Beautiful Buzios
Trip Start
Apr 02, 2011
1
35
41
Trip End
Sep 04, 2011
Where I stayed
Brigitta'S Guest House
Buzios, State of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Monday, August 1, 2011
We were given a room at our guest house which literally opened up onto the beach. It was absolutely fantastic to be able to step out of your front door and stumble onto a perfect beach lined with fishing boats, coming and going with their daily business. By the time we arrived and got settled into our private little beach cottage it was way past lunch time and we were absolutely starving. This gave Georgie the perfect opportunity to expand her growing list of shops to visit whilst pretending to find a suitable restaurant to eat at. A very hungry (grumpy) Midge cottoned onto this plan pretty quick and demanded feeding before any more walking would take place! Happiness was quickly restored after lunch and a much more amenable Midge joined Georgie with a mission to explore the town. Buzios was literally packed with people and we found out that our visit had coincided with the last week of school holidays in Brazil. Every restaurant, bar, shop and club was cashing in on the last holiday push before the low season began. This suited us just fine as there was such a wonderful holiday vibe everywhere. We spent the rest of the afternoon walking along the beach promenade which took us from Do Canto beach (our beach) past Azeda beach and up to Joao Fernando beach which was essentially the northern strip of Buzios's beaches. The return trip was even better as we regularly stopped off to admire some of the beachfront mansions and luxury boutique hotels whilst sipping on a Caipirinha or two along the way. The walk alone was enough motivation for us to make sure we become rich and quick, because we know exactly how we would spend our cash! By the time we got back into town, most of the holiday revellers had returned from the beaches and were starting to get fired up for the evening festivities. Being a Thursday, we decided that we could not party too hard on school night and promised ourselves that Friday night would be huge for us. We settled in for the evening at a lovely restaurant and spent the night sipping Caiparinhas and people watching.
The glamour of having a room which opened directly onto the beach wore off very quickly after the first night. The high tide mark was basically at the threshold of our door, and besides the noise of the waves crashing against our window we had party animals stumbling up and down the beach trying to outdo each other in drunken sing-song matches. We cursed ourselves for being old farts and asked to change our rooms for a quieter room the next morning. An added consolation, which made us feel a lot better, was that the poor suckers who inherited our room from us found out that the sound system of Buzios's biggest night club (next door) ensured that absolutely no sleep was to be had in that room - ever!!
The owner of our guest house was a pretty talkative character and one of the only people we had met who could speak a reasonable amount of English. By the end of breakfast the next morning, he had planned out a detailed itinerary for us for the days ahead telling us exactly where we should (and shouldn't) be visiting. We decided to take his advice and spent our first full day in Buzios on the predominantly Spanish beach of Joao Fernandes. The most energetic thing we did all day was walking to and from the beach, other than that we broke every record in laziness. We spent the entire day sunning ourselves like lizards and were waited on hand and foot by a range of different restaurant staff competing for business on the beach. It was awesome and we had no excuse not to give it stick in the bars and clubs later that evening. Midge had earmarked two awesome looking night clubs which he insisted would need a sneaky visit to later on in the evening!
Our day spent on Joao Fernanado turned us from lightly tanned to bright red, and we returned home to quickly apply bucket loads of aftersun! Georgie suggested that in order to pass time until dinner we visit every single shop in Buzios. Time was again killed after dinner by doing the exact same thing before we found a bar to allow the credit card time to cool off! The beach bars were awesome and we passed time merrily listening to awesome tunes and sipping on delicious cocktails. Finally the hour had arrived to hit the club, and we made our way across town to burn it up! At 12am sharp we arrived at the front of the queue to grace the Brazilian party goers with our presence, but nothing burned up our party mood faster than finding out that we would be person number 1 and 2 in the club after paying R800 each for cover charge! We retired home, tails between our legs.
One of the unexpected finds of the previous day was finding a company which hired beach buggies. We signed up for our blue buggy early the next morning and were now able to explore the more remote beaches around Buzios. Our first stop was at the predominant Brazilian beach of Geriba (southern portion of Buzios). Again, we spent a super lazy morning soaking up the sun watching the way more energetic Brazilians surf, play volley ball, beach bats and beach soccer. Their activities definitely made us feel very lazy whilst we sampled various beers and cocktails under the shade of our umbrella! After lunch we headed off in the buggy to explore as much of Buzios as we could, checking out Ferradurinha and Ferradura beaches along the way. Every beach we visited was absolutely spectacular and holiday homes of every description lined the beach fronts and surrounding hillsides. The whole place was amazing! Our last beach stop for the day was at Brava beach (eastern side of Buzios) which we made just in time to catch the last hour of sun before sunset. What we stumbled across was a real jewel of Buzios life! The visitors to the beach could choose from a selection of white loungers and daybeds which sprawled around the beach edge. Champagne of every description was on tap as you listened to local DJ's spin their tunes as the sun set. We couldn't believe that we had found such an awesome place to spend time in! We reluctantly left Brava and returned our beach buggy for the night in order to prepare ourselves for another long wait. We absolutely had to make it out for one heavy night on the town! To cut a long story short, we failed miserably in our task to go out as Saturday night partying in Buzios starts even later than Fridays - 1am doors open and it’s an all nighter from there! We felt so old and dejected that we couldn’t even muster the strength to make it out. We did however visit many bars in town to sample their alcohol and soak up the holiday atmosphere.
Our last day in Buzios was spent without our trusted beach buggy. The weather was perfect and we wasted no time heading back to the nearby beach of Joao Fernando for yet another day of absolute bliss. We could not believe that we had left such a small amount of time to explore such an amazing country and cursed ourselves for not having pushed ourselves harder getting through Bolivia. Brazil exceeded our expectations on every level and we loved every minute spent there. Most of the conversation on our last beach day in Buzios was around how we could extend our stay there. Unfortunately we had made arrangements for accommodation back in Rio so staying longer would have been difficult. We will be returning to Brazil soon and Buzios will be on that itinerary without a doubt. We ended our stay off with an amazing dinner and packed our suitcase for our trip back to Rio. Rio, here we come again baby..........
Comments
LOVE this post. Can't wait to hear all about it on a beach in Portugal soon. Glad you found the beach buggies...ours was called baby - Mark parked her in a corner! See you in 2 days xx