Amazing mix of spices and the endless variety of colors mixed and shaped in the gifts of nature that can only be imagined as a paradise on earth – is a brief description of Rio de Janeiro, located in the only country in South America where Portuguese is spoken. It’s very rear to find someone who speaks english, but despite that, the people who you will meet on the streets of Rio will try to show you the way and to get you where you’re headed.

And for the ordinary tourist, you have a lot to see. Here’s the big 30-meter statue of Jesus standing at the Corcovado Mountain and looking with open arms to the city. The view from this place is breathtaking.
On the other side, there are two small hills called Sugarloaf, that are connected by cable car. Here you have the unique view. Your eyes can wander widely through endless fine sandy beaches in Rio that are splashed with the Atlantic Ocean.

You need hours to walk through some of them, like Copacabana or Ipanema. And you can never be bored. Because they are always full of life. Young people are playing football, volleyball or any other sport. In the nearby small children are swimming in shallow ocean water and learn to fight with powerful waves which just pulled into the big blue ocean.

A flock of pigeons is so domesticated and they can approach you and eat by your hand while relaxing on the sand that is so small, and now familiar with the sand we are normally used to.

On the beach, you will never stay hungry because the sellers are literally offering from small-roasted shrimp to all soft drinks for refreshment. Brazil is known for Brazilian coffee, but in Rio, it is not the favorite drink. Instead of coffee in the morning Brazilians (at least those we saw in Rio) drink coconut milk. And not from a can, but fresh, squeezed from the cut coconut, which local vendors cut in front of you with a saber, something we may have seen only in movies.

There is not a lot of smokers. It’s so rare to ask someone for lighter because people in Rio pay much attention about health. At every step, we can see Rooms Practical outdoors, where you can come any time to come and spend a minute to shape your body.

However, everything is not so leisurely. Rio is a huge city, where the bright side is the one that offers tourists the area beside the beach, where usually is recommended for tourists to spend most of the time. Because there are parts that still are not so safe. As is the case with hundred favelas, the poorer parts of the city, scattered at the entrance to Rio, but also over the city. In these parts, the tours are offered for the tourist that is not afraid to experience the other side of Rio.

Fortunately, not all favelas are unsafe.There are those in which you are free to walk even without a guide, and the sight of hundreds of small, colorful houses deployed on one another is unique.

Rio is simply unique. Starting from a huge selection of fruits and spices that are offered at every turn, through picturesque scenery and towering trees that remained in this region for decades … And while walking through the Botanical Garden, you feel like you’re in another time, years ago, far from civilization, merged with nature as one. This is the main battle here – how to preserve nature by the influx of civilization, and by the hand of a man.

Our time in Rio was too short to discover all the beauties, but those who we found will remain forever in our memories in the hope that we will come back again for more to be revealed …

by Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova