On our last day in Rio, the police closed the street in front of our Copacabana hotel around 6:30 am. We understood what was happening. Runners in the half marathon had surged past on Saturday morning, and we’d seen posters for the big (26-mile) event beginning at 7:30 am Sunday. The lead runners, lean and fast as greyhounds, blasted by shortly after 9 am. I couldn’t resist taking the elevator down to the street, where handfuls of spectators were applauding and exclaiming, “Bravo! Bravo!” I applauded too, but the leaders were so few and far between, I went back to our room. An hour later, I descended again, and the passing scene was much more lively.

I’d never cheered on marathon runners before, but it was a day of sporty firsts for Steve and me. We’d never before attended a professional soccer game, either, but we got tickets to watch Rio’s beloved Flamengos face off against the Sao Paolo Corinthians. I wasn’t brave enough to do this on our own. Some of the fans at the games are known to be a rough crew. Instead we signed up with Be a Local, a well-reputed Rio tour company to get not just the tickets but also transportation with a savvy escort.

At 1:30 pm we met up at a nearby hostel with Patrick, the Brazilian guide charged with shepherding about 20 young Brits and us. I’d been hoping he would teach Steve and me a lot about the subtle nuances of Brazilian football, but he didn’t speak English well enough for that. Still he seemed like a worrier, and conscientious, and when we got to the stadium, that was good enough for me. A vast sea of red and black (the Flamengo colors) surged around the entrance gates. In the thick of the contagious high spirits, I couldn’t resist buying a jersey for myself.

I was excited about the chance to see this temple to that most beloved of South American sports. The Macarana, as the stadium is known, was built for the 1950 World Cup games, and when it opened, it was the biggest such venue in the world. On dozens of occasions, it has held more than 150,000 fans. It was remodeled, though, for the 2014 World Cup, and the redesign reduced the capacity to about 80,000. At one point, the scoreboard announced that almost 50,000 people were present on Sunday afternoon. It sure felt like a monster crowd, bigger than any I’ve ever been part of. When the fans sang or howled or cheered, the roar filled our ears and ballooned out like a shock wave. When one of the players missed a shot and the crowd moaned, the anguish punched you in the gut; made you feel like doubling over.

I can’t report any play by play (and you would have to be a huge fan to find it interesting, if I did). We had to stand during the whole 90-plus minutes to see anything, as everyone else was on their feet nonstop. After the first half, I felt more exhausted than I ever have felt watching a World Cup game on TV. In person, the field is so huge and the players run so hard. The Flamengos seemed more dominant, but the Corinthians kept them from scoring until more than a half hour into the second half. Then a lot of stuff happened very fast, and the Flamengo fans were overtaken by a joy that bordered on dementia.The Paolistas couldn’t even the 1-0 score, so the sea of Rio residents seemed relaxed and happy, post-orgasmic, as they flowed out of the stadium into the night. We tourists stuck together in a tight pack and made it back to the bus and the tamer beach neighborhoods. But Steve and I have reflected often throughout this trip that the Brazilians seem happy in general, happier than the residents of any other Central or South American countries we have visited.

We muse that maybe what explains this is the fact that Brazil never gave rise to a brutal, bloodthirsty civilization like the Aztecs or Incas or Mayans. When Europeans arrived, they exploited the place, but with a relatively light hand. Later, Brazilians never had to fight and die to win their independence. Instead the Portuguese king’s son, a fun-loving, licentious guy, asked his dad (who was returning to his throne in Portugal) if he could stay and rule, and the old man said, “Sure. But you should ask for independence.” The son did, the old king assented, and Pedro became the newly freed country’s first emperor. Later, Pedro’s son freed all the slaves without any grisly civil war.

Add to this tranquil history the fact that Brazil, bigger than the lower 48 states, has vast stores of mineral and other natural resources. It is rich in rainfall and sunshine. No natural disasters plague it; no earthquakes or tornadoes or hurricanes or wildfires routinely wreck havoc here. “Only social disasters,” said Valdo, our guide in Belem — crooked politicians, corrupt business elites, arthritic bureaucracies. If Brazil could just ditch the whole lot, become as free of the old ruling classes as life is on the beach in Copacabana, maybe, Steve and I tell ourselves, this could be the happiest place on earth.

As travelers, Steve and I have largely avoided beaches. We live just a few blocks from some of the greatest swimming and surfing spots in California; we walk and bicycle along the boardwalk often, so why should we seek out beaches out on vacation? However, we spent all of Saturday exploring Rio’s most famous set of beaches, and what we learned is: Southern California’s beach culture is baby stuff! The beach scene in Rio is world-class, overwhelming.

