HUGO - PURA VIDA!!! :)))) A GREAT COSTA RICAN ADVENTURE IN RIO

It is great when you get to Rio de Janeiro and you find a friend. This is how I welcome all my guests...They are always sure that I will show every secret of Rio and provide a real personal experience as soon as I meet them. To visit Rio you should be in touch with the soul of Rio and you will have someone ready to show you this informal side of the city.

Hugo came to Rio, he is a social researcher in Costa Rica and he also comes from a country very well know about Nature Preservation, about unique landscapes and its very interesting wildlife, so I decided to show him also a big part of our nature in the coast of Niteroi and also I decided to introduce him to our people by visiting the old neighborhoods of Santa Tereza and Lapa, and naturally with a stop to see the incredible stairs of Selaron!

Selaron was in a fantastic mood when I introduced Hugo to him, he gaves us a whole explanation about his masterpiece which happens to be the whole old stairs of Santa Tereza. He is our most provocative character, he is an artist so he is not really worried about to express his thoughts and opinion.

If Rio has a face, one of the faces of the city would be Selaron and his remarkable work in the heart of our bohemian Rio. He can be found there, right in the limits between Santa Tereza and Lapa.

Rio can be an open air museum specially when we come across with lively and very impressive street art work!!! Graffitis in Rio are becoming more and more popular since the Government decided to allow artists to teach children how to do beautiful work all over the city, now they are concern to take the opportunity to make old, dirty and abandoned walls in something beautiful. Recenttly I just had a real class about STREET ART IN RIO thanks to the visit of my english friend Lee Bofkin, we went to many places in Rio searching for the best graffitis work in the city. Now I became a big admirer of my own people's art.

Of course in my tours I will always stop in this magnificent treasure...We have a Monastery...one of the most complete barroc sample of the country. São Bento's church is opened everyday and we always love to admire such a strong tradition in Rio...All the gold and the lovely wooden work that shows you all the art, tradition and knowledge of our interesting history!!! This place was built in 1590.

We had enough of history and traditions so we decide to discover the beauties of Rio, so we drove to the other side of Guanabara Bay. It is nice to stop at LITORANEA AVENUE to have an absoluty stunning idea of Rio's skyline, from this point we see the mountains of Rio, the city center and how amazing this bay is! A visit to NITEROI is a must in my tour...THIS IS MY HOMELAND, THIS IS MY NEARBY SHELTER WHEN I NEED TO CHILL OUT. So it is very important that you know some fantastic options when you spend more than one day in our city!

Very often when I mention that we will visit a museum, my guests complain about it. Going to a museum will take a lot of time, some others say that are not really interested...BUT IN THIS CASE, it is unique!!!

And going to MAC museum is not really visiting the MUSEUM. A brief stop in our CONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM will be a great chance for you to see such a wonderful piece of Niemeyer's architecture combined with a fantastic location on the bay and also it is a great playground for amateur (like myself) and professional photographers. It is a beautiful part of our tour and I strongly recommend you to accept the idea of visiting it.

As I said before, NITEROI IS A WONDERFUL SURPRISE in any tour that I offer. Hugo was really delighted to see so many off the beaten path places like Litoranea Avenue, the island of Boa Viagem which provides a wonderful view to the Christ and the Sugar Loaf in the other side of our coast. Niteroi is like the Jersey's side when you are in New York, but I am sure that Niteroi is way greater than Jersey's, it is like being in São Francisco and spend some time in Salsalito!!!! This is the closest example that I could think about it, specially for my american readers. I am sure that Niteroi will be a city that you will adore!

Niteroi is always a party, the city is full of energy and you will see so many different places there. One very interesting spot is the island of Boa Viagem! :)

And Niteroi has PARQUE DA CIDADE, the viewpoint where people jump paraglyding, it is

where I love jumping and enjoy the view and energy of Rio. Air Activities are one of my hobbies and I am always honored to take my people to see such a surprising place!!! Hugo could understand better about Rio when he went there!!! This is indeed a place where you can see not only Rio de Janeiro but also the whole city of Niteroi.

And when we have some time we always visit the ocean side of Niteroi which we can see wonderful beaches like Camboinhas. And in Camboinhas we can find an interesting indigenous community, the MBOY TE tribe where you can really experience what the first navigators saw when they landed in our lands more than 500 years ago!!!

