1 hike, 2 snakes

On Saturday I went on a hike up a hill called Morro da Boa Vista ("Nice View Hill").
The hike is not particularly special, 1 hour up a pretty steep, closed-down trail, contouring the rock. Although the view on the top of it is nice, the absolute best thing about it is that once you get down, you can just cross the street and get to one of my favorite beaches in Rio, Prainha.

Although the hike was easy, there were a couple of moments of high emotion due to the presence of *snakes*! Our first encounter was on the way up - my friend Fabio woke up a snake hiding under a heap of dead leaves on the base of a tree, we heard some rustling movement. Thinking nah - its nothing, my other friend, Brenda, went ahead and stepped over it, and then it was inequivocal, it was totally a snake. Not wanting to piss it off, I decided to go around it...

On our way back, the encounter was more straightforward - a huge green snake (the same? a friend?) was lying across the trail. Although green snakes aren't poisonous, we decided to keep a distance anyways...

After snakes and heat and sweat (90 degrees, gzillion humidity), the best part - beach and coconut water and grilled fish...

On this same hill there are maybe 4-5 climbs I know of as well - but summer is definitely not the best time to do it as the sun hits the rock almost the whole day... there is some bouldering on another cliff by the beach that I didn't know of though, will check it out next time I'm there.

More pictures of the hike here.