VILA CANOAS

WITH FAVELA TOURS

Vila Canoas is a small to medium favela above posh Sao Conrado in Zona Zul, Rio de Janeiro.

It is part of a two favela tour hosted by Favela Tours.

For 100 BRL (about $25 USD), Favela Tours picks you up in an air conditioned van at any Zona Zul hotel (mine was in the Lido section of Copacabana near Leme).

Less than a half hour later, you are in famed Rocinha http://urbantravelandaccessibility.blogspot.com/2016/03/favela-rocinha.html

Marcelo Armstrong, the founder of Favela Tours. He demystified them by taking dozens of visitors daily into the winding roads past makeshift hillside homes.  My host that day was a Brazilian woman of German heritage who spoke flawless English. She shocked me when she said she perfected her English as an exchange student in Peninsula, Ohio -- about a half hour's drive from Akron suburb I grew up in. Ah the joys of travel?

Favela tours show daily life without objectifying the people of the favelas. The tours prove that you're more likely to run into a teacher, laborer, hotel worker or sous chef than a dangerous gang member in a favela. In Rocinha, you get a chance to buy art -- I rarely do this, but picked up a cool original on cloth for 50 BRL (less than $13 USD).  In Vila Canoas, the first stop is a boteco, where you can get snacks and order a caipirinha (dirt cheap) to down at the end of the short tour, before boarding the van back to conclude the 3-hour tour.

We highly recommend first visting a favela through Favela Tours, then returning -- city buses go there -- for some additional safe, daytime exploring.
www.favelatour.com.br 

KIOSKS OF COPACABANA BEACH

A WAY OF LIFE DAY OR NIGHT

Codfish snacks, french fries, pizza, Arabic food and really good garlic bread -- that's only scratching the surface of what you can dine on at the kiosks -- many modernized with restrooms, showers and lockers for the beach below -- on Copacabana Beach in Rio.

Of course, the real attraction is ice cold local draft beer and caipirinhas -- traditional and fruit flavored. Some our made with vodka (yuck, please stick with cachaça for ours)