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New Year's Eve slowly fell on the Cidado Marvelleouse. Rio de Janeiro is truly marvelous, second only to the whole island of Kauai as paradise in my book. Of course, the bronzed and beautiful Cairoicas down on the beach would disagree with that ranking.<br/><br/>
Smile -- You're in Rio! January 2, 2004
Ttrealtravels2005-12-26 14:30:53
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New Year's Eve slowly fell on the Cidado Marvelleouse. Rio de Janeiro is truly marvelous, second only to the whole island of Kauai as paradise in my book. Of course, the bronzed and beautiful Cairoicas down on the beach would disagree with that ranking.
The citizens of Rio use the beach as their living room. Teens and young people sit and stroll, chatting, flirting, drinking, smoking. They clearly own the place and as the beaches are public, they literally do. However, they don't keep it tidy out of civic pride -- scavengers only clean up the aluminum can garbage, and surely there is a can-redemption fee to be earned.
Entrepreneurship is ripe on the beach, although thankfully the sell isn't as hard as in Egypt or India. A simple "no" is enough to dissuade the hawker. He knows there are thousands of others around to buy his Cokes, water, beers, iced coconuts, ice creams, sunglasses, sarongs, hats, or T-shirts.
Not that half the population wears T-shirts. Women are dressed in as little as possible here, which is very little indeed. Perhaps it's only the prevailing Catholicism that keeps the beaches from being universally topless. Only recently was one local beach allowed to be nude. Everywhere else, women strut around in bikinis.
All Brasilian women -- young, old, large, small, tan, pale -- uniformly wear two-pieces. Often quite small ones, regardless of proportion. Only a few matronly tourist women wear the over-modest one-piece.
Brasilian women are divas, one and all, and they display the most amazing comfort in their own skins. Body confidence is not just for the skinny girls -- the bigger the body, the smaller the bikini, and the bigger the attitude.
It is totally refreshing and unlike American beaches where thin women look down their noses at the plus-size gals, who cower under cover-ups. In Rio,
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See photographs from:
Argentina Gallery
