The Hippy Square – Sunday Street Market

 

I am going to start this blog entry and hope for the best.  If I am not coherent just make the best of it.  Camillo and I have been in Rio since Thursday afternoon – dinner with a couple from the USA on Thursday night, dinner with Camillo’s family on Friday night, the wedding of his oldest grandchild on Saturday with a party after, lunch with the family yesterday and a ‘snack’ with friends last night…. My mind is in a high carbohydrate, lack of sleep deep freeze this morning.

We have tried to get out and walk everyday, a small effort with no real affect I’m afraid. Yesterday, we walked down to the Praça General Osório or the HIPPY SQUARE as Camillo has always referred to it.

At the very beginning of Ipanema this small park has an open air market every Sunday, from about 10 am until maybe 3 in the afternoon. It is a great place to find simple trinkets, leather handbags, and custom designed jewelry that doesn’t cost and arm or a leg. There are (buyer beware) things ‘made in China’ but the majority of vendors sell handcrafted items.  I have bought hand puppets and well dressed, soft bodied baby dolls for just about every grandchild or little girl that I know from one of the vendors. Generally I go by at Christmas and before travel to the States looking for presents.

Yesterday a few different items caught my eye and (surprise!) I took some photos for you to see for yourself.     So typically Brazilian – the strings of colored beads, crystals from Brazil and wooden, painted parrots to hang in a window,    

 

 

 

tiny little stained glass bowls and window hangings, fruit mad of CERA (wax and coconut milk (?)) and head bands for the innocent or not, with glass decorations.

 

 

And these were all my favorites, bowls made with tightly woven pages from magazines and newspapers, dolls of paper Mache and from pine cones, and fabric rugs of every conceivable color….
look what I brought home for the apartment’s kitchen table -