One of the best things about traveling is the ability to reinvent oneself on the fly. In New York, I’ve become somewhat of a curmudgeon. After four years in town I’m not as filled with wide-eyed wonderment, or as willing to experiment. One consequence has been my declining intake of live music, a significant departure from the days when I would trek to the Bronx or Brooklyn to see African Hip Hop or grime rappers at a moment’s notice. Expensive drinks, snobby fans and long, late commutes home were just some of the reasons that come to mind.

Not so in Brazil. Last night I attended my third concert in two weekends; a pretty good streak. Last weekend I saw Seu Chico, a group from the city of Pernambuco who cover songs by Brazilian legend, Chico Buarqe.  The venue, Studio SP,  which bills itself as an urban art space and performance hall on Rua Augusta, had a nice blend of grit and posh, with an upbeat crowd.  Even better were the cheap drinks, such as the “busca vida,” which was a mix of cachaça, extra cane sugar and lemon juice.

Of course, the highlight was the band itself. In spite of the fact they played covers, or perhaps because of it, they had the crowd enraptured, singing along loudly with every tune. While the lead singer looked a bit bereft, the group’s 19-year-old pianist, Vitor Araújo, stole the show.

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The girls in Rio De Janeiro don’t wear makeup and the mountains slide straight into the waiting ocean. As if by magic, I had a 30-hour Rio adventure that stirred my soul and restored a sense of childlike wonderment that had been flagging.

Sao Paulo is gargantuan, overwhelming and nondescript. Its packed subway cars, high prices and air pollution have lately been causing me to wonder aloud if I left New York at all. Rio de Janeiro is one of the world’s few special places; passionate and delectable, known for it’s raucous Carnival, iconic beaches and gorgeous people. It is simply unique, a gem in Brazil’s crown.

The hostel where I was staying threw a delightful dance party and afterwards, I went to Lapa with an Australian named Dave. Lapa is a strip of bars just outside downtown Rio bisected by a Roman aqueduct that acts as a bridge for the overhead trolley tracks. By the time we arrived, at half past 4 in the morning, the Lapa crowd, which was in the upper hundreds, or even thousands, was disintegrating into a drunken melee. At home, in the States, these bars would be closing in a matter of minutes, but it’s quite possible patrons here continued to samba and sing on the street until the sun came up after 6.

The long bus into town and the subsequent week of late nights left me content heading home as 5 approached. There’s something about Rio though, with it’s sticky climate, soaring hills and the energy of 6 million souls that could have made me push through the exhaustion to find another thrill.

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I have been told that Rio de Janeiro and Cape Town, South Africa were once joined when Africa and South America were a single land mass. The geology of the two areas, Cape Town’s Table Mountain, besides Pao de Açucar in Rio, makes me think that this could be true. But while Rio is unlike any city I’ve visited, it somehow conjures the best: The lawlessness and hedonism of New Orleans, the architecture of Buenos Aires, as well as New York’s addictive cocktail of grit, hustle and filth that one only has to smell to understand.

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