I guess maybe after several trips to Rio our favorite author Jaguar has inspired me to write my first trip report.

I always travel to Rio myself as I’m in my mid thirties and all my buddies are now married, getting married, having kids or divorced and broke. What a bunch of lame asses! Anyway the moral of the story is I started traveling alone a couple years ago and found it not as bad as I thought.

I booked a 2 bedroom penthouse apartment in Ipanema with the rooftop pool and a view of the beach for my two part stay. I arrived on a Thursday morning regardless of the fact that I told my Brazilian sweetheart I wasn’t getting in until Friday afternoon. After a good Ambien sleep on the Air Canada flight I coasted through customs and met my ride. The rest is pretty usual stuff, got to the apartment, paid, unpacked and crashed for an hour or so.

COPA VS IPANEMA

I had a shower and went for a tour in Ipanema. I find Ipanema is such a contradiction from Copa; it’s hard to believe they’re only a ten minutes walk apart. As a Gringo I don’t find that you’re a target for beggars and street riff raff as we are in Copa. Even at night I like to walk around and don’t fell that, watching your surroundings feeling that you gotta keep up in Copa. But then again, it’s a different class of people there and there’s an over-all lighter feeling.

So on the Thursday night I catch a cab to Help yet I rarely go in. I find the talent outside is acceptable and usually a tad cheaper than the girls inside once they’ve paid their cover. I’m a people watcher so I love to hang outside and relax with a drink and watch the talent. I hung around until about midnight and finally decided on a young thing about 19-20. I always screw up the first night as I jump at young good looking things and forget that a few years older and their better in the sack. I refuse to use the term “session” as I think it sounds hoky. I also don’t like to be referred to as a “mongerer” I prefer the term “whore master”…lol Just one of those idiosyncrasies.

She was alright, sweet, young and firm, ummm, god bless them! But my props always go to a good performer and like I mentioned, I find a few years older to be better satisfying.

She leaves in the early morning and I grab a few more hours sleep. I hit the beach and relax for a few hours. I love the beach in Ipanema, R4 for a chair as opposed to R10 on Copa beach. R2 for a coke, R1for bottled water unlike Copa where Jorge and his crew screw you something fierce. I’ve been dinged R30 for 2 chairs and a coke or water; I vowed never to get screwed like that again by these clowns. Anyway, I settle in behind a group of teenagers, there were these two girls about 16, man they were just plain beautiful. So after a few hours of checking out the young upper class talent, I went back to shower to meet up with the sweetheart.

My regular sweetheart shows up around 8-9 p.m. and we go out to dinner in Ipanema. Dinner’s average and we go back to the apartment and abuse each others bodies for a few hours and before falling asleep. We get up early the next day and head off to the airport.

CABS SCREWING YOU

I find it funny that a driver or cab from the airport charges about R60 to Copa or Ipanema yet a cab off the street is about R35 from Copa or Ipanema to the airport. I love when the drivers always offer to pick you up and return you to the airport for R60; they’re so generous aren’t they?

RECIFE (NANNAI RESORT)

So we hop a Tam flight to Recife (about 4 hours) and get to the airport around 2:00 p.m. We meet our transfer to the resort and head off on the 45 minute trip to the coast. As we pass through the smaller towns in the north east coast of Brazil I notice a difference in the quality of living. The thing that amazed me was the large amount of people harvesting the sugar cane in the fields by hand. It’s hot as hell and their out there with basically nothing but a machete, man it sure makes you glad to live you do when you see this.

We get to the resort and this place is gorgeous. It’s definitely a 6 star resort, dead on with the website and trip reports. The resort has a Polynesian theme and it’s carried through right into the private villas that we stayed in. We were in our villa 2 minutes when a guy brought a bottle of complimentary champagne and strawberries, not a bad touch. This place has a huge 6000 sq meter pool complete with a private beach. The restaurant is huge and open, every night they have about 25 main dishes as well a pasta chef, a sushi chef and a grill chef, huge salad buffet and dessert table. My only complaint was that breakfast and dinner were included but lunch wasn’t. Given the fact that breakfast was 7:30 – 10:30 a.m. and dinner was 7:30 – 11:00 p.m. it left a huge gap to force you to spend during the day. Only the two previously mentioned meals were included, drinks had to be purchased, alcohol, water, even after dinner coffee wasn’t included. All in all, this entire place was great.

