After deciding to take the plunge alone and heeding the advice of rio-carnival.net on safe and accessible places to stay I booked my hostel in Copacabana (& spent my remaining days in England with Barry Manilow playing repetitvely in my head). Copacabana did not dissappoint. Turning the corner & seeing the fine sands and azul waters of Ipanema, it was easy to see why the majority of travellers preferred it to Copa. However it had a charm that fixated me. Copacabana is a people watchers beach - all backgrounds of people parade themselves along the (3km?) of sand. Strolling in the warm breeze you pass a flurry of favela kids, mothers meetings and the bronzed and beautiful refining their pecs. You can sense the era's of magnificence that the playa has seen when looking up at the Copacabana Palace Hotel which offers a sense of nostalgia mixed in with the ever more modern rich and beautiful faces of Rio!
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