Rio beach life

Hi
Back to Rio, such an amazing city!  We spent our second day visiting the Centro or downtown area.  Fortunately, it was Sunday, so it was not very busy.  Good planning on my part or just dumb luck!

 Beach vendors selling coverups and bathing suits, where do you try them on?

 Sunset, the mountain (can't remember the name) at the end of Leblon beach

Cristos from the Botanical Gardens in Rio

Rio has the most Art Deco buildings in the world,  they love rounded corners.  It is amazing how many buildings have round corners, balconies and interesting deco details.  There are many buildings dating back to colonial times.  Lots of churches, this is an ABC tour (another bloody church!).  The Portuguese are Catholic and loved to build churches-mostly big and ornate.  The smaller ones were for the poor and the slaves.
Rio is a huge city made up of many smaller areas which are quite distinct.  Saint Teresa is very old and hilly with some very nice older homes with amazing views.  The beach areas are more modern and "hip", Leblon is the place to be now surpassing Ipanema which surpassed Copacabana.  Copa is now a little more tired, but some awesome deco  buildings.  The Copacabana Palace (hotel) is a very grand building across from the beach.  Most of the hotels are not on the beach, there are only 4 in Leblon and Ipanema.
The beach, we spent some time there.  The hotel supplied beach chairs and umbrellas (a must, as the temperature was in the mid 30's to 40C).  You can spend the day on the beach and never leave your chair, except to pee and go in the water, which is cool and very green due to an algae bloom.  You can buy anything!  They have people who will fetch you a drink, a beer delivered in a coolie is 4 Real, a coke, 4 real.  You can buy a bathing suit, hat, coverup, empanada, ice cream, sunblock and the list goes on.
There is a real beach culture, the beach from Copacabana to Ipanema then Leblon, has different areas which attract different people.  The area where we were was more family oriented, further down by the Caesar hotel are the more hip people, then the not so nice area next to the canal, and then another hip area, then the gay area, and so on.  It was neat to walk along the beach and see the different groups of people congregating in each area.
We spent a morning visiting the Botanical Gardens.  It was very large and beautiful.  A real deal at 6 Real ($4).  They had the most amazing orchid display, along with many other gardens.
Kim and Dan