Our Last Week - Rio

Our amazing trip to Brazil was drawing to a close in our favorite city. We stayed in Vera Ache's lovely apartment in the Gloria district, an old and respected part of the city. She was teaching a course in Brasilia the first few days and we enjoyed fantasizing about having an apartment in Rio.

We love this city. There is beauty everywhere in the old and new architecture, the towering mountains, the white sand beaches. Big trees line the streets and people watching is a special treat.

Rui and Maria were determined that we should taste some of the "real samba". One night they took us to an outlying area, said to be the place where the samba was born. We drove through some rough neighborhoods but the area was lovely, old buildings and a charming square where a large group of musicians were playing some very tasty music.

Anahata was determined to complete some of our recording projects in Flavio's studio. He is a great musician and wonderful recording engineer. The Brazilians will now have a CD of the Tara Dance music in Portuguese. We also re-recorded the Meditations and Prayers so it can be in CD format, and we added Beloved Tara, a song that is loved by all who hear and dance it.

While Anahata was in the studio I caught up on some of our stories and went for some fine walks. Patricia and Paulina came up from Sao Paulo to be with us and Leila flew in on her way home to Porto Alegre. The weather was overcast but the parks around Vera's apartment were still fun to explore.

We had a few visits with our wonderful dentist Pedro in the Copacabana district and I made a hasty stop to give Isabel and her baby Gabe a big kiss.

And then Maria arrived with her chariot.

It was not so hard to say goodbye this time because we will be back next year. The Dances of Universal Peace training is already scheduled and booked. The Tara Dance retreat will be put in place next week. We hope you will consider joining us to share in the openhearted joy of this amazing people and their beautiful country.

Prema and Anahata

You can see pictures illustrating this story at:
http://homepage.mac.com/prematara/Brazil*2004/PhotoAlbum34.html