During the day, we lounged by pool and created a MBL type stir everyday. This place was mainly rich, fat, older Brazilians. It was the first time I’ve been in Brazil and had more of a tan than the Brazilians, which should pretty much give you the picture. The MBL type stir was due to the fact that my sweetheart would wear her Rio type string bikini and it got the older crowd all bothered. Fuck em, have gringo with cash, will travel. lol! That’s my theory.

So after 6 days of eating and laying in the sun, screwing on the beach at night and the odd grope in the pool during the day to get the fat, rich older crowd going it was time to return to Rio. A few hours later we were back in Ipanema longing on the patio by the rooftop pool.


IPANEMA FAVELA

The apartment I rented had a view of the beach and the left view was of the favela at the back of Ipanema. There were many times I would sit and check out the favela and snap pictures of the armed guys at the look-outs perched high up on the roof tops. I don’t know what it was but I was fascinated with this place. Often you would here the primitive communication network within the favela of fireworks going off during the day or night. I’d always heard that that was sign of drug shipment day yet my sweetheart said it was simply a sign of some form of trouble possibly the policia near the entrance at the bottom on the favela. I don’t know for sure but man one day it when on about four times that day.

CASINO IPANEMA

We were out for a walk one day and I noticed the Bingo Ipanema, this brought to mind my ole friend Jaguar. I remember him talking about a casino in Ipanema so I thought we’d check it out. It’s basically a pretty lame casino with a few slots but I got dragged up to the top floor, wahooo, bingo heaven. With all the chain smokers it had that old pool hall feel to it, other than the fact that as a gringo enters the room they all give you the once over. Fuck em, once again, have gringo with cash will travel! I thought this was going to be a boring ass time but to my surprise it wasn’t that bad. Ok I dropped about R100 in no time but hey, it was something different. Well maybe it was the subtle fingering of my sweetheart under the table to entertain myself while she blew money on the bingo that helped pass the time. The entire time I was wondering if this was the place Jag was talking about were he attempted his “experiment” maybe that’s why they were checking me out. Who knows?


CORCOVADO TRIP

One of the last days I finally decided to take a trip up the mountain to see Corcovado. It was motivated by the girls at my job continually asking why I go to Brazil and never return with any pictures. I can’t exactly say I’ve got a ton of pictures but they’re all of tits and ass. So I figured finally I’d get some tourist pictures and for some damn reason that’s all I managed to get the entire trip, tourist pictures!

So we flag a taxi and cut a deal for R100 for the afternoon at Corcovado. As we start to head up the base of the mountain this guy starts looking like he’s lost, I’m thinking, well what the fuck, he’s off the meter that’s his problem. Within no time this guys is driving around the base turning left, then right and I’m thinking ok, this guys fucking around too much now. Well if he doesn’t pull up the entrance to the Favela with the gringo in the backseat. Oh ya, here we go! He starts chatting with the “monitors” and he leans back and starts to ask me if I’d be interested in a personal tour of the Favela. Man, I must have had that really stupid ass tourist look on my face that day for him to pull that. I guess he’s gotta try huh? I brush it off and tell him to continue up the mountain and he tries to save face by saying he was lost and needed to ask directions. As I point to the sign of Christ with a big ass arrow on it he heads up the road. Too funny! Like a taxi driver in Rio didn’t know how to get up there?

So we get to the top and it’s kinda cloudy, we do the tourist crap, take some pictures and we start heading back down the mountain. As we pass the helipad landing I ask him to pull over for more tourist pictures, oh ya, I’m in full-on tourist mode now with the pictures and my sweethearts looking at me like I’m an idiot. So we get out of the taxi and I head over to get some pictures. I step off the path and walk down the embankment a bit to get the perfect picture. All of a sudden I feel this fucking burning on my feet and ankles. I look down and yup, you got it, standing right on a hill of red ants, at least I think they were red. Man could those little bastards bite! It was at this point I once again I thought to myself, here you go Jaguar nice move! I couldn’t help it, his trip reports have crept into my mind and when stuff like this happens; my first thought, that fucken Jaguar! God bless em! So after about 5 minutes of these guys biting my feet and ankles and wiping my feet free of them I continued with the pictures. I’m proud to say I took some pretty damn nice pictures up there.

