I still haven’t seen a bit of Rio, its center, old town or even the sugar loaf. Still, as the day was nice, I embarked on a long walk around the lagoon that is practically on my doorstep, called Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas, a lake that is just separated from the ocean by Ipanema itself.

So off along the lagoon to Jardim Botânico, a beautiful tropical garden with huge, indeed imperial palms and around 5000 other species, plants and otherwise, crawling….

In another chapter of being lost, I managed to buy a ticket, but failed to understand the guard’s instructions on how to get through the electronic check, failed miserably indeed, and nearly ran off with the guard’s entry card.

But on into the park for a nice stroll, among fountains and statues, reptiles and several bus loads of Brazilian school kids.

After that, further along busy Rua Jardim Botânico to Parque Lage, a smaller and wilder tropical park, that I visited at a friend’s recommendation.

Inside a nice old building that now hosts a visual arts school, with a small exhibition of student’s work and a nice colorful installation in the central swimming pool. The place also housed a cute café under its arches, but I still had half of the lagoon to circle, so on I went.

Just in time to run into a children’s birthday in the parks’ playground. However, all the attention was drawn away from the birthday kid and onto this little fella high up a tree.

All kids tried to lure him down with a bit of fruit at the base of his hide-out. In the end, that did the trick, and he came down quickly to grab a handful of some orange fruit.

Back on the waterfront, finally my first coconut. I never thought these things would be FULL with water. Those Euro-imports have just a tiny bit of milk. This one was half a liter of ice cold fresh liquid. I had seen that you could ask them to split them afterwards so you can eat the flesh.

Two swift chops: opened, and a sliced spoon was made out of a chunk of the shell. Perfect indeed. There was not that much flesh to it, and it tasted mildly of coconut… but then the only thing I can compare it to is a Bounty (Brazilians: cringe!).

Another 3 kilometers to walk, passing fishing birds, rower, jogger, contemplators.

My feet hurt, I’m not sure I’ll be up for that pop party in Ipanema tonight…