Rio

I remember the first time I arrived in Rio, at the Galeao International Airport. It seemed huge, and nice. I think on a Varig DC-10 and I was only 12 years old.
From the beginning we stayed at the Hotel Sol Ipanema, which is on Ipanema beach, we stayed there for months. Heck, I remember the first week; I spent it trying to understand the cartoons in Portuguese, bitching about everything.
Until I hit the beach... and I never, NEVER bitched again about ANYTHING.
It was the most beautiful backdrop I have ever seen, filled with a multi-colored carnival of Brazilian skimpy bathing suits on cinnamon skinned, perfectly shaped girls with dirty blonde hair and a mixture of aquamarine and green watercolor eyes. An army of them, strolling down the beach. I was only a kid, but I immediately knew that was the piñata I wanted to break, it became something like a gag, and I almost lost my speech.
We then moved to a condo, in the Laranjeiras neighborhood. It was across from the Embaixada Fluminense, and old, colonial Portuguese white marble building, like a small castle. Almost everything was absolutely beautiful. Going for walks to the Aterro do Flamengo, which is something like an open park, on the Guanabara bay. Going to the Cinelandia for coffee and to the Rio Sul mall. But it wasn't until I was 17 that I met Rio. By then we were living in Recife, a city on the Atlantic coast as well, in northeastern Brazil. It was at a party, actually, it was she who asked me to dance. She was wearing black biker shorts, a black cotton shirt and bright lipstick. A brunette, with surfer highlights, dark cinnamon skin and green eyes that glowed in the dark, almost alien like.
I don't think I'll ever forget those hot summer nights, those caipirinhas, those walks on the reef.
Her name is Rio, and she dances on the sand....