Brazil Day 18 - Day 18 already?

With no matches to cover today, and it being a Sunday, there was a general air of relaxation in the Urca area of Rio today. I decided to explore a bit. Down the road from me is the most wonderful little beach called Praia Vermelha. It's just past the cable car that goes up to the top of Sugarloaf.As well as being a lovely, quiet (compared to Copacabana) beach, there's a path along the base of Sugarloaf called the Pista Claudio Coutinho which is very popular with runners and it seems photoshoots. I came across numerous engagement, fashion, and bizarrely pregnancy shoots along the 1600m length of the path.I got to the end and found a sign saying "it's dangerous to proceed further without a guide" which I always regard as a bit of a challenge. I wandered along the path a bit before determining that it was indeed dangerous, as the sides of the Sugarloaf are pretty steep and smooth. It's an old volcanic stack by the way, with the surrounding volcanic cone long since eroded. There were some proper climbers going up Sugarloaf though which looked fairly tough. I turned around and wandered back to rejoin the joggers.The views were pretty cool though, and it's clear that if it can grow, it will grow, with vegetation of all sorts taking over everywhere. Any place that was not vertical (and some vertical spots too) had stuff growing on them.Back on the beach I was a bit hungry and it happened that there was a restauraunt at one end. I popped in there and had a plate of garlic grilled shrimps and a beer for abour £12, and a fantastic view of the beach as well. I think this is somewhere I'll come back to as it's not far from my apartment at all - an easy 10 minute walk.I watched the Mexico v Holland match in the apartment with my host Duda who is happily also a football fan. The Dutch sneaked it at the end following what has to be a dive from Robben, or at least a massive exaggeration of the situation (which goes down as simulation in my book). Sneaky. Hopefully they'll get knocked out in the next round. Then it was down to Ipanema to meet the prime of English football photography who were taking a very well earned break from various ludicrous schedules. If you thought mine was bad these guys have been doing 5 games in 5 days with overnight buses inbetween. Craziness. I bought a load of beer and bananas from a supermarket on the way and we sat watching the sunset on the beach. Lovely.A couple of beers followed afterwards in a bar while watching Costa Rica beat Greece on penalties. I popped over to the market in the square opposite which was closing, looking for a Brazil flag for my collection of stuff, and a very nice lady who was shutting down her stall gave me one for free - how good is that. A taxi back to HQ followed, with a bit of picture editing & uploading in preparation for tomorrow, for which the schedule is delightfully blank. Most likely no blog tomorrow as there's probably going to be nothing to report.