Camboinhas is also a wonderful place for us to enjoy the ocean, the water is clean, the people are very local and the views are simply amazing. Sunset there is one of the most beautiful in the region and we cannot really miss any opportunity to explore with the eye of a local the wonders of Niteroi!

When you come to Niteroi you will see a different Rio. Your tour will not be the regular ones, you will take home a lot of great memories and absolutely beautiful photos!!!

Rafael Torres Lopes

Tour Guide and Travel Planner

A Niteroi's product, hahahaha :)))))

PASSION FOR MY WORK

Dear Reader, I like that...you are my Reader, so you are someone dear to me. The ones who met me and the ones that I will meet! I have been very busy, I have tours almost everyday with spectacular people from all over the World who trust me their dreams!!!

It is a great challenge and a great responsability for me, but it is also a giant pleasure!!!

I am so happy to hear that people are writing about my work, they recognize my effort to give you the best of Rio, they know that I go beyond my strengh to make you be at home in Rio.

But my work makes me happy and thanks to that I have made wonderful friends.

But also, my guests write to me and I cannot be as fast as I wish, so once again, I ask you, be patient. When you write to me you can be sure that I will write back!!! But bear in mind that I spend most of my time touring in Rio and other states of Brazil, sometimes I will have to go out of the country!!!

Today I had the big happiness to welcome my very first guest from COSTA RICA, see my shirt and we had a blast in NITEROI. Which is also another passion for me!

Keep me passionated!!!

Rafael Torres Lopes
Tour Guide and Travel Planner

THE SPANISH MEETING WITH SELARON - NO BREAKS IN HIS TONGUE

You should know that ONE PERSON is part of my tour. No doubt you have to see the gyant art of Selaron in the old neighborhood of Lapa, the bohemian centre of Rio de Janeiro. Tonight he opened a honored exception, he stopped and talked with us in the evening, time that he has to create more paintings and being with himself as he says.

I had the great pleasure to welcome my new friends and guests Carmen and Nicolas, a very energetic couple from the beautiful city of Murcia, south of Spain.

This tongue is dangerous....very famous in every picture that I take of him and a tongue that will have no breaks to allow its owner to express his opinion...So be prepared to hear the unexpected and I will have no fear to translate!!!

In Rio as I usually say, dear Reader, you've got to experience Rio. It is like, I will not show you the BODY OF RIO, you will see the SOUL OF RIO. And one of the joys of Rio's soul I have no doubt, it is Selaron who I proudly tell you that he is a good friend of mine!!!

That was really funny to hear all the nonsense and some wisdon words of this interesting painter. He is famous and he is popular. He has the right to say what he wants, he had done one of the most impressive work of art in the city, his own stairs. Nicolas said that the street should be in his name, and one day it will be!!!

Selaron is present in his art and you can see the pregnant women everywhere, in form of his own portrait, inform of a pregnant woman dancing. It is his TRADEMARK.

I think Rio should really pay more attention of this remarkable work that he does just because he is grateful to the city that embraced him and a land that he loves and he is taking as his own homeland. Selaron told me that being born in one country does not mean that you belong to the land. He said that Picasso was more french than spanish (which makes me really angry). Selaron is more brazilian than chilean; but we never know how our own land treats us, true???

Thank you Carmen and Nicolas for such a brilliant day and we had a busy one!!! Starting in the classic attractions, Sugar Loaf (Pão de Açucar) and the Christ, then a quick visit to Tijuca National Park, heading to the Niteroi with a stop in my Mother's place (I forgot my cell phone there) and finally crossing the bridge over Guanabara Bay, with a stop for pictures in the Litorania Avenue in Boa Viagem. We stopped in the Contemporary Museum - MAC and a wonderful and yummy lunch at A MINEIRA and we closed our day in the magnificent viewpoint of Parque da Cidade, you can see more about Parque da Cidade by typing PARQUE DA CIDADE in the search engine!!!

And we end the tour with grand style in Lapa visiting Selaron's stairs and meeting the artist in person!!!

By the way, before coming to Rio, try to find a tyle with your city's name and bring it, we will give it to Selaron and your tyle will be in the stairs forever!!!