Copacabana Beach fills an arc that extends for almost two miles, a vast expanse of creamy, fine-grained sand. In yet another stroke of great travel karma, the temperature climbed into the high 80s yesterday and the skies were cloudless. It was also a holiday weekend; by 11 in the morning, locals were streaming in.

Probably the first thing that strikes the visitor is that women’s bathing suits in Rio are not just the stuff of legend. Real, live ladies almost universally wear the same outfit: two little triangles positioned over their nipples, and a minimal thong that wraps around their crotches and disappears between their buttocks. Some of the wearers look like Playboy centerfolds…But many do not.

Almost as eye-catching are the commercial offerings. In Copacabana we lost count of all the stands and little beachfront restaurants hawking caipirinhas (and other cocktails), and if you’re too lazy to walk to one, strolling booze vendors will come to you.(In our alternative universe, just sitting with one’s one private can of beer on the Mission Bay boardwalk can be punished with a pricy fine.) The vendors offer not only alcohol but a mini-mall’s worth of other merchandise.More energetic beach goers participate in several varieties of games played with paddles and balls of various sizes. With twilight, live music began to appear at the food stands.

Steve and I didn’t make it all the way to the end of Ipanema Beach. It was well past our lunchtime, and we wanted something other than a hot dog and a caipirinha. So we walked a block away from the water and chanced upon the very restaurant where Tom Jobim and Vinicius de Moraes wrote The Girl from Ipanema in 1962. We consumed excellent sandwiches and beer, then returned to the beach. Fans have erected a statue of Jobim there. It gets a lot of well-deserved love.

Let me count the negatives: We didn’t get mugged. Didn’t get kidnapped for ransom. Didn’t ride in any vehicles targeted by carjackers. Didn’t get killed in or by a car. Didn’t get hit by a stray bullet.

As I type these words, we have almost two full days left here. So anything still could happen. Steve, who is not normally a nervous Nellie, declared years ago that he would not go to Brazil, Rio in particular, because it sounded so dangerous. He changed his mind, obviously, and not only have all those things not happened; we’ve had a blast, constantly awestruck by the beauty of the natural setting — at least the equal of Hong Kong or San Francisco. At the same time, I have to admit it’s not that Rio isn’t dangerous. The New York Times a few months ago reported on how many times schools have had to close — this year — because the gun-fighting around them was too intense. We read that the Army recently established martial law in some of the favelas (the hillside slums), and things briefly improved. But then the soldiers moved out, and life in those sections have gotten more hellish again.

Because of those reports, we decided with some regret not to take a favela tour, as our close friend Howard Z did a few years ago. He thought it was great, and we really wanted to do it but in the end deemed it an unnecessary risk; we’ve have too much else to do.

Rio has a bunch of grand old buildings, and we got a big dose of them and their history during our walking tour on the first day.

Ones like this, the Municipal Theater

Thursday morning we headed to the recently revamped downtown waterfront. Many things about it reminded us of San Diego, though our city has nothing to compare with Rio’s Museum of Tomorrow in looks or originality of content.

Friday (yesterday) we devoted to the city’s two most iconic high points. First we took a tram up Corcovado mountain to visit Christ the Redeemer (and the stunning panorama he commands).Then we went to Sugarloaf Mountain, whose peak is accessed by a cablecar.

We’ve gotten around to all these sights by almost every mode of transportation possible: metro, city bus, street car, taxis, and Uber. (The last has been best: cheap, ubiquitous, and safe — or so it feels.) The two peak visits felt as modern and efficient and sunny as any major tourist attractions anywhere.

Last night we ubered to Lapa, renowned for its thriving music scene.We had a good time, but we were even more delighted by our experience the previous evening. We’d taken a taxi to an old churrascaria famed for its garlicky grilled sausage and steaks. The restaurant was jammed, as was the sidewalk around it, but by some miracle we snagged a table. We ate a great meal, then wandered to the little park across the street. There vendors had set-up makeshift bars on the equivalent of boards and bricks — full bars offering not just bottled sodas and beer but also draft beer and hard liquor. (This blew the minds of we who live in an country filled with alcohol control boards.) A stage was set up, and around 8:30, a beautiful black woman began singing — mostly r&b and pop standards, all in English — to a large crowd of Rio residents of all ages. Couples were stroking and hugging one another. This feels like the most hedonistic city we’ve ever visited. Some people were dancing. Everyone was moving, transported by the lovely night and the alcohol and the music.

