The excitement of Brazil: Rio is buzzing – but there is so much more to discover in this vast and beautiful country, including St. Tropez’s version

We are picked up at Rio de Janeiro airport in a bulletproof car.

“Someone who took a wrong turn got shot at the end of my road a few nights ago,” our driver says.

It’s not the most comforting start to a holiday. Our nerves are building as we approach the stylish Fasano hotel, our residence on Ipanema beach, and see two tourists leaving a neighboring favela (Portuguese for ‘slum’) in panic. Have they witnessed one of the 300 monthly shootings in Rio that give the city such a bad reputation? We’ll never find out.

But luckily this is the only time we were alarmed during our entire two week stay at four locations.

Although the exorbitant price of a regular steak – £50 – at Leblon’s Guiseppe Grill was a bit of a shock.

Eating out is unexpectedly expensive almost everywhere in Brazil. My partner, Emma, ​​and I were drawn to Brazil by its energy, diversity, recent repositioning as an environmental pioneer, exotic image and liberated body culture. This was immediately apparent from the breakfast room of our next accommodation, the chic one Janeiro Hotel opposite Leblon beach and offering a panorama of mixed beach volleyball matches.

The beach volleyball players, who use both their hands and feet to keep the ball high, are of all shapes and sizes and wedged into tiny outfits. And that’s just the men.

Watching the range of activities on a Brazilian beach is inspiring: the joggers, cyclists, swimmers and surfers. Triathletes complete runs and jump into the waves. The impromptu HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) exercises are in full swing. Bodybuilders pump iron at machines set up almost every 50 meters.

It’s all a far cry from my last visit to Brazil, many years ago.

At the time, I had been playing beach football with friends on Copacabana Beach – a brilliant cure for a hangover caused by one or two too many Caipirinhas, the country’s national cocktail – when some barefoot local boys jogged up enthusiastically and asked for a game. The ocean breeze was refreshing and the soft sand was forgiving for diving. Our backpacks were the target. There were six of them and ten of us.

We were beaten 12-nil. And for the record, when we were done, they left without a handshake – as did some of our bags. We were too tired, shaken and slow to give chase.

But when I returned this summer, it felt like Rio had moved on.

After a few days, however, it’s time to escape the city and we venture three hours northwest to the chi-chi resort of Buzios. I must admit that the bulletproof car is reassuring as we pass the teeming favelas that cling precariously to the steep hills on the outskirts of Rio.

Buzios, a former Portuguese fishing village, was put on the map in the mid-1960s by Brigitte Bardot, who hid here with her Brazilian boyfriend. There is a bronze bust of her on the boardwalk (no pun intended).

Predictably, Buzios is called Brazil’s St. Tropez. Or was.

It lacks superyachts, luxury boutiques and chic restaurants – and it is now inhabited more by wealthy Argentinians than Brazilians.

The main attractions are the many small sandy coves dotted around the peninsula, most within walking distance and each with a beachside wooden schooner converted into a cheerful cocktail bar.

The comfortable hotel Vila da Santa, where we stay, opens directly onto a quiet sandy bay populated by small fishing vessels. But next comes an even more peaceful and seductive setting: the bohemian village of Trancoso in the state of Bahia.

An 80-minute flight from Rio, followed by a 90-minute drive, takes us to this tranquil retreat. Emerging from endless fields of soy, cocoa and palm, we pass through a dusty main street to arrive at the village square, complete with whitewashed colonial church and rickety ocean-side goalposts.

Known as the Quadrado, this pedestrianized space, with its barefoot football, craft stalls and a wandering fishmonger, transforms at night into a lantern-lit mixture of boutiques, craft shops and restaurants, housed in and around the brightly colored fishermen’s houses. houses.

One of these properties is the entrance to our property, a collection of three wooden villas under a canopy of tropical trees with a divine private pool.

Our bedroom is located in Casa Anderson, a treehouse style pavilion on stilts. This is part of the rustic-chic Uxua Casa hotel, which attracts fashionistas – Beyoncé shot part of a recent music video in the square. It is the antithesis of Rio: calm, natural, subdued and crime-free.

A short walk along a path beyond a mangrove swamp takes us to a stretch of pristine sand and the thatched-roof Uxua Beach Club, with its sunbeds and fusion snacks. The sea temperature is the same as the air: a balmy 27C (81F).

But the best thing about Casa Anderson is the breakfast, prepared with love by Jaynie. The meal is a microcosm of Brazilian biodiversity: mango, watermelon, pineapple, papaya, fried plantain, key lime pie, coconut macaroons, red pepper and cheese quiche, sliced ​​chorizo ​​and ham, tapioca omelette, banana cake and a huge creme caramel. What a party.

After four days we fly back to Rio and make the four-hour drive south to Paraty. The city was founded in 1597 when the Portuguese arrived and flourished 100 years later, when the port was used to move the country’s gold mines to Europe.

Its prosperous appearance is a legacy of the gold rush and consists of beautiful 18th-century mansions and cobbled streets that are regularly flooded at high tide. There are boat trips that sail to and from nearby islands, stopping for lunch on secluded beaches.

We stay at the Pousada Literaria hotel, housed in a beautiful colonial-style building, but the highlight of our visit is an afternoon at the sister hotel Fazenda Bananal (Banana Farm), located in the Atlantic Forest above Paraty.

After an excellent lunch with organic ingredients from the farm, we climb a hill and follow a path that winds through dense rainforest. It provides a glimpse of the serious challenge the early settlers faced as they attempted to reach the fertile, mineral-rich lands beyond.

Perhaps that includes Brazil and its people. Daily life is difficult for many. There is great inequality and 50 million of the 208 million inhabitants still live in the favelas. Until recently, almost half the country did not have a bank account.

“The country is a mess,” says Leticia Setembro, a prominent Brazilian future strategist we meet in a restaurant in Paraty.

She goes on to talk about families living below the poverty line, the lack of fresh drinking water in many homes and poor environmental practices. Still, she is hopeful that President Lula’s return to power after the leadership of Jair Bolsonaro – known as the ‘Tropical Trump’ – offers hope. We will see.

But despite all that, Brazil radiates an extraordinary vitality; the population is cheerful and cordial. In short, it’s intoxicating, a bit like those Caipirinhas.