Brasil: Day 5 (Part 3)

Since it was our last night out in Rio (or so I thought, stay tuned for that misadventure), we simply had to paint the town red!  I had heard from countless people that Lapa was the place to be, so we hopped on the subway (Rio really does have one of the best in the world) and made our way there.

My 1st view of Lapa. Told you we were painting the town red!

Lapa is a neighborhood that is home to a weekly massive street party.  This is the place to go to experience pure Rio at night!  It definitely is not the safest place in the city, but fun always has an element of danger to it, right?  In all seriousness, if you stick to the main street you will be just fine.

As we walked around Lapa it was impossible to not be enchanted by the people dancing throughout the streets to the samba drums and the smell of the Brasilian food being cooked by the vendors.  It was such a thrilling experience, only made better by the delicious caipifrutas (a caipirinha with fresh fruit) that I was consuming.

My favorite part of Lapa actually had nothing to do with the nightlife, rather it was art-related.  One of the side streets, named Escadaria Selarón, is covered with colorful, hand-painted tiles from all over the world.  This brilliant, constantly evolving, work-of-art is by the celebrated Chilean artist Jorge Selarón.  I could have easily spent hours looking at all of the tiles.

A part of the Escadaria Selarón.

My favorite tile of course!

Keren and I enjoying our caipifrutas amongst the tiles.

At the end of the night, I was saddened to say goodbye to my new friends (this part of traveling NEVER gets easy), however they promised to visit me in the States and I promised to visit them in Israel.  I am a woman of my word, so do not be surprised if in a couple of months you see some posts on a trip to the Middle East!