RIO SAMBA

One night we headed out to a dance club for a good time. We first went to Barra Tijuca but I wasn’t carrying my original passport (only a photocopy) and some R2 an hour doorman pulled rank on me and turned me away. We grabbed a taxi and my sweetie suggested we try RioSamba, ok, I’ll trust her. Well ok, maybe it was a bit far, there’s an understatement. It was about ½ hour ride on the road past Barra, past the airport and keep going into the night. Finally we get there, R80 taxi fare later, I’m thinking this place better be good. It’s got the good ole bullet proof security slots in the wall outside to buy your ticket to get in, my kinda place! Anyway, it didn’t disappoint! It was packed with a crowd of about 1000-1500 people with the average age of 20 years old. This place had a dj that rocked and they played American music, Brazilian and Favela Funky, I think it’s actually called Booty Bass or Funky Do Morro. It was some pretty good music but the best part was mingling with the local talent. This place was packed with more non-pro pussy than one could imagine, dressed to seduce as most Brazilian girls do, god bless em! We made our way to the VIP lounge upstairs (R10 extra) and we settled in. As the night wore on the local girls got sluttier and I was happy, they were making out with any dude that would dance with them. The beer was R2 and I started tipping this old guy at the beer cooler, within no time I was like a celebrity, he was bringing the beer to us and I could have probably banged his daughter had I asked, ya gotta love the Brazilian culture and the people.

My only complaint with this place was as the night wore on the Brazilian guys take off their shirts and stand around shirtless. As their all about 20 years old, tanned and buff, this gringos wasn’t going to attempt to compete with that, the shirt never came off. I was hoping maybe the local gorotas did the same but after an hour of holding my breath it didn’t happen. As for this place, I’d recommend a trip here with a few guys, and if your speak Portuguese, there’s great potential for non-pro pussy. This place is packed and ripe for the picking. Just watch out for the Policia shake-down the highway on the way back towards Rio.

CONCLUSION

I guess these were simply the highlights on this trip. This trip was completely laid back with almost no whoring with the exception of the one before I hooked up with my sweetheart; unlike my trip in April where I racked up some frequent flyer miles on the local Copa scene. I got the tourist pictures and all the girls at work are finally happy to see what I do while in Rio. Lol

Sorry if you guys feel this was too long or boring but this will probably be my first, last and only trip report. Hope you enjoyed it.

Play hard and have no regrets guys !

"...this will probably be my first, last and only trip report..."

Aahhh! That's too bad! You're really quite good.
In fact, I wouldn't mind hearing about your past escapades. Really!!

BTW, You sure the name of that disco was RioSamba??

Back12draft,

Rivelino said it best,"You're really quite good."

Your writing style is very entertaining and extemely readable and your experiences and where you went are quite different from most trip reports. Now get working on writing up your first several trips. I want to find out what you did on them too.

Keep up the great work.

Jag

Great job ! Would like to hear more of your adventures. Sounds like you could be the Jaguar of the North. Felix

Yes this place was called Rio Samba but also had another name which I can't remember. But when I mentioned it to a local in Ipanema he refered to it as RIO SAMPA, maybe I'm pronouncing it wrong?

Was I in the same Casino (Bingo joint) you were refering to in your one report Jag?

The reason I never bother to write trip reports is that I think they all seem to get repetative to a point. Help, Terma, Pharmacy, you know! Besides I like to get off the beaten path and explore. Someday that may be my downfall, who knows?

P.S. Oh ya, I forgot to mention I was lounging on the beach at Ipanema one day and guess who showed up? That loco fucken clown from Copa, wearing his usual Brazilian flag as a cape and that stupid ass wig. In Copa he harasses gringo's for money, in Ipanema the locals all laugh at him and make fun of em... and me without my camera!

(Message edited by back12draft on October 12, 2005)

Enjoyable reading! Can you please give more details on the resort, including costs?

BTW, if you want to get to Ipa for R$40 or less, when you exit customs at GIG, ignore the touts, walk right outside and flag down a yellow taxi dropping off a customer at the airport.

great post, thanks for sharing your experiences. i have heard the firecrackers every night in rio and have always wondered what they were. if anyone has any definitive knowledge on what it is usually used for it would be cool to know as i have never found out. it makes sense that it would be a signal though. actually i am no firearms expert but i figured that some of the times when it sounded like a firecracker it was actually a gun.

Here's the website for this resort: http://www.nannai.com.br

There are many vacation reports on this place for other opinions. I'm not sure how accurate the website pricing is, I paid about $175 US per night.

Hi- Nice report! I looked at the website for the Nannai resort and I am impressed. The prices quoted on the website are sky high - you said that you paid $175 and the prices on the site may not be accurate. May I ask how you booked? Thanks!