IPANEMA HIPPIE MARKET
BRAZIL TRAVELOGUE - DAY 8 - RIO DE JANEIRO BRAZIL

We eat a typical Swedish breakfast on our balcony, enjoying the morning sunshine, then as it's a Sunday, we head over to the Ipanema Hippie Market to do some shopping.  Just a few blocks walk from our apartment, the market is much bigger and better than we had expected.  It encompasses a full city block, and has merchants selling all types of goods from touristy things like T-Shirts, to jewelry to handicrafts to impressive artwork.   It is hot in the sun, and we are pleased to see people selling water throughout the market.

The market is reasonably priced, and all transactions are open to negotiation.  One merchant, selling bronze statues, went from the $180BR marked all the way down to $40BR - quite a huge difference!  We buy a lovely local art painting of Rio de Janeiro for our living room and Bertil picks up a Bahia-style flute for his collection, but for the most part, we are satisfied to look at the wares.  The market is crowded with tourists, arriving on tour buses (we later found out that the locals visit after 3:00pm), but is very enjoyable.

After shopping, we have lunch at Boteco Belmonte, a fashionable bar across the street from the market.  The menu is fairly expensive, but it is bustling with customers.  The Pizza, Salads, and Chicken Soup is excellent - they are popular with Brazilians for their appetizers.  We walk back to the apartment for an afternoon nap, drinks on our balcony while we play cards.  Now, it is time for dinner and we head over to Vinicius Bar to make reservations for that evening's Bossa Nova show, located across the street from A Garota de Ipanema (Translated = The Girl from Ipanema), the bar where Tom Jobin wrote his famous song of the same name. 

After dinner, we head upstairs at about 9:30PM to Vinicius Bar and find a mostly empty room with a tour group, a lone American, and a couple of others.  The opening act plays some nice, low-key music and plays to the tour group - a nice if not too thrilling show.  At around 11:00PM, the place starts to fill up with Brazilians in anticipation of that night's act, Maria Creuza.  She speaks and sings only in Portugese, a soothing Bossa Nova that Rio de Janeiro is famous for.  We and the crowd are delighted as she breaks into "The Girl from Ipanema" and other well-known favorites.