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| Street scene |
Three blocks later, we arrived at Praça Nossa Senhora da Paz:
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| Praça NS da Paz |
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| Monument to Pinheiro Machado, an important figure who fought for the establishment and consolidation of the Republic |
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| Cariocas playing bocce |
On the street, água de coco (the second best-selling juice in Brazil after orange juice):
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| Fresh coconut water: R$2 |
Continuing west:
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| Galeria de Arte Ipanema |
We then crossed the Jardim de Alah, the dividing line between Ipanema and Leblon, for dinner at Espaço Brasa Leblon, a spacious churrascaria on Av. Afrânio de Melo Franco.
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| Canal do Jardim de Alah |
Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped by a nearby supermarket to pick up some snacks. Some of you may know that I have a minor obsession with grocery stores, especially in foreign countries. Honestly, I believe that one can learn a lot of interesting things—how different and, simultaneously, how similar we all are—by observing the food-purchasing priorities of different cultures. (I may or may not have once spent five hours in a Carrefour in Barcelona reading/translating the labels on every type of olive oil in the store.)
The Zona Sul supermarket we visited in Leblon was no exception: particularly outstanding was an entire half-aisle shrine to bacalhau, the dried, salted codfish popular in Portugal and many of her former colonies. And, of course, the enormous fruit section:
Below, an entire aisle dedicated to several varieties of my favorite fruit, the mango:
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| They continued further in a second aisle. I didn't even know this many varieties existed. |