Rafael Torres Lopes

Tour Guide and Travel Planner

A friend of Selaron

SOMEONE THOUGHT OF ME IN NEW YORK AND WE HAVE GOOD MEMORIES IN BRAZIL

This person has the energy of Gran Canyon, she has the fun of Disney World and the strengh of Yellowstone geisers and the best of all, SHE IS MY FRIEND!!!!

She decided to have some rest in the center of the universe, in New York City and she came across with a brazilian food stand specialized in CAIPIRINHAS!!! Wow wow wow wow wow!!!!

And that wonderful person called Nancy who lives in gorgeous California State wrote to me telling that Rio is part of her heart and she and her husband and great friend of mine, Phil, keep incredible fondest memories of our trip!!!

She was having fun in the Center of the Universe and I provide fun in THE BEST YARD OF THE UNIVERSE, Rio de Janeiro!!!

We had lots of fun in Rio, I had the honor to show them the best of my city and they can tell you that Rio was covered inch by inch. They really experienced Rio...It was high season for me and I had lots of tours which gave me some very cool friends and I decided to have one day off in one of my favorite places in the State, Paraty...And guess who I found!!!!????

We met right in the colonial town's pier and we decide to spend the afternoon visiting some isolated islands in the Paraty's peninsula. We had a nice time together, Nancy and Phil, me and Marcone, and his mother Corina!!!

It was a great coincidence which ended up in a wonderful family meeting!!!!

Thanks Nancy and Phil for being so incredibly cool and to make my work here in Brazil really special....Please send me some fantastic CALIFORNIA'S PEOPLE!!!

I wish you all the World's Success, you two mean a lot to me!!!!

Rafael Torres Lopes

Tour Guide and Travel Planner

A friend of California

FIRST NEWS IN AUGUST - FINALLY ONE RAFA'S POST - I AM BACK

I am back...back to my blog, back to my space where I write everything that I feel...I know, dear Reader, that you must be crazy for some news but I have to confess something...EVERY AUGUST, ALWAYS ONE MONTH BEFORE MY BIRTHDAY, A LOT OF THINGS HAPPEN...Mostly not so many good things...

BUT I AM BACK AND YOU KNOW, EVERYTHING THAT I DO IN MY WORK I DO WITH HAPPINESS...I am happy because recently I just fixed something that was wrong for quite a long time and I could not notice, now I am alright.

But I was busy as well....writing a lot of emails in my very few free time of so many new friends who are coming to visit my WONDERFUL RIO. Going everywhere to make people happy, give them culture and knowledge about a new visited place. trying to make Rio a home to every new visitor. I went to the Amazon and when you are in the middle of nowhere there is not internet access and even in a primitive place your agenda is way busier just like when I am with my tours in this interesting urban planet!!!!

Meanwhile I had fun with friends, just like you see in the picture...Our friend from Maranhão, São Luis came to visit us and I took some free time to have a blast in our Samba House Rio Scenarium. Aline is a great friend that comes to Rio very often!!!

IT IS A COOL PARTY PLACE ALL YEAR ROUND!!!!


This low season was not really low...I think I had the "HIGH SEASON OF MY LOW SEASON", thanks to Trip Advisor and to my wonderful guests, now good friends of mine; other people read my reviews and they want to have a real experience in Brazil. And I AM VERY BRAZILIAN TO DO THAT!!!!

Part of my August tours was starred by my friends Miuel and Tannekia from Los Angeles, we had a wonderful day in Rio and one of the highlights was at the Stairs of Selaron, what a glorious day!

I love my work and when I am "working" as my good friend DOLLY love to read, hahahaha; I put my soul in it...you will not meet a guide, you will meet a very close friend always in the mood to show you the best of Rio.

You can have a look in my reviews on trip advisor, what is written there is enough for me to be convinced that I am in the right way.

To reach my reviews you just need to type my full name RAFAEL TORRES LOPES

Yes, Reader, I am back...happier, cleaner and better prepared, full of energy. One thing please, when you write to me, be patient, I might take some time but when I am not writing to you so promptly it means that I am making Brazil special to someone who really wishes the real stuff!!

So when you come to Rio or if you ever plan a trip to anywhere in Brazil, I will be here, count on me!!!

HAPPY TRAVELS TO ANYONE!!!

Rafael Torres Lopes
Tour Guide and Travel Planner