Arrival into the city, was a mad taxi drive as if we were part of Grand Theft Auto, but driven by a taxi driver who was a linguist, who, although he could speak Portuguese (obviously), Spanish, French, and a little Japanese, he could not speak Welsh (surprisingly).
Luckily for us his English was very good too, because we are staying a little off the beaten track.
Our hotel Um Meia Tres is a wonderful little hotel perched high above the city overlooking the downtown area and out to the bay. It's in an area called Santa Teresa, which is the old part of the city, and very much the artists area, with bars and restaurants, and where old libraries are turned into impromptu music venues, which sells great pizza, with a coffee shop and book shop. And not a Costa Coffee in sight.
Steep cobbled streets twist and turn their way high up to the emerald forest covering the sheer rock.
Our little hotel is surrounded by rainforest, with huge banana trees.
Toucans visit us at breakfast, and monkeys in the afternoon.
"The massive dark crowns of shady mangoes were seen everywhere amongst the dwellings amidst fragrant blossoming orange, lemon and many other tropical fruit trees, some in flower others in fruit at varying stages of ripeness. Musa Paradisiaca - The superb banana, of which I had always read as forming one of the charms of tropical vegetation, here grew with great luxuriance: its glossy velvety green leaves, twelve feet in length, curving over the roofs of the verandas in the rear of every house. Strange forms of vegetation drew our attention at almost every step." Alfred Russel Wallace
It's Monday today and we will be heading to the Botanic Gardens to rehearse for our performance tomorrow, and film excerpts of the play for our online resources, which will be available in September on our website.
Tchau for now
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