise with all that rain? haha.. But later in the day, we did actually brave the weather to go outside, flapping in our havaianas over the water running down the streets.
There's how much rain there was!Since there wasn't much point going that way, we didn't even try braving the beach (although we did get a live glimpse of it from the street... and on the TV weather monitor in Fe's house, but the view wasn't encouraging), and set out for the city, hidden under big umbrellas. What we did find was a great havaianas shop, where we all managed to find a good pair for a discount price :) Oh, and the shop assistant guy was totally into Fernanda, hahaha. (Yes, Fe, he was ;-))
In the summer (or likewise weather), Cabo Frio would be a really cool spot to visit. It's got a really cute harbor, with cool boats, pretty houses and green hills on the other side of the water, and all these cafe's and restaurants along the waterside. The city center itself is like any other town (from what I remember of it), but down by the harbor the atmosphere in the summer sunshine must be of party-till-sunrise, haha, as Fernanda was also telling us about... so obviously, I have to come back to Cabo Frio in the summer! ;)
Dancing in the rain in Cabo Frio :)Despite the weather, we still tried to make the best of our day, buying havaianas, flirting with shop assistants (khem, Fe! hahahaha), dancing with our big umbrellas in the rain down by the harbor, with palm trees as tropical decor in the background... :p
After a while of exploring the city, we came back home for another drying-up break and hanging around. But not for long!
Dancing with Fe :)Come evening, the weather actually dried up more or less, and it was windy and a bit chilly rather than anything else, so we dressed up (I borrowed Fe's dress... she had the cutest beach clothes with her) and went out to have dinner back by the harbor again. Too bad we couldn't sit out admiring the views of the harbor, as the restaurants were all covered up, but we had a great time having dinner and caipirinhas, of course :) On our way back home among the rather deserted streets of Cabo Frio - the locals were probably not as brave as us to take on the chilly evening - we even stopped by a local cafeteria to have some frozen acaí with granola, Brazilians' favorite sweet-tooth dessert ;) (As much as it is kinda funny to eat something so frozen in such 'cold', haha).
What's a meal without a caipirinha or two? ;)Well, dreaming of what Cabo Frio would be like in the summer, and especially during Carnaval, we made our way to Fe's apartment, to then continue our journey the next morning to Buzios, to stay with Fe's family there. But what happened there you will find out next time!
Thanks for reading!
Um beijo :)
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