The first thing we noticed about Buzios, even before we got there, was how friendly the people are. On the bus, we needed to make a phone call, so asked a few fellow passengers where we might find a phone. One guy, maybe in his mid-twenties, spoke some English and offered to make the call for us on his cell phone. He would absolutely not accept the small payment we offered. As we were calling our hotel, a woman on the bus overheard us and asked if we were going to Telhado Verde. She mentioned she lives right next to our posada, and that we would need to get out of the bus 5km before the actual Buzios bus stop (we had no idea about this up to now). She showed us where to get out, and while we were getting our bags from the bus, her husband and two kids showed up to pick her up. And, of course, they offered us a much appreciated ride - which was great, considering we had a lot of bags and no idea how to walk to the guest house.
The same theme continued the following morning, as we wandered to the beach in search of surf lessons. The day was rainy, and none of the surf schools had their stalls up, so we wandered up to youngsters selling fruit on the beach to ask where we could get boards. One of the girls, Elo (short for Eloise) happened to study English and explained that her brother works for one of the surf schools, but they were at another location that day. Instead, she offered to teach Santeri using her cousin's board. Initially we agreed on a 20 real price, but she was so happy to practice her English that eventually she offered the lesson for free (not that we tried to haggle). The lesson itself wasn't as successful as we'd hoped; she only had access to one board, so we had to take turns. In addition, the board in question was a tiny 5-footer, which was definitely too small for me and also a bit too challenging for Santeri's first surf experience. We did have a lot of fun, however, and she kindly got in touch with her brother to make sure we had an instructor and boards for the following day.
For the evening, we rented a buggy, a piece of machinery that vaguely resembles a car (i.e., it has four wheels and a petrol engine) but is put together as cheaply and simply as possible. Its engine is loud, its breaks are squeky, there are no seatbelts, doors, roof or windows, and successfully shifting the four gear gearbox is a question of both luck and brute force. It is illegal to take it on public roads beyond the immediate Buzios beach area. It was also loads of fun to drive, at least as long as it wasn't raining too hard (back to the point about there being no doors or windows). Anyway, we used this contraption to check out a couple of the more remote beaches, including a geological site that used to be part of the Himalayas! (Not sure how long it's taken the continental plates to pull apart, but at centimeters a year, it must have been a while...) We also toured the city center, which definitely reminded me of St Tropez in terms of the variety of restaurants and chic boutiques present. We ended the night at a Mexican bar/nightclub called Zapata, where the touristy but fun program included a samba dance show (with the skimpy outfits not leaving much to guesswork) and a capoeira demonstration. Called it a night around 2am.
The following day, we showed up at the beach around 10am to find it was raining again. However, this time we were greeted by our surf instructor Felipe, who had bought two decent-sized boards. As soon as we hit the (surprisingly cool) water and caught our first wave or two, we couldn't care less about the rain. The waves were great, steady and strong, yet not too fast and low enough to be beginner-friendly. Santeri was standing in no time, and I was having fun manoeuvering the board. Elo and her boyfriend took care of the photography, and got some great snaps on my waterproof point & click.
We surfed for about an hour, then as both Santeri and Felipe were freezing, took a break for a warm shower and lunch at Elo's cousin's restaurant (grilled dorado, black feijhao (I've never quite figured out if there's a difference to feijhoada with rice, salad, and a cold beer - absolutely delicious!) and drove the buggy up to the longest beach in Buzios. The beach turned out not to be too interesting, so we headed back to Geriba for another hour of surfing. Elo, the boyfriend and the cousin all joined us at the very end, and we had tons of fun surfing with the natives :-)
Around 5pm it was time to return the buggy, and hop on a bus to Rio de Janeiro.
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