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| Buzios....related to 'dive', and it offers lots of opportunities for divers and shell collectors to enjoy their past time... |
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| Buzios Peninsular - one road in and out... |
Clint Eastwood did it for Carmel, The Night of the Iguana
and Liz Taylor’s wedding to Richard Burton to Puerto Vallarta, and Brigitte
Bardot and one of her amantes did it for Buzios.
Buzios was a sleepy little fishing village north of Rio de
Janeiro, blessed with secluded beaches at the bottom of precipitous cliffs,
tropically verdant hill sides and romantic serenity.
Years ago, after a film shoot in Brazil, Brigitte arrived in
Buzios with the intention to stay for a week, and she remained for a couple of
months. Word got out, and suddenly hundreds of thousands of inquisitive
visitors turned the forgotten village into a major tourist destination. Today
during vacation season, the now sophisticated town grows to 400,000
inhabitants.
It is only about two hours drive away from Rio, and many
wealthy Cariocans (people of Rio) have chosen this attractive piece of real
estate to build themselves a hill side mansion, swimming pool and all.
A mixed blessing at best, as despite a couple of hundred
thousand million US dollars oil revenue flowing into the municipality each
year, roads are ‘basic’ cobblestone replete with pot hole craters to swallow a
Volkswagen in one piece. None of the winding hillside roads have neither names
nor street lights, and represent an almost impossible maze to navigate after a
happy party in the middle of the dark night. Horses seem to be the only
reliable means of transportation – they do find their way home and don’t get
stuck in pot holes – and as a bonus they are easy to park, no garage required,
as many residents just turn them loose after they are done with them. Public
transport is non-existent.
A bonus of being situated on a peninsular with only one road
leading to the ‘mainland’ is the curious fact, that car thefts are almost unheard
of. If a car is stolen, a quick call to the police station causes this one and
only road to be closed, and the unfortunate thief is trapped on the small
peninsular, all of 2 miles wide and 8 miles long.
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| Vultures watching from the hills.. |
The impressive inflow of oil royalty revenue does finish up
somewhere. Some Locals maintain that their officials need to wear suspenders,
as their pockets are so heavily loaded. Some revenue ends up in more obvious
places, such as an elaborate and far-spread palace in a magnificent park like
setting which serves as the ‘governor’s mansion’, whose official inhabitant
turns up once a month for half an hour to complete the duties of his office.
Regular private wealthy people take several years to move
into their hill top palaces, as they all need about 20+ building permits, all
issued by different official departments with agonizing slowness. Some builders
give up somewhere along the process, witnessed by several half- finished mini
palaces in the vicinity of Buzios.
Why swimming pools, one asks, with so many inviting beaches
all over the peninsular of Buzios? Many of the most romantic beaches are only
accessible via rappelling gear or arduous climbs down treacherous steep and
rocky paths. Many home owners are not enamoured with that idea, especially
during paralysing heat and humidity, and build their own pools. But, and here
is the big BUT, water has to be trucked up to fill these pools, and whatever
grey or black water is generated from any source has in turn to be trucked down
those hills again.
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| Pink Beach of Buzios |
Buzios proper is a maelstrom of visitors, crowding into the
many shops, some of which have some rather exclusive and expensive fashions.
Restaurants are filled to the brim – inside – as the heat is too stifling to
eat outside.
The never ending procession to visit the beach side bronze
statue of the famous benefactress of Buzios, Brigitte Bardot, crawls along the
port-side beach avenue skirting more shops, tourist offices, diving shops and
all night and most of the morning discos. Fishing boats and tourist boats bob
in the harbour.
Despite all the tourist hustle and bustle, the town is an
inviting and charming change from noisy Rio de Janeiro. Definitely worth a
visit or even a return visit…
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| Brigitte Bardot scrutinizing a visitor... |
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| Good Cold Buzios Beer |