Please understand: we’ve seen much that reminds us of Rio’s darker side. Santa Teresa (the neighborhood where we stayed the first two nights) may have made us think of the Hollywood Hills. But you don’t see razor wire and broken bottle glass cemented into the tops of the walls around people’s homes in Hollywood. Those appear to be de rigueur in Santa Teresa, which faces a huge favela just across the canyon.

Graffiti and busted up sidewalks and people sleeping on the street are commonplace, along with awareness that you can’t go walking down just any street. The deadly streets conjoin the safe ones. It reminds me or New York in the late 70s.

Or I think of LA or Chicago right now. Rival drug gangs kill each other in armed shootouts, and sometimes a little kid eating breakfast in her home in Compton or Englewood dies a bloody death, victim to a stray, unintended bullet. The tourists laughing and taking pictures on Navy Pier or breakfasting on lattes and luscious pastries in Santa Monica may not even hear about that day’s tragedy.

Steve and I at least are aware that bad things are happening here. But we sit next to the huge picture windows of our hotel and we eat our yogurt and amazing mangos and papayas, and excuse us, but we’re very happy.

We had beer and fried fish balls and crab pastries yesterday at the Urca Bar, beloved by Anthony Bourdain and Howard Z. You take your food to the seawall and enjoy the mellow scene.

So it looks as if we won’t see any tanks rolling through the streets of Rio before we leave Monday morning. That’s fine with us. There’s enough texture and grit and good humor here that I do not expect to be bored, even in the absence of a coup. Although folks were talking about that possibility up north, we have closely questioned Adriana (who owns the B&B where we’re staying) and Gustavo, the guy who led our Free Walking Tour of the downtown and Lapa neighborhoods this morning. Both of them acknowledge the talk but don’t think their fellow Brazilians are desperate or crazy enough to bring back the military (which ruled from 1964 to 1985 and ushered in hyperinflation and economic ruin.)

Gustavo admitted things were bad last weekend. No one could get gas, so all the taxi drivers and buses were idled; the only way to get around was on the metro. But he said the trucker’s strike has now ended, and hordes of cars jammed the streets of the center city today. Pedestrian traffic in many places also was more dense than it is in most of Manhattan.

Adriana sounded grimmer. She laid out an elaborate breakfast spread for us this morning, and she says she’ll be okay tomorrow, but she expects to run out of eggs and flour by the weekend. (She could get some eggs, but she’d have to pay almost four times the normal price.) She thinks dark days are coming for Brazil, but, “You have to have darkness in order to have light,” she said with a shrug.

So we feel more relaxed. Adriana’s house is in the Santa Teresa neighborhood. Its hills and luxuriant vegetation remind us of the Hollywood Hills, but here cobblestones line the streets, and churches are hundreds of years old. The tram running through the place equals San Francisco’s cable cars for charm.We rode it downtown. The part of the route that runs over an old aqueduct felt a bit like being on a roller coaster.

This evening Steve and I will drink caipirinhas at a nearby bar, then choose from a dozen restaurants for dinner. Tomorrow morning we plan to see more of this part of town, then in the afternoon we’ll move to a hotel on Copacabana beach. I can’t think of a better way to spend my 65th birthday.

The view of Sugarloaf Mountain from the pool at our B&B.

And to think I didn’t even know the proper pronunciation of açaí (ah-sah-EE) until recently. (I called it uh-KIE or sometimes uh-SIGH.) Now I know what kind of tree açaí grows on — a beautiful palm from the state of Pará (whose capital is Belém). I understand now that the deep purple juice or syrup that’s become so trendy in North America and Europe, renowned for almost mystical health-giving properties, isn’t made from what most of us think of as a fruit, but rather from the paper-thin skin on the seeds that sprout in broom-like clusters from the top of that palm. Açaí trees grow in the jungle, and local folks gather them by shinnying up the tall, skinny trunks, cutting off the seed clusters, and sliding to the ground with them.

The feathery palms are the ones that bear the açaí seeds.

I know this because, suddenly gifted with almost two full days in Belem, Steve and I lined up a day and a half of touring. Our guide was a Belém native named Valdo Ast. Now 53, Valdo was born to very poor parents. He couldn’t afford college but at some point began hankering to learn English. Armed first with language tapes, then with the chutzpah to strike up conversations with English-speaking tourists, he became fluent enough to entertain us and discourse on any topic we brought up: history, politics, world events. (He later also mastered Spanish and French and now is working on his Italian and German.)

Valdo picked us up at our hotel Sunday morning, not long after we disembarked from the Amazon Star. He explained that Portuguese soldiers first established a toehold here in 1616, naming it after the town where Jesus was born (Belém is the Portuguese name for Bethlehem). For more than 200 years, the settlers did little more than export exotic curiosities such as cacao beans and jaguar skins back to Europe, while discouraging French or Dutch adventurers from staking any claims to the place. Then in the late 1800s, rubber brought prosperity, as it did to Manaus. Although vast areas of Belem today consist of squalid, moldy, ruined neighborhoods plagued by rampant crime, the city also has a cultural and architectural legacy that includes several gems.

In Valdo’s tow, we breezed through the lively waterfront produce and fish market, visited the fort and its museum, popped into the massive cathedral and a basilica that every year draws more than a million worshippers from all over the country. My favorite stop was the city’s zoo and horticultural preserve. Shy giant rodents (agoutis) and iguanas roam freely throughout grounds that are as green and densely packed with plant life as the jungle, foliage so tall and abundant it makes the San Diego Zoo looked denuded.

Yesterday (Monday) we ventured out on a final riverine and jungle adventure. A driver took Valdo and us to a marina where we boarded an aluminum skiff. We blasted across the broad Guama River then chugged up narrow channels that looked like cousins to the Louisiana bayou. At last we disembarked and hiked to the property of Mr. Ladir. “He’s 84,” Valdo told us. “But every time I ask how old he is, he says 74, 75.” A family member had enlightened the guide about the old man’s true birth date.

Like so much of our time in the Amazon, our visit with Mr. Ladir was grubby but riveting. A little shy and clad only in a pair of thin, sagging old shorts, our host seemed welcoming, but his wife sat on the porch of their hut, looking forlorn. According to Valdo, she’s completely blind and can no longer walk; the old man does everything for her.

For us he picked up something that looked like a rusty cannonball — a true Brazil nut.

They’re almost as lethal as cannonballs when they drop from the gigantic trees every winter and spring. In those seasons, Valdo told us, visitors must wear hard hats. Mr. Ladir hacked at one with a small machete. It took some work, but eventually he split it open……and dug out a dozen or so seeds. (What we gringos think of as Brazil nuts actually are just the seeds of one.) Mr. Ladir washed them……then used his blade to peel off their tough outer coverings. The meat had a flavor and texture that reminded me a little of fresh coconut, softer and more moist than any Brazil nut I’ve ever bought in a store. I wasn’t the only one who loved them. A pair of resident mangrove parrots (Amazonia amazonicus) choose to live in Mr. Ladir’s compound. The female hopped on a stick extended by our guide and seemed to enjoying inspecting us, then she accepted a Brazil nut/seed from me and shared it with her mate.

After a while, Valdo led us on a hike to visit more jungle wonders. He split open a fat, ripe cacao pod, and we sucked on the sweet juicy pulp encasing the cacao beans.He scored a rubber tree and we watched the cut swell with, then bleed snow-white latex. We admired one gigantic tree after another, prized for its fruit or wood or sheer beauty.

Finally we wound up in a space where açaí trees clustered, more of a clearing than most of the country we’d been hiking through. When the açaí trees get old and their seed production plummets, people cut them down to harvest their tender upper sections — the source of what English speakers call hearts of palm. Mr. Ladir appeared and quickly fashioned a rig made of vines that he slipped around his ankles. He shinnied up the tree, agile as a telephone lineman wearing climbing spikes. When he had reached a height of maybe 25 feet, he reached over to an adjoining tree and swung his skinny body onto it, showing off.

I shot a video of this. When I get back to San Diego, I will add it. The octogenarian’s strength and skill almost have to be seen to be believed. Now, however, I’m writing this on an airplane, en route from Belem to Rio. It’s possible we’ll have lightning-fast Internet in the Marvelous City. Somehow I doubt it. Also, we will be engrossed with wonders and dangers that may make the jungle look tame in comparison: terrifying drivers and Sugarloaf Mountain and warring drug gangs and Ipanema Beach and now an unfolding national crisis. Truck drivers all over Brazil have been on strike for a week. We’re hearing calls for the Brazilian military to remove President Temer and take over. I’m not expecting to have a lot of time to devote to techno-troubleshooting.